Tash Mahnokaren
Staff Writer
Idaho State University’s environmental chemistry class takes an annual trip to Yellowstone National Park to study the geothermal features of the area. This year, student participants of the October trip were the first to test out chemistry undergraduate student Jeff Kuhlmeier’s recently released application.
While this is always an enriching experience for the students, Professor Jeffrey Rosentreter of the Chemistry department felt that an interactive application that would allow for easier recognition and recording of data would be beneficial.
During the trip, the class performs various tests, and on a typical day the group can conduct research for eight to nine hours. The application allows for the compilation of this data.
Kuhlmeier described the main reason behind the application’s intended success being that smartphones include many useful sensors.
“[Smartphones include] GPS, timers, geo-synced clocks, mobile Internet connections and cameras. By accessing these resources with an easy to use and [easy to] modify interface, data can be entered quickly and, in many cases, be automatically synced and saved remotely as a secure backup,” said Kuhlmeier.
“When you have to share data person-to-person in the field, there is a hazard there. They are next to geothermal features,” he added.
In gathering to collect data, students can potentially put themselves at risk of falling into the geothermal features. For this reason, the app facilitates the well-being of students during the trip.
Rosentreter expresses that the idea behind the app’s creation came about through a desire to eliminate “chaos and confusion”.
Kuhlmeier said the entire process was facilitated through the use of an open data kit for data collection, and Google’s Application Programming Interface (API) for data aggregation and presentation.
The application, according to the self-taught developer, took a mere weekend to create.
The app is available exclusively to Android phone users due to budgetary and licensing restraints.
According to Rosentreter, Android phones have been donated to students for use. He also mentions that these students were the most active samplers.
In any situation accidents are prone to occur, and in the park, it could be a dropped phone in the lake or drenched notes leading to the loss or alteration of data.
With the application, students no longer have to worry about their pen and notebook or losing their data because it is uploaded and saved on site.
Both Rosentreter and Kuhlmeier tested the applications usability prior to its release. Kuhlmeier expressed that if he were able to use it and instruct others on its use, then relatively anyone would not run into problems in trying to use the application.
“Most of them liked it,” said Kulhmeier about student response to the application. “But because this a rather new sampling method as opposed to the usual written recording of data, it will take some getting used to.”
The photographic features and GPS capabilities are said to be a noteworthy characteristic between the smartphone and application conjunction.
Students are required to take pictures while sampling, a phenomenon Rosentreter refers to as quality assurance.
The GPS feature ensures that the students were present at the actual site.
This has become a necessity in the reality of sampling because of inaccurate data speculations that surface from samplers neglecting to visit the actual geothermal sites to collect data.
In developing the application further, Kuhlmeier hopes to add a feature allowing for students to upload their own tests.
“Each year graduate students design their own tests,” said Kuhlmeier. “It is fixed in that the same tests are always in the same field, so the graduate students need a way to enter their own tests.”
Rosentreter on the other hand hopes to be able to get sensors that could be connected to smartphones, further facilitating the collection of sensory data.
Along with the application came the launch of a website which provides information about chemical reactions that ultimately shape the springs into terraces, geysers and mud volcanoes.
The application, according to Kuhlmeier, is also set up to use in any field-sampling situation in the fields of ecology, biology, geoscience and even anthropology. It is now one of two apps created by ISU in the last few months designed to help with Yellowstone research.
