Open-Source Radiation Detector

The comments section is awash in suggestions on how to build the thing, from this article on making a random number generator with a geiger counter to this site with schematics for building the world’s smallest radiation detector. According to a commenter from a hackerspace in Tokyo, there’s already an effort there to create a network of homemade radiation detectors using Arduinos around the city, with 10 of the custom Arduino-compatible add-on boards ready for testing.

With radiation already detected in milk in Fukushima, it seems like the open-source hardware community might be able to really make a difference for the people of Japan with this project. If you’re a hardware hacker yourself, head on over to the comments thread on Seeed or Hack-A-Day and join in the discussion. Otherwise, just marvel at the fact that the same device that made a thirsty houseplant tweet might save lives some day soon.