{"id":68703,"date":"2025-12-22T00:01:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T23:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/?p=68703"},"modified":"2025-12-19T18:12:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T17:12:52","slug":"hawaii-3d-printed-sensors-22122025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/hawaii-3d-printed-sensors-22122025\/","title":{"rendered":"$1.25 Million Grant to Protect Hawai\u02bbi Using 3D Printed Environmental Hazard Sensors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hawai\u02bbi faces a wide range of environmental hazards, including wildfires, drought, flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis, and water contamination. These risks are becoming more severe as the climate continues to change, raising urgent questions about how to protect both the islands and the people who live there. One part of the solution lies in data collection, which makes it possible to track environmental changes<\/a> and identify early warning signs before disaster strikes. To support this effort, the National Science Foundation has awarded $1.25 million to researchers at the University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa and Georgia Tech to develop environmental hazard sensors capable of delivering life-saving data in real time.<\/p>\n

The goal of the project is to create a low-cost, open-source electronics printer for creating sensors that are faster, more affordable, and locally produced. This will bring advanced monitoring tools within reach of communities across the state. These sensors can be 3D printed in mere minutes and deployed the same day to gather actionable data for both organizations and residents. They have the potential to track water quality, detect soil contamination, and more, while connecting to a compact, AI-enabled handheld device (smaller than a smartphone!) that processes and uploads the data to the cloud.<\/p>\n

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Professor Tyler Ray with a sensor (Photo Credit: The University of Hawai’i)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Technologies Used to Create Environmental Sensors<\/h2>\n

To design the system, the team is exploring a family of 3D printing technologies for printed electronics, including aerosol jet, inkjet, and direct-ink-writing, selecting the method based on each application\u2019s needs. “This is integrated into a hybrid approach that uses either FDM or SLA, or conventional machining, if geometries are required beyond a simple flat sheet,”<\/em> principal investigator and UH M\u0101noa College of Engineering Associate Professor Tyler Ray explained via email.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

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An open library of circuits and firmware will allow partners to quickly customize sensors for measuring everything from pH and turbidity to heavy metals and other contaminants. Then, to complement the sensors, the researchers are developing handheld devices that can capture and store energy, run machine learning models, and operate even with limited network connectivity. Once collected, the data will be managed through established frameworks that support local control and ensure sensitive results remain confidential.<\/div>\n
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“Additive manufacturing gives us the freedom to tailor geometry, integrate multiple materials, and embed functionality in ways that are typically inaccessible for off-the-shelf devices,” Tyler added. “That matters when you’re trying to solve problems that are specific to a place and a community.”<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Importance of Community<\/h2>\n

The voices of community members are central to this project. The technology will be designed in collaboration with groups who have kuleana<\/em> (responsibility) for communities, land, and water across Hawai\u02bbi. This<\/span> includes land stewardship organizations, Hawaiian-language immersion schools, and community colleges. Together, \u02bb\u0101ina<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(land) stewards, k\u016bpuna<\/em> (elders), residents, and kumu<\/em> (teachers and educators) will direct priorities, experiment with prototypes, and define the criteria for success.<\/p>\n

“The sensors themselves grow out of conversations with community partners,”<\/em> Tyler explained in the email. “They tell us what matters to them, whether it is monitoring pH in local streams, understanding soil contamination, tracking changes over time in places they care about. From there, we’re building around a shared electronics backbone that can push data to a phone or a web portal we’ll stand up. The vision is a library of validated designs that people can actually build and deploy where they see a need.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Professor Tyler Ray and Kendall Lorenzo (Photo Credit: The University of Hawai’i)<\/p><\/div>\n

The project will also involve the implementation of\u00a0iterative design workshops, peer exchanges between partner sites on O\u02bbahu<\/span> and Maui, and a capstone gathering to synthesize findings and share open designs. Additionally, the grant will support training that connects partner sites with students across K\u201312<\/abbr>, community colleges, and research universities. The project will produce open hardware, software, and design artifacts, which will be released for others to adapt. To learn more about the project, read the article from the University of Hawai’i here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do you think of the sensor project? Let us know in a comment below or on our\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0pages! Plus, don\u2019t forget to sign up for our free weekly\u00a0Newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to get the latest 3D printing news straight to your inbox. You can also find all our videos on our\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0channel.<\/p>\n

*Cover Image Credit: The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii \/ Manuel Mejia<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hawai\u02bbi faces a wide range of environmental hazards, including wildfires, drought, flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis, and water contamination. These risks are becoming more severe as the climate continues to change, raising urgent questions about how to protect both the islands and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6114,"featured_media":68704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68703"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68735,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68703\/revisions\/68735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}