Team Phoenix

Beach Monitoring App

During the swimming season, the swimming conditions are monitored at many beaches between one and five times per week. Measurements that are taken on-site can be used to develop a model that predicts bacteria levels and they are part of a standardized sanitary survey. The sanitary survey information helps public health professionals identify potential causes of contamination. The application needs to capture observations made at the beach. Often student interns are hired to collect data and most have access to a smartphone. In some locations, WIFI or cellular signal may be limited so the app needs to be able to store the collected information until the collector is within signal range to send the data to the centralized database or beach manager who then uses the data as inputs to the model.

View the current beta app here!

View the production version of the app here!

Team Documents

Team Contract

Meeting Notes

Design Documents

System Overview

This app is designed to simplify collecting data about beach health for the Wisconsin DNR and various local health departments. There will be a variety of physical measurements and qualitative observations that must be recorded on mobile phones that may not have internet access at the time of collection.

Data collected is to be stored on the phone until internet access is available. When this happens, the data that has been collected is uploaded to the Wisconsin DNR and the health department or other entity responsible for the beach.

Uploaded data will be stored on servers run by health departments and the Wisconsin DNR. This will then be ingested by automated processes and used to update the Wisconsin Beach Health website.