• 1x Fully tested Raspberry Shake 4D circuit board
• 1x vertical Earth motion monitoring sensor (“geophone”, 4.5 Hz)
• 1x Raspberry Pi single-board computer
• 1x Enclosure
• 1x 8 GB pre-programmed Micro SD Card
• 1x Ethernet Cable
• 1x 5V 2.5 Amp power supply (Plug types supported: A, C, G, I)

The Earth is always shakingggggg! From local tremors, traffic rumbling by, fracking & quarry explosions and even nuclear testing, to the BIG earthquakes that hit half a world away… NOW you can see it ALL! The fun begins with Raspberry Shake, your professional grade personal earthquake detection device – or “seismograph” as the Pros call it! Raspberry Shake conveniently snaps right onto Raspberry Pi, the most popular single-board personal computer in the tech world.

Raspberry Shake is a very clever little custom circuit board, that fits right onto the most popular single-board personal computer, the Raspberry Pi, transforming it into a professional grade personal seismograph. It is probably the smallest seismograph of its caliber in existence, but don’t let its size fool you – It can record earthquakes of all magnitudes, from the vanishingly small blips that are imperceptible to human senses, to the big destructive earthquakes that regularly happen around the world.

As soon as the Raspberry Shake is plugged in and set up, you can see, record and analyze the Earth’s motion in real time!

• Monitor earthquakes and other Earth movements happening right beneath your feet
• Capture human vibrations, such as rush hour traffic, construction, noisy neighbors and even your washing machine’s spin cycle!
• Easily record local earthquakes that you actually felt
• Measure earthquakes from half the world away imperceptible to your human senses but easily seen with your Raspberry Shake.
• Become a citizen scientist, make a difference and share your data with seismic observatories worldwide
• Monitor and analyze the data from any other Raspberry Shake’s in the global network (there are hundreds).
• Check out our Android app and get instant earthquake updates on your phone
• Each Raspberry Shake is carefully put together by our experts and built with industrial quality hardware

*sps = samples per second on all channels

The 1D, 3D, 4D and “Shake and Boom” have the same capabilities for detecting Earth motion in the vertical dimension. The 3D replicates these abilities in the horizontal dimensions, providing the user with a fuller view of earth motion in all 3 dimensions. The difference between the 1D and the 4D is that the 4D has a 3 dimensional accelerometer built into the board. This is interesting for people who live in earthquake zones where the strong motion might be enough to saturate the vertical sensor. With the accelerometer, the earth motion would remain on scale with the added benefit of being able to detect lateral motion as well.

Raspberry Shake has two main components:

1. The main sensor is a geophone. You can think of it as a microphone for Earth vibrations. It is a rugged little Earth motion sensor that has been the standard in the oil exploration business for decades. As the Earth’s tectonic plates move about, as volcanoes erupt, as we inject fluids into the land around us (“frak-ing”) and as we build more high-rise buildings, the Earth’s brittle crust cracks and creaks. The geophone is an exquisitely sensitive sensor about the size of your thumb and has been finely tuned to accurately measure even the smallest disturbances.
2. The amplifier, digitizer and ARM processor. These things work in unison so that you can see the Earth’s motion continuously and in real-time on your computer screen.

How it all comes together: As the geophone captures the vibrations of the Earth, these vibrations are then amplified with ultra-quiet state-of-the-art Op Amps. Once amplified, the analog signal is digitized, the data is shipped to the ARM processor and bundled into one-second packets that are sent to your Raspberry Pi computer. The Raspberry Pi timestamps the data and stores it in a seismic industry standard data format (called miniSEED).

There are soooo many cool things you can do with your Raspberry Shake, for the novice and for the more advanced user.

For the novice, as soon as you are set up, you can start watching the Earth move and see if you can identify any patterns with local factors. These may include seeing spikes as your neighbor’s head out to work, traffic, construction and, of course, tremors and earthquakes or even volcanic eruptions!
For the advanced user, there are tons of things you can jump into, from building your own enclosure to using / creating interpretation software to better understand what is happening around you – Whether it is to analyze tremors and earthquakes, or construction work, your washing machine’s spin cycles, local shale frak-ing and deep-well injection activities (hello Oklahoma!) and even football (soccer) games!

It’s fun to make, fun to program, and fun to watch the Earth moveeeeee!