A compact and low‐cost do‐it‐yourself water level meter

Making the Invisible Audible: A Simple Sound‐Emitting Water Level Meter

“…Their commercially available Pocket Dipper (Figure 1c) produces a high‐pitched sound when switched on and the sound is dampened when the device makes water contact. Apart from these acoustic probes, the light‐based one reported by Michelsen (2021) is worth mentioning (Figure 1d). Here, an LED bait, usually used for fishing, is fixed to a measuring tape and starts flashing upon water contact.…”

“…Upon water contact, an electrical circuit is closed at the probe tip, which triggers a light and/or buzzer at the tape reel. Nevertheless, these water level tapes usually cost several hundred U.S. dollars (Michelsen 2021). While such a price seems reasonable in a professional context, purchasing multiple devices for a community science project may be possible in some cases (Little et al 2016 bought 40 tapes for their volunteers), but is often prohibitively expensive.…”