KEN'S SENSORS FOR CITIES SUNNYSIDE • MOTT HAVEN • NYC EST. '26 Ken's Sensors for Cities GasMap NYC
Student-led · Queens & The Bronx, NYC

The city's air maps stop at the neighborhood.
We're measuring the block.

We're a team of NYC students installing low-cost gas sensors and building GasMap NYC, a publicly accessible map of the block-by-block gas spikes and local air hazards that regional air quality systems miss.

Get involved Read our story
Kento Smith at the Washington Monument, National Mall
Founder

Kento Smith

Founder, Sensors for Cities

Kento founded Sensors for Cities and leads sensor prototyping through the Cooper Union Summer STEM program, working with mentors to make sure the final sensor design is accurate enough for residents and city teams to actually trust.

Mission

Our student-led team promotes community safety by installing gas sensors in Sunnyside and Mott Haven, linked to a publicly accessible map, GasMap NYC, and empowering residents through sensor-building youth STEM workshops.

Rollout Timeline

Every milestone below is built and installed by our 20 student volunteers.

50
sensors installed
by month 5
100
sensors installed
by month 7
200
sensors installed
by month 10
What We Do

A public map for the air data your city misses

Under Sensors for Cities, our grassroots student-led organization, we're building GasMap NYC: a public site and app tied directly to data collected from our own sensor network.

While city-wide air quality systems provide regional data, they miss block-by-block gas spikes and local air hazards that impact resident health. Our goal is a 10-month timeline to install 200 gas sensors in air-pollution-heavy Sunnyside and Mott Haven communities, working alongside local environmental organizations to teach residents the protocols for reacting to gas influxes.

By partnering with local businesses to host sensors on their storefronts, GasMap NYC equips communities with the knowledge needed to advocate for their health, while giving city teams the block-level data to mitigate local gas hazards.

For businesses

Host a sensor on your storefront. It's small, low-power, and gives your block real coverage on the map.

For residents

Join a workshop, learn what's actually in your air, and know how to respond when a reading spikes.

Regional Monitoring (today)

City-wide sensors report broad, neighborhood-level averages, too coarse to catch a spike on a single block.

GasMap NYC (in progress)

A dense, storefront-hosted sensor network reporting block-by-block, so residents see the air outside their own door.

Our Story

Built by the kids who grew up breathing it

Sensors for Cities is made up of students from Sunnyside and the neighborhoods along Queens Boulevard, and from the South Bronx. As kids who grew up next to traffic and the scent of gasoline, this initiative finally lets us, and our surrounding community, access real information about what chemicals actually reside in the air we breathe every day.

Our team of 20 student volunteers is preparing to assemble low-cost, high-precision sensors to close that data gap affordably. We've already lined up future partnerships with local youth initiatives, like NYJTL, to host safe, controlled workshops teaching young STEM minds how to assemble sensors of their own.

Prototyping

Our prototypes are currently in development through Kento's research in the Cooper Union Summer STEM program.

Mentorship

Mentor guidance from the program ensures the final sensor design is highly accurate for gas identification.

Workshops

Upcoming partnership with NYJTL to teach local students how to build and deploy their own sensors.

Volunteers

Manny & Summer

Two of the twenty student volunteers building and deploying sensors.

Manny and Summer, volunteers at Sensors for Cities

Manny

"Building these sensors taught me more about circuits, and about my own neighborhood, than any classroom ever has."

Summer

"I finally get to tell my neighbors what's actually in the air we're all breathing, and do something about it."

18 more student volunteers building and deploying sensors behind the scenes
Get Involved

Help us cover the next block

FOR BUSINESSES

Host a sensor

Let us mount a low-power gas sensor on your storefront. It takes up almost no space, needs no maintenance from you, and puts your block on GasMap NYC.

Host a sensor
FOR STUDENTS & RESIDENTS

Join a workshop

Learn to assemble a gas sensor from scratch, understand the readings, and know the protocol for what to do when one spikes.

Ask about workshops