Sustainable Practices at ITP

Project ideas for Fall 2007:

Mobile HOW Eco Scheduler

From Eugene Ahn

  Statement:

Making greener HOW decision on your schedule Everyday.

  Starting Point :

Climate change is now in very dangerous situation
from 1950's to now the climate went up for 5.7 f degree
If we keep living as we live right now, the climate will go up to about 5 more dgrees in another 50 years.
But, Why are we so not aware of the danger??!!\\ the graphic i saw (National Geographic) very alarmed me, much more than anything else i have seen before
Here is the link --->
Carbon crisis visualization

I realized how important it is to be aware of the matter
and how effective visualization can contribute to it
And most importantly, one's decision matters to the environment
How can i make the global environmental issues and problems more engaging to an individual?
How can i show the visualization more effective/ responsive way(Direct feedback)
How can a visialization be emerged to everyday life?

  How it works

When user is putting the basic TODO list on their Handheld device or Mobile phone,
It gives you the "HOW " options. After putting schedules in, \\ user can check his/ her contributions to the world climate change graphic.\\

for example
select?appointment :
where ? 721 Broadway
HOW to get there? bycicle/ taxi/ subway/ car
Depends on the"HOW" selection you make, with the assumption that\\ the earth is filled with the people who made the same decision as the user.
User will be able to look at the climate change graphic changed / and shown 50 years from now.
Also He / she can look at what she prevented/what might happen to the environtment at the climate she/ he choose it to be at the end.

Method:
Mobile application with using web data\\

Solar Messanger Pet

from Eugene Ahn

    Statement:

Making a creature which can live with Solar Energy
Making a solar pet robot who delievers message(audio or written form) to someone on the floor.
His nutrision is the sun light/ light source.
He likes to do deliever your message and like to take a nap near by the window or lamp,
But what he likes the most is taking a walk outside on a really sunny day together with you!

    Starting Point:

use of technology ( Basic need(Communication) + entertainment(Emotional usage) )
solar energy charged robots
especially for things we like to have fore additional use than ourbasic need.
-entertaining/ emotional usage of technology etc..
Robot pets' are very fascinating, but so often I found myself nullified with them very quickly.
Maybe it is because their simple funtion?Or maybe it is because they are so easy to turn on\\ and off.
We are very much attached to our pet we love and care.
We are amused by how simple and cute they are. We play with them, feed them or
we want to train them to do certain things we like them to do.
I want to make a robot pet that needs a care.
Also, The time that you spend to take care of the robot, you are refreshed by taking a walk with it outside!!

    Methods:
1*I would like to hack a bubble bot or a blimp and controllable via phone or computer.

2* Roomba ??
-application with PHP
-Processing serial
-Xbee or Bluetooth to communicate
Make it to deliever the messages from one area to another on the itp floor by

-attaching light motors to control the direction.
-very small MP3 recording(Preferrable)/ or simply written mesage to scrap paper.
When it is not delievering message
- during the day : it finds the brightest light near ro charge solar battery
- during the night: it goes to sleep to save energy.

............................................................................................

Dynamic System Monitor & Power Visualization

from Griffin Frazen

The Gallatin building (to be completed Spring 2008) will be the first renovation project at NYU to seek LEED certification.

The school’s HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Cooling) system will be highly efficient.
The entire site will contain energy-efficient appliances and lighting.
Offices, classrooms, and lounges will be equipped with Greenline furniture that is made from renewable or recycled materials.
A strong likelihood that Gallatin can reduce its water use by 20 percent.
During the demolition and construction project, all debris will be sorted and taken to recycling centers—something that has not yet been done in any other renovation project at NYU.

I would like to propose an installation (for the Gallatin lobby) that visualizes some or all of the buildings most interesting statistical data and demonstrates how design can be functional,
attractive, and still environmentally responsible. It is standard for buildings to have energy meters. By making the information public, it could increase awareness and disseminate useful
information in an attractive way. This project would attempt, not only to visualize the information, but show the users affect on the display in real time ("Prius effect"). The ultimate goal is to
influence people's behavior throught the use of functional public art.

I will begin research by answering these queestions:

How will I get the energy consumption data?
How much energy will the display itself use?
How can I affect change in building users' behavior to offset the display's energy?
How can I be sure that it's making a difference in their behavior? How can that change be observed or even measured?

Sustainable Info

From Younghyun Chung

Basic idea is let's use existing idea and technologies.

While reading this article, and this article, I thought why people act opposite
to what Al Gore appeal in his recent documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, or
Green Peace does a number of years. How can we encourage people to do
sustainable practices in everyday life? There are lots of todo list.
And also there are many cases using in world but not in other cities.

I'm thinking about an information kiosk to show followings:

1. surprising images or stories for public attention. ex) the trash island and increasing sea level.
2. existing ideas and technologies all around the world. ex) graphics on separate disposable bin. various solar panel usage.
3. sustainable practices for everyone.

I'm considering the concept of uniqlock as a format.

It is a flash clock which can be easily attached to blog and shows uniqlo's brand CF with DJ music.
Since it looks cool so many people spontaneously use it.
You can see it at the right side of my blog.

Virtualization of media

From Gian Pablo Villamil and Kunal Gupta

Many technologies seem to bring with them increased opportunities for increased waste and emissions.

It seems that one area where waste and emissions can potentially be dramatically reduced is in the digitization of media, and shift to distribution by electronic means. By downloading music and video instead of shipping physical media, perhaps a significant positive environmental impact can be achieved.

In this project, we would seek to understand the total lifecycle impact of physical vs. elecronic media distribution on the environment, in terms of waste generation, carbons emissions, and other key indicators (eg. noise).

Product Lifecycle Ideas:

From Lars Niki:

Hi all-I would like to propose a project focusing on the organic food market. Basically, I would like to find out where the organic food in New York City is coming from. Data can be collected by recording the USDA certified organic number on products and determining origin. Eco-footprint stats can be generated such as amount of energy to transport and amount of packaging/logistics/ overhead required to fulfill the product. Solutions to reducing this footprint could be generated pointing towards more efficiency thru local organic growth, better logistical systems, etc. This information could be graphically represented as an imaginative quicktime .mov, a static chart/map or an interactive map searchable by organic certified producer number with local alternatives offered depicting associated eco-savings.

It would be great to enter this project in the eco-visualization challenge http://www.eyebeam.org/learning/learning.php? page=ecovData

From Jung-Eun Shin:

I am interested in telling a visual story of what goes into making a pair of running shoes. It could be a flash website, geared towards the junior high-ish age group.

"STUFF : The Secret Lives of Everyday Things" explains very well the pipeline of a shoe's life among many other things (Tom Igoe passed this around in class last week) and has been a great first-step of research for me.

Let me know if any of you have similar interest/passion!

Jung-Eun

Anjali - I am interested in this.

Current Monitors:

From Sandra Villareal:

For my final, I am exploring the idea of a kilowatt usage monitor system prototype. There are few monitor devices already in the market, especially in UK. Locally, the Kill-A-Watt and the Cent-a-meter are examples of these devices. There are also more designed devices as the EnergyJoule and the Energy Orb. But I would like to propose a new iteration of these products base of their weakness:

. They only measure the general energy consumption.
. The display is located in the device.
. The data displayed is hard to read. A better, more intuitive visualization in needed.
. They encourage users to save money without showing the impact on the environment
. They are only informative. They don't offer an intelligent feedback.
. Their data is not related to other environmental data.

My design will include:

Current transducers for every appliance in the house or office in form of plugs or power strips with individual monitors to plug several appliances.
Wireless
Interface connected to a computer
Software application to monitor consumption. Data visualization on a floor-plan.
Interface with programable timers for appliances control.

I would like to implement a system of this kind for the ITP floor (maybe long term project)

Solar Ideas:

From Eugene Ahn:

Check this out, I found this design company, they are envisioning a lot of really really cool designs with solar energy.

http://www.solarlab.org/

I am interested in working with solar energy too! I am not quite sure what it will be.

From Evrim Sahin:

 had this idea lately which fits the scope of this class very well. I thought about it while I was looking for an apartment recently. Many buildings in Manhattan have windows that face not out to streets but towards the air shafts in the middle of the buildings, just like the windows in our classroom 406. These rooms never get enough sunlight, besides the displeasing views from them. You always have to have electrical lighting in these rooms, causing lots of energy usage.

So my idea -it might be too ambitions, but- is to transfer sunlight from the roof into a room by using mirrors and fiber optics. Attached jpeg shows the idea. I just did a quick research on reflecting and transfering light with mirrors and etc. Sure enough someone in a research lab thought about the same method and they are working on this. So this kind of discouraged me, although this one can still be a different solution. Check out this link about that research: http://www .sciencedaily.com/videos/2006-11-07/

I worked with fiber optics and LEDs before. Maybe it is hard to transfer direct sunlight into the fiberoptics but another solution might be using the solar panel power on the roof of Tisch building to the light LEDs that light the fiber optics. Of course, there might be things that prevent this kind of a project. For example, I don't know about city's building codes that might prevent installations like these on the facade of a building. Also the roof access might be an issue. And of course there is the cost issue. Fiber optics in big quantity might be pricy. I really like the idea but am not sure how doable it is.

Anyway I would like to hear what you think about the idea. Is it worth pursuing? Would you like to work on a project like this? Any feedback is welcome. Thanks a lot. Evrim

The Bamboo Ultimatum.

For my final I would like to do an informational presentation for saving trees.

I read some articles on how much CO2 we project into the air (about 7.2tonnes) and how trees absorb the CO2.
We are cutting down so many trees to build houses, furniture, hardwood floors, almost everything is made of trees or wood.
I would like to make people aware of some things we can do to save trees. There are many alternatives for using
things other then trees for our every day use. Another thing we can substitute wood for is Bamboo. This is a
very fast growing tree like alternative. I would like to explore Bamboo as the alternative thing to trees or wood.

Youjeong Paik

Oct 22