THE BOBS PROJECT

About the BOBs

Our Bay Observation Boxes, affectionately known as BOBs, use experimental Makerspace technology to continuously monitor water quality for a fraction of the cost of commercially available products. Since our first prototype deployment in Breton Bay in August 2022, we now operate 18 BOBs in various locations and prototyping phases throughout southern Maryland.

BOBs send data to the Internet every fifteen minutes for the following parameters:

Dissolved oxygen
pH
Air and water temperature
Salinity
Total dissolved solids
Humidity

The BOBs are a partnership project between Norm & Shelly O'Foran (project leads), SMRWA, and the James A. Forrest Technology Center (Tech Center).

Our goals include:

Create a low-cost version of continuous, remote water quality monitors that transmit data in real-time
Expand water quality monitoring to support oyster restoration and other Bay restoration initiatives
Increase public awareness of the importance of water quality
Provide opportunities for student scientists to practice real-world problem-solving, engineering, monitoring, and data analysis

A remote water quality monitoring buoy in Breton Bay

Where are the BOBs?

BOBs have been deployed at:

Calvert Marine Museum dock
Leonardtown Wharf
St. Mary’s College of Maryland dock
Chesapeake Biological Laboratory research pier in Solomons, MD
Lovers Point oyster restoration area in Breton Bay
Dr. James A Forrest Career and Tech Center
Cherry Cove
Foxes Point
Pawpaw Point
Canoe Neck Creek
Four sites in the St. Mary's River Oyster Sanctuary

Engaging Students

The project provides authentic learning experiences for Natural Resources Management and Engineering students at the Tech Center, as well as for members of SMRWA’s Future Bay Leaders program.

Over the last three years, our students have helped to build, deploy, maintain, and evaluate our 18 BOBs. In 2023, an SMRWA intern from the Great Mills High School STEM program completed her senior capstone project on mitigating biofouling on the buoys.

Norm and Shelly also regularly mentor high school and college students through the project, including one high school design student in Pennsylvania who is building a BOB via Zoom and another engineering student at the Tech Center who is making a BOB drone.

Educating the Public

The BOBs project has hosted tables at 11 local events, taught 29 lessons to high school and college students, presented 5 workshops, and been covered in 14 articles.

The BOBs have been covered by The BayNet, Southern Maryland News, Chesapeake Bay Magazine, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and more:

Examining Our Data

A comparison of temperature (°C) data collected by our prototype BOBs (Sensor Buoy 01) to a commercial sensor, MiniDOT Logger.

A comparison of dissolved oxygen (mg/L) data collected by our prototype BOBs (Sensor Buoy 01) to a commercial sensor, MiniDOT Logger.

A comparison of dissolved oxygen data (mg/L) data from a commercial YSI water quality monitor at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and a BOB.

In the past few years, our BOBs have collected millions of publicly available data points in the southern Maryland watershed, which you can view in real-time. Though our BOBs remain experimental, we have begun more rigorous testing to compare our data to those produced by commercial equipment.

We've learned:

BOB sensors generally match the trends of commercial equipment
Temperature sensor accuracy is comparable to commercial equipment
BOB sensors perform well as compared to commercial equipment for about two weeks – then the BOBs’ data tend to drift, likely due to biofouling
Galvanic dissolved oxygen sensors are too delicate for the harsh environment of the Chesapeake Bay

Please see the graphs to the left for comparisons between our equipment and commercial equipment.

Partners & Funders

Strategic Plan 2006-2010 for St. Mary’s River Watershed Association

In the winter of 2005-2006, the Board of Directors of the St. Mary's River Watershed Association (SMRWA) decided to pursue…