Biomimicry

3D Scanning

Man Made Leaf

 

Body Place by Fabian Galama

Tweet:  Body Place researches off grid technologies to find new guidelines in order to change the paradigm of our society and its infrastructure

 We stick with our grids, simply because they are there, because we invested in them. But if we had to do it all again, on an off grid location, would we rebuild all our current grids?  Would we build a landline phone system again when we have the mobile technology?

 

Above are the current grids that we are connected to in the first world, some physical, some organisational and some virtual such as the internet but most are a combination of digital and physical grids.

 

The problem

1. Over Population; The current world population of 7.2 billion is projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 and that growth will be mainly in developing countries, with more than half in Africa.

2. Shortage of on grid Space; 1/3 of the landmass is on grid, 2/3 of the landmass is Off Grid.

3. Sweet Water shortage; We will require more fresh water. Developing countries will demand more then three times as much water. 3% of all water in the world is sweet: 70% of that is ice caps. Most of the 30% groundwater and surface water goes to agriculture and industries and only 8% is what we drink and clean with.  (Scotland should forget about oil, it has a much more valuable asset: fresh water)

4. Migration & Travel Increase; Migration and Traveling, whether it is economically, professionally or privately are only going to increase. It is odd that there is no global body to oversee the movement of people, as there is with finance and trad

5. World Energy Consumption Growth; World energy consumption will grow by 56 per cent before 2040.  The Total world energy supply is different from actual world energy usage due to energy loss.(33%)

6. Recourses; Gas will last for about 50 years. Oilruns out within 50 years. Coal will last a thousand years but causes destructive global warming. Nuclear Energy efficiency 66% lost to cooling, 300 billion liters per power plant rise water temperature to 30 degrees. 10.000 years lasting waste is unacceptable. Renewable Energy is only 16%, however, is growing

7. Waste increase; Global solid waste generation was on pace to increase 70% to more than 6 million tonnes per day by 2025.

 

This also happens to our cultures. When you look at history, cultures have come and gone, such as the Incas, the romans. So,likely, also we are doomed! However, we are clever in enough to stall it a bit and change some patterns in how we live.

 

 

Basic needs  for the modern human beings involve; 1 Body care, water, nutrition, and exercise.2 Communication, social and professional networks, education.3 Mobility and transport. 4 Shelter. 5 Power to enable the technology involved in the six rinteractions between these basic needs

 

Birds (music by Anouk) click here

What can we learn from animals?

There are between a 100 and 400 billion birds in the world and they all live somewhere, feed somewhere and they mate, build nests, migrate and communicate, totally sustainable.  The same can be applied to the quadrillion ants that occupy the globe.  When we farm animals for meat it all becomes horribly inefficient and cruel in many ways.  The animals are doing a much better job than we are, in living with so many.  Could we adopt some aspects from the bees, the ants and the birds?

They all feed locally, and migrate with the food and climate.
Animals have no possessions, no vehicles, no clutter, no stuff
They keep a territory, but only as long as they need it, sometimes building there own habitats but leaving it to others afterwards.
Animal are living totally off grid, they don’t have any need for services

 

Possessions

Possessions were traditionally there for our security.  Happiness, health, education, freedom and power (as in influence) are valued just as much, if not more.  If we could ‘own’ less and share more we would use our world much more efficiently.  It is already happening in society, with things like AirBNB, the Flex desk or the Car club on a sophisticated level.

 

Territory

Can we even take it a step further; we need social diversity but will we still need countries? Animals don’t have countries.  The Indians never thought of owning land, putting a fence around it, they lived off grid in balance with nature, before we came.  Taking down borders is already happening, such as the European union, United Africa. On the internet there are no borders and it works fine.  Could we run the world like the internet, with education, trade and banking etc.?  Isn’t war almost an absurd old-fashioned concept?

 

Off Grid Communication

Project Loon by Google has the mission of providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The project uses high-altitude balloons placed in the  stratosphere at an altitude of about 20 mi (32 km) to create an aerial  wireless ntework with up to 3G-like speeds.  Internet already provides education, healthcare but that could become more effective.

 

I have been looking at new off-grid technologies. The sustainable energy grid is something we are busy with now.  Can we take it a step further and go totally off grid?  We already know the Zero House, but could every building, factory, hospital and university become energy independent? Could every thing, vehicle, phone computer, every street post light go off grid but stay online within the internet of things?  We can create objects and Robject that not only charge locally but also create local energy.

 

Body Care off grid technologies

Water; 1. Elequa Water Recycling Technology; 2. Eole water wind turbine catches humidity and produces drinking water; 3. Take the salt, Desalination through membranes.

Food; 1. local farming on roofs, re-using recourses from building underneath; 2. In vitro meat, grows cow cells, 100 % muscle, with healthy fats and 80% more efficient than the bio industry; 3. Taste machine TEI, drinking water giving impulses to the tongue its drinking something else.

Health; 1. 3d printing of organs and cartilage; 2. Long distance robotic surgery; 3. IBody, An Nano-sensor that measures your blood and DNA and tells you what your body needs, and therefore works a prevention method.

 

Man always has wanted to fly. Da Vinci has already designed flying machine and centuries later the history of aviation took off. In many Sifi film we often envisioned able to fly personally. Current prototypes like the jetpack and Flyboard prove that and look at the popularity and development of drones. Although still controversial, if we would fly ourselves it would open in numerous design possibilities for off grid locations.

 

Experiment

In my own experiments with a drone I saw that flying is not that evident, depending changing winds, navigation, obstacles etc. However, conceptually we were able to execute the following scenario of the flying waiter.  Although my first experiment with the Body Bubble was not very successful, flying ourselves would  mean:

• Build a less elaborate infrastructure.
• Save valuable space
• Gain access to more global areas
• Save capital on infrastructure
• Leave fewer traces when we leave.
• Change how and where we live

 

Shelter

If would fly we can have very different kinds of shelter. It would be able to re-locate at remote places like the artic, the oceans, the Sahara. we would differentiate the mobile unit, the hub or a ‘beehive’ city. Maybe a house could be like Google chrome, you can log into it anywhere and all your setting will be there. 3d printers can copy and recycle personal objects and memorabilia’s

 

Practice; Project Life off the Grid (Papoa New Guinea)

 Parallel to this I have been involved in the research project of anthropologists Jamie Cross and Alice Street. Their research in PNG functioned for me more as a context to my research and also worked as a reality check. My quest to change paradigms is quite far away from a remote hamlet of Begasin in PNG. However, ideas were exchanged.

 

Proposed technologies to see if , in some way, this would be feasable to implement them on location

• Project loon
• Micro windmill
• Robots
• Rfid Jewelry for medication dispenser
• Chime with a light
• Power felt tree that need rubbing but use the heat. The phone charger as part of the bush spirits.
• Drone to fly medication in, which doubles up as a mobile phone satellite.
• Bacterial Spores Harness Evaporation Energy, 1000x more powerful than a human muscle

 

Body Place / Life off Grid Video (click here)

Begasin PNG has a few challenges: It is totally off grid, no power, no path. Health care is there but very limited with what they can do and also for the health care person it is very hard to not get involved in local social politics, and maintain neutral.  The drone could be used for variable purposes.  It could transport medication, flying batteries.  It could also make a doctors visit, a care taker can fly across to the other hamlet (which is in sight but takes 3 hours to walk to) and bring necessary emergency gear and use the camera to see what is wrong with a patient.  It also can photograph and map the remote area.

We, and also the local people there, might think that Papua New Guinea is catching up with us, however,  It might take a minor change in PNG and also Africa’s paradigm to get economical ahead due to the absence of an elaborate infrastructure. The expected population growth in the world is happening in developing countries not the western countries, it is just as likely they might be the ones that will be ahead one day in an off grid society.

The Body Place hub would be a energy self contained unit.  That would have energy to spare so locals can come to the hub and charge phones and interact.  It could be used for various purposes as it could be an information or educational hub.  It could also be a general GP’s practice and, possibly in the future, the GP can be replaced by Robarta’s brother Doc ROP (Robot Omni Purposes)  In that case various specialists can communicate with patients remotely and even perform robotic surgery if necessary.

 

Lets start living like ‘animals’ again, in the most sophisticated way.  Maybe we will fit all 9 billion of us in 2050 and many more. Or if you think it is all too far fetched to start flying and give up territories, please don’t forget to use condom because we are going to be with many very soon!

 

Digital Garden Video by Fabian Galama

Digital Garden by Fabian Galama

 

It doesn’t matter whether you live in a small African village, or you live in a big city, everything comes back to plants in the end: whether it’s for the food, the medicine, the fuel, the construction, the clothing, all the obvious things; or whether it’s for the spiritual and recreational things that matter to us so much; or whether it’s soil formation, or the effect on the atmosphere, or primary production. Damn it, even the books here are made out of plants. All these things, they come back to plants. And without them we wouldn’t be here.  Jonathan Drori 2009

 

Simran Sethi:  Seeds are the essential ingredient of procreation of any species, plant or animal. If you think that an exhibition about seed is not sexy; seeds ARE sex, basically

 

Why are seeds important?

Over time food has gone extinct. The United Nations estimates 75% of crop varieties have disappeared since 1900.  New breeds of seeds are patented, and monopolies of only a few companies, now owning, replacing and limiting the bio diversity of the world seed supply.  Well, the loss of biological diversity is currently one of the greatest challenges facing the environment and sustainable development.  Seeds are under threat by climate change, replacement by other species.  Example: apples, there used to be 7000 types of apple and now 6800 have gone extinct, so only 200 varieties are left, that’s how serious it is.

 

So maybe it is a good idea to preserve seeds and to know more about them, so we needs access to them in a visual, interactive mannerAt the Left top and bottom: The Seed bank at Kew Botanic Gardens is housing three billion seeds, which is 10% of all plants species and hopes to have 25% by 2020. Not just crop plants but all plant species

Right top and bottom is Svalbard Norway’s Global Seed Vault (nicknamed the Doomsday Vault)on the island in the north, houses only crop seeds, in case a major disaster will strike the earth. Ark of Noah for crop plants. They are kept -18 degrees Celsius at all times.Eventually there will two and quarter billon (2.250.000.000) seeds, (500 of each species) It is a remote place to get to in an emergency; however, I suppose anything is hard after a world disaster.

 

UK Pavilion ‘Dandelion’ Showcases 60,000 Seeds at Shanghai Expo by Thomas Heatherwic

 

 

Ai Weiwei, one of my favorite artists, has done an impressive installation at the Tate Modern in London for which he has a whole village in China making millions of porcelain sunflower seeds.  I though that made an incredible impact.  Also I watched an Italian children’s performance with digital projections of plants on the stage and noticed how much fun and natural it looked to interact with it.

 

The Herbarium at RBGE holds a few hundred thousand of seeds and information about plants in their archive.  It is an international treasure that has plant collection from countries, such as turkey, that even the countries themselves don’t have.  You can go online and find the species that are being digitalized, 2/3 of the content of the library I believe.  What is in the archive is not directly linked to the garden itself.

 

Concept idea

When I am wondering around the botanic garden, it is always in one state, and I see basically see it as a glorified park. I do not really get to know the plants, where they come from, how they grow, bloom etc.  I wanted to create something that would allow me to access those species, in fact all species, if possibleThe other thing I was intrigued by was what our tour guide (now with pension) who said that where the botanic used to be, on Leith walk, that there wasn’t anything there to remind us of that fact. In my research I discovered the old gate cottage was still there (now disassembled and stored) and apparently there is the intention to rebuild it as part of the new educational centre. I was inspired to do something with that space.

 

I wanted to combine the two elements and create a digital garden where lost or forgotten species can come back to life. Creating a visual link between data, archives, knowledge of gardens and seed banks all over the world.

tweet: Digital Garden at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is an interactive installation and learning experience about seeds of plants.

 

The Leith Walk cottage plans on its new location in the corner of the botanic gardens, where  the rebuilding will commence shortly.

 

Seeds from the seed bank are on shelves one of the four walls) will be tagged by RFID codes. When you place them on one of the device it will light up blue (to represent water) and an information flow will start up on the projection walls. In case several seeds are being placed on various devices, a digital garden will start to emerge.  A wider range of sensors still need to be investigated to get an interesting combination that will have the right impact for the space.

 

Wall projection can exist of all kind of information. First of all there will be images and time-lapse videos of plants, so you get to know the plants, but also a map of where the live or place of origin. It also can relate to gardeners growing particular seeds in their greenhouse or allotments

 

Proto types

I wanted a device that would ‘read’ a seed type and then trigger its information in the form of videos maps and archive data. I also wanted to shine a blue shimmer of light to represent the water that would make the seed grow virtually.  Its design originally resembled a vase or flowerpot but developed into a more sophisticated sensor block, however the blue light is still the intension.  Originally I also wanted a multitude of devices to be able to create a ‘digital jungle’ but realized the plants time-laps projections would only alternate too quickly so the jungle would never reach its full potential. The sensor blocks were planned to be wireless to increase the installation character.

 

Arduino Work

I started with a Adafruit PN532 NFC/RFID Controller Shield and a Arduino Yun, which can be controlled wireless, or so I thought. I managed to get the Yun working by itself but it was harder to make the RFID shield work with it on top. I made the mistake of not resetting the devices separately (not attached) when updating the code, however after a small success as in response the Yun fell dead and did not work anymore in combination with the shield. I had started a profile on Thingspeak, online, in order for the device to work independently, which worked fine, however, the main disadvantage with Thingspeak is that it only refreshes the reading of RFID’s every 15 seconds, which meant that when a seed RFID was triggered, it would take 15 seconds before anything would happen which I found too long. It would appear as if nothing was working and one would lose interest.  Originally I was going to set up 3 devices simultaneously and discovered the Adafruit shield was not very suitable for that, since you also would need three Arduino’s. So I switched to the RFID Reader ID-20LA (125 kHz).  Later I decided to stick with one sensor not to overcomplicate things, (KIS-rule; Keep It Simple)  Design-wise the ID20LA gave me better options for the device as well, since it is not directly attached to the Arduino but via flexible wires.  My order of the Neopixal was delayed but I managed, with help from Hadi, to install them and program the light and colour sequences.  Then I combined the two Arduino sketches into one, after which bot the RFID sensor and the lights worked but not at the same time. I needed to add a separate battery pack because the 5V on the Arduino Uno did not allow for both of them to work at the same time.  Once the RFID sensor was programmed back into processing, it suddenly worked together (thanks to Hadi). The lights are running separately from Arduino. I recorded the working device as proof, because you never know.

 

Final proto type;

I kept the design for the sensor as simple as possible and left the Arduino, RFID sensor and the wired deliberately visible as part of the design. Why hide it, when it is the heart of this whole project? Future development of the device: I would like to enhance it by extending the installation with smell, to connect it with global botanic gardens and seed banks all over the world. The aim would still be to make it a wireless device and being able to insert Media such as Instagram, twitter and other databases that can contribute to gather information about specific plants.  Also the feature could extend to retail, where people want to see what kind of flower or plant the are planting.  Another later aim would be to take the whole exhibition online so that everybody anywhere could take part in the experience of the digital garden. The Ideal would be that a seed would not need any RFID tag and sensors would recognize the seed on its own, maybe scan it like an MRI, and recognize any seed from anywhere

(See video above this presentation!)

 

Questions

Q: The video data will add a enormous data base to our files or how do you see that?

A:  Yes indeed, that is the disadvantage, however, you only have to make it once and the file could live online or in data bases around the the world.

Q:  To what other applications could it be applied?

A: The idea is to go online with this device and include all media like instagram, twitter, you tube etc. so all that.  You could find about this plant would be available. Not only t the RBGE, but also at other gardens, seed vaults and museums.  It would be like a visual Botanic ‘Wiki-Media’.   Also this device could also be applied in retail. I somebody is not sure what kind of seed they are buying or what it will do in the garden they can have a preview

Q:  What happens if I have a certain seed or plant at home?

A:  If you plant the seed in your greenhouse, grow it and document the progress it could be added to the link/hashtag of the data base of that plant.

Q:  What happens if you use multiple devices at the same time?

A:  The RFID tag can be programmed to play via certain projectors or screens. Also the program will at least take a basic time for every scan before moving to the next scan so it will never look chaotic.

 

Evaluation

When I started the design informatics course I knew I would be in contact with people who would know how to code, but never thought that I would be able to code anything EVER! To me it is like learning Arabic. In that sense it has been a vertical learning curve. Having said that, I am not sure it will ever be my expertise. I am a visual designer and numbers and semi-colons do not ignite my creativity, however, it is very exciting what effect they have on what you design.  It was a petty that we, as students lost track of each other’s movements in our projects, at least I did. Of course we are to blame for that ourselves.  Other than by the tutors, I did not learn anything new about coding or Arduino from my peers. Maybe everybody was a bit in dark.

In general I have gained much more understanding of, and respect for technique. I have always been quite impatient and ignorant when things don’t work and find myself often irritated why technique has to be so complicated.  But it is almost like a plant, you can seed and water it, but you don’t always get the right result straight away.  Many factors play a part of and I have experienced how fragile and subtle it is, and how lovely and rewarding when it eventually works.

Phillips Lighting

Sony Entertainment Network

MIT – Advances in Architectural Geometry