Leveraging AI Tools for Conservation Ecology: A hands on approach

BRIN, or the National Research and Innovation Agency, is a cabinet-level government agency formed by the Indonesian government in 2019. The agency has conducted extensive research in various fields.

Last week, on September 2nd and 3rd, I had the opportunity to conduct a two-day workshop introducing TinyML to biologists and zoologists at the BRIN center in Bogor, Indonesia.

The invitation came from Violet, who introduced me to Dr. Nik from USM Malaysia. Dr. Nik is a biologist and an engineer, and we had a great time discussing the latest technology and maker projects.

September 2nd 2024

1st day of the workshop is conducted online with approximately 46 participants joining the Zoom meeting. The schedule is as follows

At 10:00 am I started by doing an introduction of Seeed Studio and focused on the AI line of products from Seeed Studio. After doing the introduction I continued my session by doing a demo of the Xiao ESP32 Sense and Grove Vision AI V2 with the Sensecraft platform.

After Lunch, Dr. Nik continued the session by sharing useful software tools that he used in his research such as Deeplabcut, Orange, Mathematica, and Teachable Machine.

At 2.30 pm I continue the session by sharing my pas hackster project wildlife sanctuary monitor. I explained to the participants how I made the custom data model based on various sensors to detect and monitor the animal. I end my sharing session with an explanation about the latest Seeed Studio Co-Create Gadget campaign.

September 3rd 2024

I woke up earlier than I used to for today because the workshop for today will be held directly at Brin office in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia. It took me 2 hours to get into the workshop venue and I arrived 15 minutes early.

The hand on workshop is limited to 10 participants only and I started to guide them to install Arduino IDE and ESP32 board definition on their laptops. After the Arduino is installed on each laptop I direct them to the camera example on Arduino IDE using the Xiao ESP32 sense. With this example, I explain to the participants that they can use this feature to build a small camera device to observe any plant or animal. and since the form factor of Xiao is small, the camera doesn’t need much spacing.

After trying the Arduino example, I directed the participants to open the Sensecraft website and try the AI feature of the Xiao ESP32 Sense. I guide the participants to try the trigger function on the sensecraft while explaining the capability of this function.

After using the Xiao ESP32 Sense it’s time to Try the Grove Vision AI V2, so I give Grove Vision AI to each participant to try. I explain it to them about the concept of this sensor and its vast capability to help them with their research.