Smart Fishnet Capstone Team Presents their Prototype

Last week at the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering Capstone Design Fair, the Smart Fishnet capstone team presented their final prototype for a hand-held fishnet with an integrated radio-frequency identification (RFID) antenna for identifying tagged fish. The team, composed of Montana State University (MSU) senior engineering students Cheyenne Sterbick, Josh Wilson, Nathan Newman, and Paul Rupprecht, has been working on this YERC-sponsored project since the fall, with the initial goal of reducing the size of past prototypes, along with storing and displaying the identification of the fish from their passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags on an android application after being read by the RFID antenna. This system will allow for local fishermen to become citizen scientists, easily and cost-effectively collecting and submitting data from the fish that they catch to ecologists without the need for any training. The RFID system is both water-activated and waterproof up to a depth of 3 feet, and the accompanying app records the time, location, and a photo of the fish to be stored alongside the PIT tag data, all without impeding on the net’s functionality when catching fish. After future refinement, the net could be mass-produced, allowing for easy accessibility in the fishing community.