Air Quality Sensor Is a Lesson on How Things Are Designed and Made

In order to show off their products, Autodesk has come up with an event called The Factory where participants are invited to assemble a manufactured device to take home. This hands-on experience is meant to show how things are actually made, and while “free stuff” might always be popular, in order for something to be more than a fun paperweight it actually has to be something that participants need.

After first using speakers as the take-home devices, they decided instead to create an air quality sensor with the help of Sweet Sense. This non-profit makes sensors to monitor the indoor air quality for people who cook indoors with coal, wood, and the like. While such a unit isn’t particularly exotic, it’s also not something that participants are likely to have, and can be certainly be useful for those that enjoy clean air. Development proceeded with a cycle of prototyping, feedback, and improvement until they had exactly what they wanted.

The entire process is an interesting lesson in how things are made — or at least should be made in an ideal setting — and the final build, as you would suspect, looks really cool. The device is powered by an Adafruit ItsyBitsy, and features a Honeywell sensor, a rechargeable LiPo battery, and a NeoPixel ring for user feedback.

Full documentation on the design can be found on GitHub if you’d like to make your own, or perhaps you could come up with a derivative based exactly on your needs!