#airqualityegg: People participating in the conversation about air quality

Last month I blogged about a community project called AirQualityEgg aimed at giving citizens a way to participate in the conversation about air quality.  You can read about it here.  You can also join the google group, read/contribute to the wiki, or add your email to this list if you want to know where to go to buy one when we start taking orders.

Credit: Albert Chao

One thing that's been strongly validated in the month since has been an intense interest from communities and individuals all over the world in their local air quality.  People from five continents have reached out to offer their support in various ways, over 150 people have indicated they are interested in purchasing an Egg, and 70 people have showed up to workshops in two different cities .  There are 50 people participating in the google group discussions.  This has obviously struck a nerve.  People want to know.



AirQualityEgg got picked up by Javaun Moradi, a technologist at NPR (American news/media syndicator), who blogged about its implications for journalism. He says:

News organizations are uniquely positioned to serve as ethical overseers...or facilitators of open public dialog [for initiatives like AirQualityEgg]. For lack of a better term, I’ll call this ‘citizen engagement journalism’: applying the newsroom’s tools and values to advance the cause of journalism by means other than reporting. It’s a responsibility that is every bit as noble as reporting and can achieve the journalism goals of informing the public, investigating corruption, speaking for the voiceless, and seeking truth. 

AJ Fisher, a technologist at a data consultancy in Melbourne, also picked up on AirQualityEgg as part of a concept he's defining as the "Sensor Commons", or "a future state whereby we have data available to us, in real time, from a multitude of sensors that are relatively similar in design and method of data acquisition, [and whose] data is freely available."  This is a fantastic way to describe what is in essence a cultural revolution fomented by the reality of a billion connected people communicating directly with each other and with sensors embedded in the world around them.  AirQualityEgg is right in the middle of this, and I have no doubt that as word of the project spreads, more groups will continue talking about how this type of activism will change their life/work/town/etc.

The biggest criticism of the project has always been around the sensor components themselves.  The project aims to use low-cost, off-the-shelf, easy-to-use components to give us information that is currently only supplied by $50K scientific equipment.  Last month in Amsterdam, over 30 attendees traveled in from 5 countries to attend a one day workshop which aimed to move a step forward on this sensor aspect of the project. There was a fantastic mix between hardware engineers, software developers, and "philosophers" (ie. non-technical participants who wanted to contribute in whatever ways they could).  We were able to break into working groups to tackle different tasks and sensor components, and by the end of the day (after only 4-5 hours of solid work time), we had live data we could look at from a good number of sensors.  We took these outside to test with the exhaust from a Vespa and got a feel for how the output from these sensors would look.  Patrick Beeker, one of the attendees, blogged about how it went here. Groups in Amsterdam and NYC continue to work on this in real time.



Now that we're getting further away from the holidays, momentum is starting to pick back up.  There have been some impromtu gatherings in NYC with some of the attendees of the last workshop and as well as others who have become interested.  Most notably, Albert Chao and Eulani Labay have been charging forward on the Industrial Design of the product.  They've been thinking hard about various aspects of how the system will work and have also been able to run off some prototypes on a 3D printer. While some have questioned the interest in this seemingly gimmicky "egg" concept so early in the life of the project, one of our primary goals here is user engagement for the purposes of building a community.  That requires close attention to details that are quite different than the requirements around evaluating sensor components.

Credit: Albert Chao

However, at these gatherings, it's also become clear that the application aspect of the product hasn't yet been given enough consideration. As we've started to tackle the questions of how this sensor network will proliferate, and then, how the network will persist, we keep coming back to what people will actually DO with it.  Moreover, designing the various aspects of the Egg in parallel creates a challenge as each element impacts the rest.  So, as we move toward the zen state where considerations for sensors, product design and the application are in perfect harmony, things are inevitably changing.  Some of the biggest changes:

- The Egg was originally conceived as the sensor enclosure itself. This was perceived as a way to facilitate people building a relationship with this project/movement/concept.  The problem is that it's supposed to be outside gathering sensor data.  So, sensors have been removed to a cheap, nondescript box and the Egg has been re-positioned inside and given a button and an LED.  This gives a way for the user to actually create and receive feedback from the community.  What that actually is has not yet been defined.

- Inside/Outside: The types of pollutants that are inside are very different from outside. It's been enough of a challenge to tackle the outside sensors, and so the "inside air quality" portion of the project is getting nixed for now.  A future extension of the project could address this.

Moving forward, the 30 day goals are the following:

• Create and install prototypes of the sensor unit in NYC and Amsterdam.  We want to see data coming in.
• Define the physical product and how the system works together.
• Define the application and user experience.
• Launch a Kickstarter campaign. This will allow for the gauging of interest and crowdsourcing of the funding for the project in one motion. 

You can help and be a part of this!

• All the functional groups are updating the wiki and the google group asap.  You should join these to keep up to date in real time.  Important discussion will be happening there.
• We will physically meet in NYC to make some decisions about the user experience/application on 1/31 and then again on 2/6 to shoot the Kickstarter video.  These are all open events as part of the IoT NYC Meetup.
• Spread the word.  Share/tweet this blog post!
• Buy an Air Quality Egg! When we start taking orders, I will let you know where to go to buy one if you go and add your email to this list.
  

Thank you to all of the participants so far, including:

Internet of Things Amsterdam Meetup
Casper Koomen
Axel Roest <-- props
Amran Anjum
Bas Mijling
Dorien Zandbergen
Peter Manolescue
Xi SiZhe
Hans Blaauw
Cesar Garcia
Sara Alvarellos
Hans Blaauw
Jeffrey De Sadelaer
Chris Davis
Wout Tankik
Kristof De Buysere
Adrian McEwen
Patrick Beeker
Joseph Timkovsky
Hans Crijns
Ivo van den Maagdenberg
Olivier Brechon
Martin Havranek

Internet of Things NYC Meetup
Eulani Labay
Albert Chao
Volkan Unsal
Joe Saavedra
Leif Percifield