Category Archives: Energy

Daft Junk

Aankit Patel, Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Michael Ricca

Solar Powered Music Making Robots made from items headed for the trash found in the Sub-Basement of TISCH

http://www.inventioninbrooklyn.com/daftjunk/

Description

Sustainable design with electronics can often begin with a conversation about cost, what are my energy costs? How much energy was used to create my materials? How much does it cost in energy and resources to break down my waste? We began from a place of using things that were abundant and not being used on the floor: Trash and Solar Power from the giant panel on the roof of TISCH.

From there we created Daft Junk two solar powered robots, made from trash, who make music powered by the sun. Our audience can control the robots using a control box that simulates distribution of power to each of the robot's component parts. We want to introduce the audience to the idea of a power budget, demonstrating how much can be done even while adhering to strict constraints, but in a fun and playful way.

Classes

Energy

Song Logger

Kina Smith

A solar powered autonomous audio recorder and weather station for bird research.

http://kinasmith.com/songlogger-final-presentation-energy

Description

This data logger is headed up to Alaska this summer to be deployed as part of a USGS study of migrating bird populations and how climate change is effecting the Boreal-Arctic transition zone.

The Alaskan arctic and boreal ecosystems provide important breeding habitat for more than half of North America’s migratory birds. Northern landscapes are projected to experience more pronounced climate-related changes in habitat than most other regions. Changing habitat conditions, in turn, may have significant effects on the distribution and abundance of wildlife in these critical northern ecosystems. Birds are useful indicators for climate change because they are widely distributed, samples are collected by similar methods, and they occupy a wide variety of habitats including wetlands, forests, and shrublands.

Classes

Energy