Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'd like a more hackable ambient orb that works outside the US. :-)
  

    
I'd love to hear more about simple and successful examples in the
environmental and non-profit realm.  How are people solving problems?
  

    
Soon after the book was published, Emily heard about a group of
citizen scientists who were going to place remote water-quality sensing
devices into the Gowanus Canal.  The Gowanus Canal is a man-made
estuary stretching a mile and a half into South Brooklyn.  It is an EPA
superfund site, contaminated with cement, oil, mercury, lead, PCBs,
coal tar -- basically the entire history of 19th and 20th century
shipping.  Even though it is open to the ocean, the canal is as dead as
the moon: 4.0 ppm of oxygen is the bare minimum to sustain life -- the
Gowanus regularly measures 1.5

We decided to check out the build and the deployment.  We headed out
and met the group in a cold drizzle on the shores of the Gowanus.  We
asked to see their remote sensing device, and were flabbergasted to
discover that they had used our water quality sensor as the basis for
the design!  They had improved and expanded our gadget, giving it a GSM
cellular connection so it could report remotely to the internet, and
solar panel and LiPoly batteries to keep it powered.  

The idea (we hope) is that they will eventually place a series of
these sensors in the canal to monitor the quality of the water,
especially as it relates to sewage and storm drain runoff.
  

    
Great story.
  

    
One thing we should mention: the Gowanus group has a long tradition of
community service, and they have good working relationships with the
EPA and other agencies.  This is important when leaving electronic
gadgets in public in post 9/11 America. 

In May 2012, the NYPD arrested an artist who was making light-up "I
Love New York" signs and leaving them around the city. Someone saw one
of these boxes and called the bomb squad.  Since the devices were boxes
with wires and lights and electronics, the man was charged with
leaving false bombs around the city. 

We are currently working on a second book called "Atmospheric
Monitoring with Arduino", focusing on air quality. We had considered
doing what the Gowanus group did -- take a simple sensor, give it a GSM
cellular connection (this costs about $35, plus the monthly data
charge) and solar panels and a battery (all told, maybe $60), and make
a remote air quality sensor.  The NYC Parks department allows
scientists to conduct experiments in the parks with a permit.  We
applied in May 2012 and still haven't heard anything back.
  

    
Here's a photo slide show featuring the deployment of that gadget into
the Gowanus (requires Flash):

http://www.emilygertz.com/eg/2012/03/slideshow-environmental-monito.html

Gail, your question about "problem solving" pre-supposes that there's
overall consensus about which problems DIY devices can solve.  Overall,
the projects I'm aware of are developing and using them more as
mechanisms: to reality-check government or industry pronouncements
(that's what Safecast in Japan is about); or, to increase citizen
involvement in the regulatory and maybe even the licensing process--I
get the impression this is where Public Lab is going with its various
projects.

As well as, of course, to be cool and make things.
  

    
As a journalist, I also envision using DIY monitoring as a way to get
attention on under-reported environmental problems.  

There are citizen-professional collaborative science projects that
have already achieved this, for example: Would there have been even
half as many articles in the past 15 or so years about the potential
for alien life, if not for SETI@Home?
  

    
Rob: Ambient Orb does not work outside the U.S.?
  

    
Emily: the last time I checked it was tied to the US cellphone (or
pager?) network.

http://old.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html

It's a very cool product, and I think they made the right decision
about connectivity. My Nabaztag and now my Karotz are a pain to set up
for WiFi...

Arduino is a great platform for making these kinds of information
display devices as well as for gathering data, I think. :-)
  

    
Well, we're taking a break at the data-scraping workshop.  It's really
fascinating: All about how to pull data off public websites, in ways
that you can clean and sort it for larger purposes. I love being
introduced to a whole new tech toolset!
  

    
Interesting.  
  

    
Have you seen scraperwiki?

https://scraperwiki.com/

And coming back to Arduino, I've logged to Thingspeak before:

https://www.thingspeak.com/

from Arduino before. For environmental monitoring I guess it's
important to make data publicly available, but is it better to clean it
up first?
  

    
Normally Inkwell conversations run for two weeks, in which case this
one would have formally ended yesterday. However we had a late start,
and it's always okay to continue past the two weeks. I do want to thank
Emily and Patrick for this fascinating conversation. I really have to
pick up an Arduino or two...
  

    
Thank you folks, we'll be here all week!  Tip your waitress!

Seriously, we'll be here as long as there are questions and stories
about Arduino.

And a sincere thank you to Jon for managing all of this!
  

    
I have a question.  I was thinking of getting my Mom an Arduino for
her birthday.  What model should I get her?
  

    
It's never a bad idea to go with the latest model, which in this case
is the Leonardo. The Leonardo has built-in USB communication, so that
it will appear to your computer as a USB device (like a mouse or
keyboard).  At this moment I'm drawing a blank thinking up how you'd
use an arduino as a mouse or keyboard, but there must be some reason.

Another option is an Arduino Mega.  This is just like your standard
arduino, but with 54 input-output pins instead of the usual 20.  This
is great if you're going to be reading multiple sensors, or controlling
multiple devices -- available pins can fill up pretty quickly.

Another option is the LilyPad. This arduino is specifically designed
to be sewn/knitted into textiles to create wearable computers.  Because
it is so small it has fewer protections -- you must make sure the
input voltage is never more than 5.5V, or you'll fry it.  But if you
want to make a compass scarf, or a hat with a scrolling LED screen,
this is the one to get.
  

    
I'd guess the USB communication is to make communication easier for
datalogging?

Not that datalogging is particularly hard at the moment...
  

    
We have one last request (if anyone is still reading this, that is).

If you do purchase our book Environmental Monitoring With Arduino
<http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021582.do> and find it helpful,
can you please please leave an OReilly and/or Amazon review?  We never
realized before how important those things are, but they are -- at
least to our publisher!
  

    
The USB connection can be used to power the device - it's also how the
program(s) are loaded. Out of the box the Arduinos don't really do
anything. 
  

    

Rob asked,

For environmental monitoring I guess it's important to make data publicly
 available, but is it better to clean it up first?


Well, there are at least two ways to look at that.  On the one hand, the
more raw data made available, the more ways it can be used by more people.
On the other hand, really raw data can be all but useless to those who
don't know how to sort it and begin to find their desired information.

My opinion is that at a minimum, you want to clean up your data in ways
that give it consistent structure (think of the order in which information
appears in a spreadsheet, for instance).

And if there is some sort of algorithmic crunching that needs doing in order
to correct for environmental conditions beyond your control, it's probably a
good idea to incorporate that into the Arduino programming itself, and then
just make that information available along with the data.

I hope this gets at what you're asking about.

On data scraping--I didn't know about scraperwiki until that workshop last
week. Looking forward to digging into it more.
  

    
I happened to be looking at Kickstarter yesterday -- checking out a
friend's high tech Slingfin backpack design -- and I saw the mini
Arduino project -- Digispark, an Arduino-enabled USB developer board
the size of a quarter.   It's already being written up too:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/20/digispark-kickstarter-arduino-jr/

A selling point is that it is cheap enough to not have to recycle for
use in your next project, if I read that right.  A pity to look at it
that way, but otherwise it sounds like it will be a cool tool.
  

    
Recycling is good.  I have ~five year old Arduinos that I still reach
for when I need a dummy Arduino for a simple code test.
  

    
Emily - Thanks.

Eric - Yes I still have my original Arduino, although the latest IDE
doesn't seem to want to talk to it.
  

    
Yes, I have the same problem with my Arduino NG.  But at least the old
IDS are still available. 
  

    
Late to this but I am interested in applications such as
ammonia/nitrates, phosphates, etc. in water. Are these possible and if
so how? I'm imagining ion specific electrodes and wonder if a
calibration curve can be programmed in.