  It is undeniable that citizen science contributes to the advancement of
various fields of study. There are now software tools that facilitate the
development of citizen science apps. However, apps developed with these tools
rely on individual human skills to correctly collect useful data. Machine
learning (ML)-aided apps provide on-field guidance to citizen scientists on
data collection tasks. However, these apps rely on server-side ML support, and
therefore need a reliable internet connection. Furthermore, the development of
citizen science apps with ML support requires a significant investment of time
and money. For some projects, this barrier may preclude the use of citizen
science effectively. We present a platform that democratizes citizen science by
making it accessible to a much broader audience of both researchers and
participants. The SmartCS platform allows one to create citizen science apps
with ML support quickly and without coding skills. Apps developed using SmartCS
have client-side ML support, making them usable in the field, even when there
is no internet connection. The client-side ML helps educate users to better
recognize the subjects, thereby enabling high-quality data collection. We
present several citizen science apps created using SmartCS, some of which were
conceived and created by high school students.
