This project has won Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008 U.S. Final in Los Angeles April 2008 and Engineering Excellence Achievement Award in Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008 Worldwide Final in Paris, France July 2008.

Competition Background
Imagine a world where technology is an ally of the planet, not an adversary. A world where software enables us to interpret environmental indicators, predict the outcomes of our actions, improve our consumption of precious resources, and live more in balance with our environment. In Imagine Cup 2008, we challenge the top student technologists around the world to actively contribute to the mission of protecting our world for generations to come. The theme of this year’s Imagine Cup is “Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment.”

For some, a sustainable environment means something as simple as breathing fresh air each time they open their window. For others it means making significant changes in key environmental indicators. Any way you look at it, you get to decide how technology can help solve this problem for yourself, your country, and yeah…even the planet.

Visit http://imaginecup.com for more information.

The aim of the Reactivity sensor network is to provide enterprise and city-level networking of sensor and device control systems.

The Problem
Take a deep breath. The air you just inhaled might contain trace amounts of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, suspended particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, ozone, radioactive radon, and other toxic substances. According to the World Health Organization, one of every six people on the earth, or more than 1.1 billion people, lives in urban areas where the air is unhealthy to breathe. Air pollution has definitely become one of the most challenging environmental problems of the century.

If you think air pollution is the only environmental problem around you, think again. Each year, the equivalent of approximately 10,000 million tons of coal is consumed on earth as energy. About 40% from this is based on oil and together with coal and natural gas more than 90% of the total energy consumption result from carbon atoms in these fossil fuels. The consequence will be a global warming (greenhouse effect) and a great reduction of renewable resources in the future. In reality, most of the energy we produce is wasted through heat loss and power inefficiencies. Integral to reducing environmental impact is a method of monitoring power consumption and reducing energy waste.

Full Introduction
Software Technical Details

Application
In addition to energy reduction in urban environments, increased benefits of a distributed sensing networks model is realized in the ability to log, analyze, and visualize data to find patterns in natural setting. By deploying cheap, low-maintenance, and modular sensor systems, data can be gathered from virtually any environment and collected via wireless network. Power in natural environments can be provided by miniature solar panels on the device.

Distributed sensing has the potential to accelerate advancements in the visualization of our environmental impact. Regions with sensor networks can be monitored continuously for light and air pollution creating extensive data logs. Visualization of environmental data can reveal distributions of environmental variables; these are keys to understanding how the environment is changing and getting feedback on energy reduction methods.

Hundreds of species of plants and animals are losing their environments to human environmental displacements. Real-time monitoring of environmental conditions could be crucial in determining what factors are affecting species decline. Ruggedized versions can be deployed in hostile conditions such as forests and aquatic environments. Due to low cost, sensors can be blanketed throughout spaces.

Screenshots

Reactivity Sidebar Gadgets in action.

Reactivity Panel

Reactivity Sensor Monitor

Reactivity Control Panel

Reactivity Rule Editor

Source
Simply browse: http://svn.ziyan.info/svn/reactivity/trunk/src/
Or to check out the project from subversion:

svn co http://svn.ziyan.info/svn/reactivity/trunk/src/ reactivity