Divya
From Wiki
Art, Ecology and Technology The project aims to make 5 devices that (from different locations around Bangalore) record, and transmit data on pollution, which will then be visualized effectively. This visualisation is for city dwellers and policy makers. It hopes to inform them about the current pollution levels and it's steady rise.
The devices are to be made with the help of Arduino[1] and Processing[2].
Contents |
Week 2
MONDAY, 13 JULY
Talk of pollution > eco problems > Ecology and Technology
Finding and putting out info > causing change if possible > responsibility > awareness
Public and us > audience and policy makers > artist v/s designer, who am I first?
Readings, research:
Suspicious Images, latent Interfaces by Benjamin H Bratton, Natalie Jerimijenko
Research on projects done by the authors mentioned above and related topics.
Intheair[3]: a presentation by Victor on data visualisation
Catching up on readings (gobar times, cse India)
Processing: using PFont and PImage
Exercise: output of an image and word
The text is in white, hence a little difficult to spot.
I know the processing bit is impossible to read, but it's really not that difficult hence not that important.
Catching up on Functions/Commands: If, Else, For, While do, loops and nested loops, Keypress, Mathematical operators
Exercises: using lines, basic shapes, colour.
Thoughts:
What you don’t know is intimidating.
What looks intimidating or complicated, people don’t always want to know about.
TUESDAY, 14 JULY
Local, global > digital, analogue
Readings/ research:
Research on pollution levels in Bangalore to see how they compare to pollution level limits considered safe by World standards.
They rule[4] > this site gave rise to thoughts about who the power truly lies with.
We make money not art[5]
Processing: Map: making numbers change using: mouseX mouseY , seconds(), millis()
Arduino: We started using the sensors. Quite cool. Looking up the data sheet of our flex sensor[6] it was connected to the arduino board.
The data was read back to the computer and visualised in the form of a colourful ball using processing.
Thoughts: Its a new language the softwares talk. Need some time to get used to.
WEDNESDAY, 15 JULY
Readings/ research: Readings on Arduino.
Arduino: Fiddling around with Arduino some more, trying to understand the language. We moved on to a round sensor[7],made the necessary connections, and got it working.
We visualised the data coming in using processing, to recheck if the values were correct and the sensor was functioning properly, and because the data made so much more sense when visualized. To take it a step further, we added sound and led lights to our connection. By the end of the day (after much connecting and reconnecting) we built a sensor that controlled a tune played through a piezo speaker, and made a led flash simultaneously at the same tempo.
Thoughts: This isn’t as easy as I’d like it be, but it’s very exciting when it works.
THURSDAY, 16 JULY
Working on it further we got the variable resistance of the sensor to control the tempo of the tune and light.
It seemed to work well as a door bell. Abdul wanted it for his house. It eventually turned into a ‘loo door bell alarm’.
Images shall be up shortly :)
and there is a video: I have no idea how it is to go up :P
Arduino for loo door alarm
Aaaagh...wiki help needed, will sort this stuff tomorrow.
Week 3
MONDAY, 20 JULY
Theremin and other such instruments...
What it takes to make music: power, sound generator, clock, sequencer, amplification, speakers and a HMI (Human machine interface using sensors) to allow us to fiddle with it/ control it to create music (or noise) from the sounds produced.
Electronics: An electric circuit (understanding symbols etc)
Connected speakers to the battery and created an interface, making circuits using a breadboard
The logic behind NAND, using LDR, Potentiometer
TUESDAY, 21 JULY
Turning my laptop into a server (Windows)
Hence: WAMP > www > wordpress (some glitches, I’d like to blame them on vista). Wordpress being a CMS (content management system) where a database was to be created
Electronics: making circuit using Arduino, LDR for variation in resistance.
WEDNESDAY, 22 JULY
Plonk on it
Planning to put a sensor on campus and linking it to pachube[8]
Readings from the sensor get updated onto pachube. All the sensors were in use, so we made a switch instead (using two aluminium plates). Our sensor counts the number of people that sit next to a fibre glass statue on campus (at Srishti, Old campus, outside the library). When they do sit down, a Led in the statues mouth lights up and she laughs (seductively, or so was the plan; sounds like a psycho though courtesy munmun). It can be viewed on pachube as ‘plonk on it’.
Arduino for 'Plonk on it'
video : shall add once I figure out how to :)
Pote Party! fun fun fun
Made my very own musical instrument that croaked (I was very sweetly told that it was just 'different'). And an amplifier to go with it.(now it croaks loudly) :D
THURSDAY, 23 JULY
The final tweaking of 'plonk on it'
A link to the map, which will one day be embedded on the page[9]
Till I do, pictures will have to do.
Spoke with the scientists with us on this project.
We discussed among other things:
- The purpose of our project (to create awareness: over a short/longer period of time, an action in the form of a policy etc).
- The form the information we found could take,the medium we as designers/artists thought might be most convincing, appeal to their emotions (enough to make them act upon it).
Ideas aired included:
- Using cell phones to send pollution updates
- Having personal pollution monitors in your balcony
- Installations across Bangalore, Informative Interfaces at signals, using the media (to gather momentum), e.g. pulling off stunts like The Yes Men[10]
We discovered:
- A need to find out about what people think of pollution and whether they think of it at all.
- That the data would be vast and for maximum impact we may need to concentrate on one pollutant and it’s harmful effects.
At some point around the end of this week stumbled upon Microscopes from webcams. Just fiddled around for a bit, found water bears and saw pixels. :D
Was like going back to school and like looking at another world on an different scale, like a parallel universe but not quite (that's the sci-fi course talking).
Week 4
MONDAY, 27 JULY
Hacteria Workshop
Made our own microscope out of a web camera:
flip the lens around, connect it to the computer and install the necessary drivers
We built a framework out of lego to make it more stable.
Using Pd(Pure Data)[11]
to record what we saw in the form of a photograph or video, fiddling around with creating sound with it.
Collected dirty water samples and looked at it under the microscope, such excitement :)
Mark had some water sample with water bears and other organisms that had been to space (I think).
Product Ideas
Initial brainstorming with Victor to get us started.
Thoughts:
We are often told to look at local things for inspiration, things that are suppose to relate to us more. Rangoli definitely has more of an Indian context than pocket pets.(we thought of pocket pets before rangoli). It's not that we are so 'westernized' that we look down on 'Indian' things, they just aren't as exciting as they are nothing new to us. But using them in a different context to say something (in this case, about pollution) seems like the obvious thing to do.
Initial Idea
A color changing ferris wheel at traffic signals.(green=low pollution, red=warning/ rising pollution, grey=hight pollution level)
TUESDAY, 28 JULY
Refining Product Ideas to convincing photographs.
Microscope walk
We walked around Yelahanka and picked up samples of what we wanted to look at under the microscope.
Starting point: Chai kade (10:40am), End point: Kere behind Heritage, near the Railway track (sometime past 11am)
WEDNESDAY, 29 JULY
Product Concept
Categorized the products according to domestic/urban, public/private, local/global, analog/digital, art/design, product/service, passive/performative, etc
Chose 4 products we would take forward. (Chimeaira, T shirt, lcd display, garland )
THURSDAY, 30 JULY
Documentation of samples we got from the walk (using Pd).
Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) they didn't have too many interesting moving things.
Fern
Paan spit, Drain samples
Week 5
MONDAY, 3 AUGUST
Talk with Rustam
Spoke of the possible outcomes we were hoping to achieve, how they could be achieved, and whether it would make any difference to the world at all.
(Rustam played being the cynic and told us we couldn't save the world, or Bangalore)
We spoke of Audience(everyone/ primary and secondary/ could we address everyone or did we need to be more specific to be more effective?),
Stakeholders, The politics of pollution, Standards, Status: Mentality.
Strategies to be more effective: shock, guilt (using children to spread the message), selective targeting (policy makers)
Pinpointing the source of pollution in Bangalore: Construction sites, vehicles
By the end of it, we identified the types of people we could target:
- Policy makers/ Legal power (KSPB, Janaagraha, EPCA, Supreme court)
- Consumer class (urban, upper middle?)
- Political (parties)
- Industrial (TATAs etc)
- Media (flash mob, walks, newspaper, TV9)
Each category of people need to be approached differently, and we need to understand that.
Thoughts:
They tell us the small actions we do collectively make a bigger difference.Does that really work or is it completely insignificant?
Is it to make us feel like we have control over what is happening and that we could actually make a difference?
I'd like to believe the small things like 'putting off lights when not needed' had some value.
About ethics, May the end justify the means?
Product categorisation
Figured out who the products we had chosen spoke to best.
The chronology in which things needed to happen.
How ideas fit into Interventions/ Installations/ Concepts/ Functioning Products
Chose to work on 'Chimeaira'
Re-looking at it with fresh perspective, figuring out the details.
TUESDAY, 4 AUGUST
Product prototype: Chimeaira:
Wind chimes (run using a wind vane) made of 6 suspensions and a gong in the middle. The 6 musical suspensions making the chime were to move according to the level of pollution (up when excessive pollution, and down when cleaner air). Each suspension got readings from 6 different places around Bangalore of varying pollution levels.(Lalbaugh/Cubbon Park, Airport, Forum Mall, Majestic, Brigade/MG, Peenya/construction site). The height of the central gong stood for the accepted air pollution level limit
It would have been really cool if each sensor was in a different vehicle moving around Bangalore.
Would have made a pretty installation, but it makes the data difficult to read and study, hence, idea canned.
Chime research [12]
WEDNESDAY, 5 AUGUST; THURSDAY, 6 AUGUST
Making the wind vane, rest of the chime to go with it, testing things, modifying, reworking...
Week 6
MONDAY, 10 AUGUST; TUESDAY, 11 AUGUST
Prototyping
Getting the step up motor to work (Victor!), and making the gas sensor (it works!).
Using the smaller micro controller instead of the Arduino.
Trying to make the chime sound nice (and function in general).
WEDNESDAY, 12 AUGUST; THURSDAY, 13 AUGUST
Prototyping
The step up motor works!
Change of plans for the chime, new sketches are quickly made.
Changes:
- Using bells (so 'Indian', sounds a lot better than metal pipes)
- The chime twists to change the height of the musical suspensions (the bells), recording reading of only 1 place.
- The bells rise and move inwards in hight pollution, where they cease to sound as pretty (with the help of a jute covered funnle).
- In fresh air, they move outwards (from the center) and swing freely in the wind.
- The bells sound due to the movement of the motor. The wind vane is chucked.
Please note: It is as if the chime is breathing.
Need to attach the motor and test it.
Week 7
MONDAY, 17 AUGUST; TUESDAY, 18 AUGUST WEDNESDAY, 19 AUGUST; THURSDAY, 20 AUGUST
Prototyping
Using the arduino again (The micro controllers were a little too complicated)
Building the shield: a compact way of connecting the stepper motor, the power supply(smps), and gas sensor to the arduino.
It took a while.
Building the structure so that the bells wind inwards with the stepper(motor) movement.
Week 8
MONDAY, 24 AUGUST; TUESDAY, 25 AUGUST
Prototyping
Building it still, the structure. Trying to make everything detachable.
Programming to make the stepper motor rotate according to gas sensor values, clockwise and anti clockwise.
Attaching the motor to the bells, and the rest of the structure to see if it works the way we wanted it to.
There is an option of using 12 volts or 5 with the power supply we have. 5 volts isn't enough, and the 12 volts heats things up too fast.
Victor dreamt us a solution, need to check it out.
Week 9
MONDAY, 31 AUGUST; TUESDAY, 1 SEPTEMBER; WEDNESDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER
Prototyping
A new design. It reduces the load on the stepper motor.
There is a disk now, with curved grooves cut into it.
The motor faces upwards and has a frame attached to it. At the ends of the frame, the bells hang. As the motor turns, the bells turn. The strings the bells are suspended from, go through the grooves, hence they make the bells move inward towards the centeal spine, and outwards towards the periphery.
Problem: The bells when suspended using string don't make any sound!
Solution: Bells suspended using wire. It needs to be stiff at the top of the bell for it to ring well.
Problem: There is no/not enough sound variation between a situation with clean air and one with polluted. Only the form changes as it moves inwards and outwards.
Solution: hmmmm...
Still, it works with 5 volts now, and makes sound thanks to the jerky motions of the motor (intentional).
[DESIGN YATRA | BOMBAY | 2 TO 10 SEPTEMBER]
Week 10
MONDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER
Back to the Bellaira
Finish prototype!
Most of it is done, it runs, just need to finish it.
Got wires with headers from sp rd, organza from avenue.
Finishing touches to make it presentable.
What it plans to look like:
TUESDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER
Almost there.Refining it.
Got the cloth tailored for it, and fixed it on to see how it moves.
The sensor readings seem to have a bit of a problem, they range just keeps changing!
Arduino for Bellaira, reading values from gas sensor
Reflections:
- Prototyping is a lot of work and you never know how things are going to work out for sure unless you try it out.
- It's fun when things finally start happening the way you want them to.
- There are many ways to do something, you have to figure out which is the best/most feasible for you.
- Prototyping just never gets over even when you think it has since there will always be ways to improve it.
