Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Prototype

http://emptydesign.info/thesis/

Activity Analysis

(destructive) % + (cultivating) % = 100 % all activity relative to user

Energy (destructive)
Electricity Meter
Outlets
Switches

Energy
(cultivating)
Solar
Wind
Manually Generated

Water
(destructive)
Water meter
Faucets
Spouts

Water
(cultivating)
Rainwater
Reusable water
Conservation Nozzles
Half flush levers

Heating
(destructive)
Oil
Gas
Natural fuels

Heating
(cultivating)
Ethenol-based
Eco wood-pellet stoves
Grass roof insulation

Transport
(destructive)
Car -pecific model mpg
Plane
Boat

Transport
(cultivating)
Bus
Train
Bicycle
Carpooling

Waste
(destructive)
Trash with RFID material analysis

Waste
(cultivating)
Recycling with RFID material analysis
Composter

Friday, June 20, 2008

Friday, May 30, 2008

Concept names

BLA [Be Like Ants]

The Ant [ring with ant image, LED brightness meter]
the ant image daily resets to emitting no light, so it looks"invisible" until your daily environmental impact starts accruing. Then it will start to grow stronger throughout the day- making the ant more of a noticeable species- analogous to the burdening presence of the human species as we continue to have a negative impact on the environment.

The Colony

Technology

Internet
- Main website with online profile,
provides access and allows manual data input
- Facebook Application linked to website, shared database,
provides access and allows manual data input
- Mobile devices,
provides access and allows manual data input
- Wireless internet access required for use with the RFID technology for automatic data collection


RFID [Radio Frequency ID] - appeals for personal/home use only
- User's ring (unisex), serves as the reader, and data storage, then communicates via any wireless router device with the online database
-
The portable device (ring) will be designed to be connect via wireless LAN 802.11b to any wireless enabled PDA or PC.
-
900MHz
- reading range - 6 - 300cm
- writing range - 30 - 60cm
-
- optical LED (light ranging from invisible to white =active, green=reading)
- mountable passive RFID tags (stickable) - provides visual access (LED meter) and allows automatic data input
- ring antenna frequency will be set to read tags from a 0-4in distance/ LowFID


- polymer tags will be roll-printable, like a magazine, and much less expensive than silicon-based tags
- tag
inlays include both the RFID chip and antenna mounted on a substrate. The adhesive inlay format simply adds a pressure-sensitive adhesive to the back of the inlay.
- Operating frequency: 915 MHz (902-928 MHz)
- Read Range: up to 5 meters • Write Range: up to 3 meters
- Simultaneous Identification of Tags: Up to 1000 tags per second
- Tag Power: RF Beam Powered (Passive)
- reading duration: The RFID tag of claim 26, wherein the response enable module is configured to enable a response to the read signal if the measured duration of time is greater than a stored threshold time value. WIPO source

Barcoding software
Microsoft® Windows Mobile 2003 models:
omnidirectional 1D and 2D imaging
Microsoft® Windows CE.NET 4.2 models:
omnidirectional 1D scanning

Friday, May 9, 2008

N(Qu)otes

Cradle to Cradle By William McDonough & Michael Braungart
p. 16 Human industry has been in full swing for little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn't have a design problem. People do.

p. 27 Think about it: you may be referred to as the consumer, but there is very little that you actually consume- some food, some liquids. Everything else is designed for you to throw away when you are finished with it.

p. 37 Loss of resources, cultural depletion, negative social and environmental effects, reduction of quality of life- these ills can all be taking place, an entire region can be in decline, yet they are all negated by a simplistic economic figure that says economic life is good.

p. 50 This devouring impulse in Western culture is comparable, they maintain, to a drug or alcohol addiction: "Recycling is an aspirin, alleviating a rather large collective hangover...overconsumption." "The best way to reduce any environmental impact is not to recycle more, but to produce and dispose of less." - Robert Lilienfeld and William Rathje's Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are.

p. 59 Just because a material is recycled does not automatically make it ecologically benign, especially if it was not designed specifically for recycling. Blindly adopting superficial environmental approaches without fully understanding their effects can be no better- and perhaps even worse- than doing nothing.

p. 65 Efficient destruction is harder to detect and thus harder to stop.

p. 66 Humans are condemned as the one species on the planet guilty of burdening it beyond what it can withstand; as such, we must shrink our presence, our systems, our activities, and even our population so as to become almost invisible.

p. 67 But to be less bad is to accept things as they are, to believe that poorly designed, dishonorable, destructive systems are the best humans can do. This is the ultimate failure of the "be less bad" approach: a failure of imagination... What would it mean to be 100 percent good?

p. 78 Thus the "right things" for manufacturers and industrialists to do are those that lead to good growth- more niches, health, nourishment, diversity, intelligence, and abundance- for this generation of inhabitants on the planet and for generations to come.

p. 79 Individually we are much larger than ants, but collectively their biomass exceeds ours. Just as there is almost no corner of the globe untouched by human presence, there is almost no land habitat, from harsh desert to inner city, untouched by some species of ant. They are a good example of a population whose density and productiveness are not a problem for the rest of the world, because everything they make and use returns to the cradle-to-cradle cycles of nature... [they supply nutrients, recycle, aerate the soil, etc]...But although they may run the world, they do not overrun it...they make the world a better place.

p. 127 In planetary terms, we're all downstream.

p. 152 Does waste equal food? Are we using current solar income? Are we sustaining not only our own species but all species?

Shaping Things By Bruce Serling
p. 22 Designers must design, not just for objects or for people, but for the technolsocial interactions that unite people and objects: designing for opportunity costs and cognitive load.

p. 23 We interact with infrastructure differently in a world with representative design. In particular, with enough informational power, the "invisible hand of the market" becomes visible. The hand of the market was called "invisible" because Adam Smith, and 18th century economist, had very few ways to measure it. Adam Smith lacked metrics. Metrics make things visible.

p. 38 All around us we see obsolescence - but our ideas about obsolescence are not supposed to obsolesce.

p. 47 Generating new knowledge is very good, but in a world with superb archives, accessing knowledge that you didn't know you possessed is both faster and more reliable than discovering it.

p. 50 Then there are sensors, which do not merely measure qualities, but measure changes.

p. 58 Humans have always failed to deal with our trash as we made it. The role of trash is therefore exalted over the longer term. Civilizations collapse, but their ruins are a byword. Trash is always our premier cultural export to the future.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Schedule

Spring 2008

Week of 5/5
Read/Research books
Formulate specs on technology


Week of 5/12
Read/Research books
MEET: present and finalize specs on technology

Week of 5/19
Outline content mapping for interface
Sketch web interface and handheld adaptability

Week of 5/26
MEET: Present content map and interface
Finalize content map

Week of 6/2
Work on prototype


Week of 6/9
MEET: Present prototype

Week of 6/16
Revise prototype


Week of 6/23
MEET: Submit Final Work