LUBADOŽEREC Smart Bark Beetle trap

A very serious problem in Slovenia is that bark beetles are destroying sprouce trees and thus rapidly reducing Slovenian forests. Slovenian foresters had to cut 3 million cubic meters of wood in 2019, and this year is likely to be worse. The damage is already over one hundred million euros. Bark beetles devour trees, mostly alive and fresh, damaged standing trees. Loggers have set up baits to assess the spread of bark beetles through forests and predict their population. But these baits are ordinary plastic boxes with holes and a pheromone that attracts bark beetles. Foresters have to manually check the baits. This is time consuming and does not provide fresh data in given moment.

OUR INNOVATIVE SOLUTION is BARK BEETLE EATER (LUBADOŽEREC):

We have created a smart bark beetle trap. Micro:bit will keep track of the number of bark beetles entering the trap. The data is sent to the data center via neighboring traps and so real-time data on the population of bark beetles is provided. Our trap is waterproof and requires very little maintenance. It’s powered up with photovoltaic cells, only once a month does the pheromone need to be replaced and that’s all.

How It Works? The bark beetle smells the pheromone he is attracted to. It fly’s to the trap and enters through one of the four holes. When it gets inside, it interrupts the flow of light, which is detected by the LDR sensor. Then it falls down into the glass and cant escape any more. Micro: bit indicates the number of bark beetles and sends it via Bluetooth. At the bottom of the bait, there is a glass container where we can see how many bark beetles were caught. Every 10 minutes, our sensor detects the actual light, it remembers this value and compares the difference as the beetles enter and go past the sensor. Thus, the bait is useful in different light conditions. We also tried the version when the LED is lit on the sensor, and that works at night too.

We have not tested the trap in nature, as bark beetles are active only when the temperature rises above 15 ° C. We intend to test the bait as soon as possible, when temperatures rise. Our school is located near the spruce forest, which is severely affected by bark beetles. We will place one trap in front of the school so we will be able to keep an eye on what is happening. We also have an insect hotel and we were thinking of installing a custom sensor that would count bugs of all kinds.

Only girls are involved in the project. Entering the competition is part of the larger story of the proSTEMgirls.eu project, whose main goal is to encourage women in STEAM. Tina Cigler, Barbara Planinšič and Urška Krajnc also participated in the implementation as mentors. Pheromone and lots of information on the bark beetles were provided by logger and forest expert Mr. Miha Mrakic.

Kako deluje program?

Korak 1

Nastavimo blokec ˝on start˝ spremenljivko ˝števec˝ na 0 in določimo skupino za pošiljanje signalov na drug Micro:bit z ˝radio set group˝.

Korak 2

Podamo prvi ˝forever˝ blokec, v katerega vstavimo spremenljivki LED in svetloba in ju definiramo na pin P1 in P2, da bosta svetlobo odčitavala na vsako minuto.

Korak 3

Vstavimo drugi ˝forever˝ blokec in vstavimo ˝serial write line˝ na pin P1, kar predstavlja senzor. Vstavimo prvi if stavek na pin P1 je večje od LED. To pomeni, če gre lubadar čez senzor, se potem števec spremeni za 1. In nato ˝radio send number števec˝ javi na drug Micro:bit.