Primary- and second-level students have placed 300 specially adapted RFID-enabled pebbles at Killiney Beach in Dublin and Raghly Beach in Sligo in a project to track coastal erosion.
The innovative project aims to strengthen coastal communities’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change using digital technologies.
Led by Dr Chiara Cocco and Dr Francesco Pilla, researchers with Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, at UCD and Dr Iulia Anton, a researcher at Atlantic TU Sligo, the ‘smart’ pebbles initiative is part of the €10 million European-wide project SCORE (score-eu-project.eu) funded by the European Commission.
“The students will play a key role in releasing and monitoring 300 specially adapted Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) -enabled pebbles over the coming months. Each ‘smart’ pebble, painted yellow and typically about 10cm in size, has a RFID transponder cemented into drilled holes, enabling us to trace the impacts of erosion and their movements over the coming months,” explained Dr Cocco, Assistant Professor at UCD.