The Mothbox team (@briannaljohns @hikinghack @WellReadPanda @Hubertszcz) is excited to announce that we’ve won a 50k grant to create a mass-manufacturable Mothbox! The Mothbox is a low-cost, automated, open source insect monitor designed to be lightweight and easy to deploy in the jungles of Panama. The Mothbox is accessible open science hardware that is helping researchers across the globe better understand insect biodiversity.
We look forward to continuing the work we’ve been doing since our last WILDLABS grant, building off what we’ve accomplished so far:
- Created and refined 2 iterations of the Mothbox (currently using version 4.5)
- Received OSHWA Certification
- Ran community workshops with scientists and local communities across Panama
- Successfully undertook a field expedition in Cerro Hoya, Panama, where we deployed 15 Mothboxes across a 1500m elevation gradient (and spent some time in the cloud forest!)
- Over 140 deployments in Panama, the United States, Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico, with folks in the UK, US and New Zealand looking to deploy in the future.
Our next step is to create a manufacturable Mothbox that anyone can make and sell with off-the-shelf parts. To do this, we are designing a new printed circuit board (PCB) that integrates most of the Mothboxes’ electronic components, which have required manual assembly in the past. This new design will reduce the amount of time spent on assembly, increase device operability, and even make Mothboxes more lightweight and cheaper! Furthermore, these changes will make it easier for us to mass-manufacture Mothboxes across the globe, and we’ll be partnering with the Open Science Shop to help us create a distributed manufacturing network for Mothboxes. The fantastic AudioMoth team has also been helping us out with advice on manufacturing design.
@hikinghack has already kickstarted the process for designing this new PCB, and has just gotten back from a trip to Shenzhen, China, with some early versions to test out!
We’ll also be supporting the inclusion of Mothboxes in more research projects across the globe, and plan to have Mothboxes on the ground in Indonesia and North Carolina later this year. We’ll continue to share updates on the new mass-manufacturable Mothbox’s progress, and in the meantime, check out some of the other awardees from this year’s WILDLABS grant!
https://wildlabs.net/article/announcing-wildlabs-awards-2025-grantees
