User:Jantjewag

Hi.

Hi there. I'm Jan, from Product Design. Currently doing Digital Crafts as a practiceproject to get a little taste oof how it is to work more with technology. Exactly I love it, altough I've got a lot to learn still. Luckely enough we can achieve already a lot through knowledge avaiable in the workshops and on the internet.

Project concept

A group of expatriates distribute face masks to pedestrians to raise awareness of air pollution

I took my inspiration from the fact that the human nose can't smell a lot of hazardous gasses. Some of these gasses, like nitrogen dioxide, are becoming more and more evident in our (urban) enviroment. The emissions of thousands of cars and companies let to a hazy fog, which covers cities as Shanghai and London.

This fog is a quite recent development. It was not until the Industrial Revolution (in the 18th century) that the emmissions of industries became a serious problem. Those 200 years might sound like much, but if you look it from the perspective of the entire human history it's not like much. Over time, the human was able to survive to a lot of potential dangers (Getting ate by dinosaurs etc.) but now evolution seems not to be able to keep up the pace.

Project Development

Nostalgic electronics 11-6

Today I received my Arduino Pro Micro, exciting! Finally I can put my gasmeter to work and read some data from it. So I dived into the electronica archive (which turned out to contain a lot nostalgia stuff) and looked for the parts I needed. After some time I was able to find a bunch of jumpers and the right resistor I needed. I even found a breadboard that still works after 6 years of dusty silence. So I installed the arduino drivers (which turned out to be harder than I thought) and builded the circuit I need with some help of the Internet. Then it was time for the most exciting moment! Running the code and trying the circuit. It worked, but there was something strange with the values. They seems to fluctuated from almost the lowest to the maximum value, while it was supposed to give a stable output after some minutes. Turned out I used the wrong battery (9V instead of 5V). Noob fail haha. So I'll have to try this later at school. At least the sensing part of my circuit is almost working.

Snif snif 16-6

So, my smelling-part is finally ready! It turned out that I not only used the wrong code, but also the wrong powersupply. When I hooked the sensor up to the powersource in the Interaction Station, my arduino was still reading strange numbers. Then I saw on the internet that people used just the arduino as a powersource. After trying that it worked totally fine. This is the code I used:

/*
  ReadAnalogVoltage
  Reads an analog input on pin 0, converts it to voltage, and prints the result to the serial monitor.
  Attach the center pin of a potentiometer to pin A0, and the outside pins to +5V and ground.
 
 This example code is in the public domain.
 */

// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
  // initialize serial communication at 9600 bits per second:
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
  // read the input on analog pin 0:
  int sensorValue = analogRead(A9);
  // Convert the analog reading (which goes from 0 - 1023) to a voltage (0 - 5V):
  float voltage = sensorValue * (5.0 / 1023.0);
  // print out the value you read:
  Serial.println(voltage);
    delay(1500);        // delay in between reads for stability
}

So now I can focus on the smell-producing part, which is probably the hardest. I figured out that are several ways to that. Like:

• Using a sprayer, using probably something like a servo motor to trigger it. Super easing, but produces a huge cloud of smell, whereas I need just a small portion.
• Heating a container to vaporize the scents. Kinda easy too, but slow.
• Using a ultrasonic transducer to vaporize a scent liquid

Since this is the part I hadn't really figured out yet I wanted to prototype it a bit more. I bought a fohn, and took it apart to extract the heating element from it. This heating element is made from a Nikkelchrome wire, which is heat resistant untill 1200 degrees Celsius. Amazingly and perfect for my heating element. At first I wanted to heat a metal plate constantly, and drip a drop of scent on that plate, so that it would vaporize (like on the sketch I've made). But the wire consumes about 1 ampere, which is way too much when I run it on batteries. It would drain the battery in hour, which doesn't make sense if you would wear it all day. So then I thought, it might be better to only heat it when needed. I did a test with a little glass bottle, which is perfect because it electro conductive. It does work, but it takes way to long before it starts vaporizing. This method is more suitable when you want to vaporize somehow equal amounts of scent liquid over a long period of time. So, two methods left on my list, which both could work fine. I think I'll buy an air humidifier, to extract the transducer from it. I heard from a classmate that it contains a quite complicated circuit board, but I expect the principle of the transducer to be quite simple. It's basically where you apply a voltage which then start to vibrate.

More stuff 17-6

I ordered another sensor, this time a carbon monoxide sensor. This one does measure one gas, which makes it much easier to figure out what is detected. Carbon monoxide is also one of the gasses which is contained in smog. Although not necessarily toxic, it is one of the wolves in sheep's fur (as we say in Dutch). It is one of the gasses that slowly choke you as it takes the place of oxygen in your blood.

I also did some form research, on how my addon accesoire should look like. The first is like an extension of your finger (first picture). I like this since in this case it would really make sense to 'smell' with your fingers, as you want to keep the gass as far from yourselves as you want. You could for example put your finger just outside the door as you feel how bad the polution today is. But as it blocks your tactility, a different would be better. You could also wear it as a ring, as the sensor almost looks like jewelery to me (second picture). I think I still need to think a bit more about how the whole thing would look like (where I hang the electronics etc). The last picture is inspiration, it's mask worn by sporters, when they brook their nose. It somehow looks organic, but gives you still a strange feeling.

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