Kannan

From Wiki

course : ART AND SCIENCE

idea of the course before the first class

                                         - building sensors to sense pollutants in the air
                                         - interface design 
                                         - installing final work in a public place .

Tuesday,7th July

we were introduced to the project followed by discussions of kinds of pollutants . what can detect pollutants . how sensors work . then we were introduced to arduino

ARDUINO:

It is a physical computing platform that can sense and respond to the analogue world . It uses micro controllers and sensors to translate analog input to a software system.

research work -

Murray Schafer : R. Murray Schafer is Canada's pre-eminent composer and is known throughout the world.His book The Tuning of the World (1977), documents the findings of his World Soundscape Project, which united the social, scientific and artistic aspects of sound and introduced the concept of acoustic ecology. The concept of soundscape unifies most of his musical and dramatic work, as well as his educational and cultural theories.

                  SOUND SCAPE :Is a combination of sounds that arise from an immersive environment .
                  ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY :Is the relationship mediated through sound,between living beings and their environment .

Land Art : in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. Sculptures are not placed in the landscape; rather the landscape is the very means of their creation.

Wednesday,8th July - Friday,10th July

Started using processing. used conditions -if, while learning the syntax . using key press was quite simple . filling up the space with alt. colored squares -was quite challenging opened arduino through processing .

Monday,13th July

link for - WHO air quality standards: International WHO air quality guidelines were issued in 2005, replacing the European-focused standards published in 2000. The 2005 WHO guidelines include both ideal targets as well as interim targets for developing countries.

 http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair_aqg/en/index.html

Today's class began with reading Rustams AIR ALARM articles .The article adressed some important questions about pollution ,who monitors air quality ? CPCB,NEERI,SPCB,PCC. Where are we going wrong in monitoring pollution ? weak science-weak action ,limited data ,site selection .

we did a bit of processing -how to load a jpg image and fonts .

Then Victors presentation (greenda ,wea-k-lumbra) gave me a better understanding of what kind of work will we actually be doing . facts and figures can be very confusing for a lay person . so the presentation of data should be creative .

Tuesday,14th July

information on MP's :

Wednesday,15th July

This map shows Air Alert at 3 random points in the world . The size of the red dot is directly proportional to the air pollution in that area.

Thursday,16th July

We got an Action Reaction based assignment .

ideas :

making Rodolph the red nose reindeer : the back of the reindeer has a touch sensor, on stroking him his nose that has a red LED would start blinking and the rhyme Rodolph the red nose reindeer ...... would play . HA !the touch sensor's NOT WORKING .

so we decide to use the infra red proximity sensor in the girls loo and attach a speaker with it .so every time someone comes and stands in front of the mirror the speaker would play a few random recordings like mirror mirror on the wall etc.

Friday,17th July

we tried to figure out the programming part and circuit construction. Abdul did the recordings .

Monday,20th July

We had Marc in our class today he gave us a presentation on understanding the working and construction of elementary circuits . we did simple experiments like how there is a disturbance sound when you connect the amplifier to a battery . he showed us his music box which had potentiometer knobs that made different kinds of sounds on every rotation it was fancy .

Tuesday,21st July

I tried using different kinds of sensors to understand how they work . got my hands on the light sensor .in the evening there was a DIY PARTY IN CEMA where we had the chance of constructing our own music box following instructions.

Tuesday,22nd July

we had a discussion with two scientists who initiated this whole pollution project . They will be taking our ideas for their project . the discussion was about the serious problem of air pollution in Bangalore and how it is one of the top 60 cities to contribute to global warming . they will keep coming to college to see our projects .

Wednesday,23rd July to 29th July

we had a BIO ELECTRONICS WORKSHOP with Marc for a week we built a microscope using a webcam just by inverting is lens and saw the pixels on the computer screen .

we went for a walk in areas around college like the chai kadai and the lake near the railway tracks and got them back to college and studied them under the microscope .

I saw micro organisms like rotifers and water bears . It was really fascinating to document their movement and seeing them eating algae/moss.

WALK SAMPLES :

Thursday,30thJuly

we came up with ideas for our final project today and we split in groups.

T-shirt

CONCEPT

To make T-shirts with gas sensors That detect an increase in the pollution level and our initial idea and hopefully our final product was to make the shirt crumple in the shape of the lung when the pollution level goes beyond acceptable levels.

Its a product for personal use . Aims at showing the user how safe is the air around them .This may make an impact on the user more than statistics . So hopefully the public will actually see it happening. And it aims to make them more concerned about the pollution issue in Bangalore .

Friday,31stJuly - 20th August

so far its going well we made a few circuit diagrams . figured out the programming part . started working on our

FIRST PROTOTYPE :

We decided to stick the arduino board and the sensor on the t shirt so that if anything went wrong we could fix the circuit. We tried to make this first one as simple as possible. It just had two LEDs fixed to the outer side of the shirt. The blue one being on when the pollution levels are acceptable, and switching to a red light when the pollution goes beyond the level.

we had a meeting with the scientists , rustam and victor . it was really critical . they liked our whole concept but told us that our visualization was poor . so we plan to work on that this week .

Monday,24th August

we came up with a new idea besides our T-shirt . we came up with this thing called O2 pump it is this pump resembling a petrol pump which pumps oxygen instead of petrol . I think it is a really cool futuristic idea . It will make a person think that oh! there may be a day when we may actually need things like this .

Tuesday,25th August

so i spent half my day doing the T shirt and half making the oxygen pump . for the T-shirt we thought that we will screen print lungs on to the T-shirt and the Led strips will be placed like branches inside the T shirt. also we tweaked the program a bit and now instead of just changing colors from blue to red . it will now have a color gradient it will go up from green > yellow > red and then goes back down in the reverse order when the pollution is in the permissible range .

we cut out the sun board and made a dummy pump .

Wednesday,25th August to Monday,30th August

well finally we can see the project going somewhere . the T shirts done . working abrar, neeraj, sachin and dhruv even took it out for documentation , but weren't prepared for it .. so we plan to do it again sometime soon once all the groups finish their work .

we figured out the working of the oxygen pumps . we will have a handle attached to the pump that will be connected to a caluclator so every time it is lifted the digital display goes to 0 .

it was quite interesting to see the inside of a cheap Chinese calculator .they had a plastic chip .. and the whole construction just seemed so difficult to crack . so we asked yashas for help .. and to figure out what combination was CE .. was a hit and trial method .. which was cracked by rohan .

I was never an electronic person .. but through the course i have noticed that there has been an urge to open up devices and mess up the circuit now that i know something about it .

Tuesday ,2nd September

now that there is just a week left for our project and our prototypes have come to an end . we are planning on our website and taking them out in the city and documenting the whole experience . so i didn't do much today . its just sandeep working on the website . i gave him a write up for our project so that he could put it up .

i think that we should have like a proper public intervention . we can do things like - demonstrate the products - give out pamphlets - call someone from the media - set up oxygen pumps with the other pumps in the petrol pumps - rustam suggested us to do this on 2nd oct .

Monday,7th September

we plan to do take out our products tomorrow finally and document the whole experience . and spread awareness .

so we finished designing the pamphlets today . took out like 100 print outs .

Tuesday , 8th September

finally . we went out today .

had a really nice experience . we got a really nice response for out t shirt. we had a lot of people who wanted to buy it . and it worked really well. we had all the attention . we spoke to them about our project and got responses like :

we dont care about air pollution. we don't think there is a rise in air pollution. we don't have time for these stupid things . ok so what do we do about it . your LED t shirt the construcion must have contributed to so much of air pollution we like your t shirt can we buy it . we would like to do something about it we really like the idea of having a group on face book .. we can actully have like meetings and discussions. we do our bit .. i have stopped smoking . good work neat

.. and so on .

we managed getting loads of ids . so we will send them the face book invitation tomorrow . we have finished documentation . just need to edit the videos . it was a fun day .

poor saurabh was so embarrassed to wear this and walk around mg road . it was really funny . He even got felt up by this auto rikshaw guy ... :P

Wednesday,9th ,September

so etc Bangalore is going well on face book we have already managed to get like 400 friends . now we will send them the link to our website as soon as it is done so that they can have a look at our prototypes and learn about our project . it was a good thing that i took down the e mail ids of the people we met because our pamphlets must have ended up in their dust bins because we hardly got any friend requests .. which was kind of expected why would someone want to contact any random group doing a project on the roads . the pictures we took came out really bad so we had to take more pictures of our product .

our course has been extended for a week now .. it has been fun all these ten weeks .

my learning's from this course :

i can construct my own microscope now . i can solder wires make simple small circuits i can work on wiki i can understand how the arduino board works to some extent i can write simple programs i really find it difficult to work in groups but i think i did manage doing that . i have understood how the program for the t shirt works really well since i have been on it since ten weeks now . fixing gas sensors ...

i am very spontaneous when it comes to working . i just get down to doing the final thing. but in this course i have changed that habit of mine . we started using arduino's - simple programming-mind mapping - and made 3 prototypes before doing the final thing . i liked how we just came up with an idea for the t shirt to change colors without thinking about the technological limitations or anything .. and made it work .