Week 8 was different than the regular seminars, this was the first workshop to be conducted amidst the lockdown due to Covid-19. From this week froward, all the seminars would take place in the same format. We were introduced to online collaborative tools such as Zoom and Mural.
This week Mary, Liam & Chidi talked about iOT applications relating to environment.
The Presentation
Mary started the presentation by speaking about air quality and its impacts. She went on to elaborate on global warming and climate change and what are the guidelines set in place for air quality. She told us about other countries such as Germany and how people use tech to check up on the air quality. She touched upon the state of air quality in Limerick and how many monitors are present currently.
Next up, Liam spoke about iOT applications in the farming industry and how agriculture and farming industry accounts for a huge share of greenhouse gases most of which come from the cows. He spoke about organic and sustainable farming and how softwares such as FarmOS help farmers plan and keep a check. He also talked about Quick Carbon which is a device that shows the carbon levels in the soil. He also spoke about the dairy farming and milk machines.
Lastly Chidi spoke about iOT applications with respect to the oil industry. He spoke about the case of his home country Nigeria where oil spills are common and the technology in place to prevent them. He spoke about companies that are responsible for them and the economic factors behind it. He spoke about the kind of effect it has on the people of Nigeria and how the government and army is involved in this issue.
The video below shows the Nigerian river polluted by oil spill from the popular company Shell & what effects it has on the people around it.
The Workshop
After a quick break, we all came back and were broken down into groups. Each group was given a brief and a mural board. I was teamed up with Brian, Niamh, Biyi and Mary. Our brief was to redesign a reebok show to make sure it’s environment friendly and use iOT technology to do so. It was targeted towards 16-50 years old.
We brainstormed and came up with a couple of ideas, we then narrowed down to features that we all liked and we wanted to include in the final design.
Our final show design was designed to be modular so people could switch out parts that are worn out hence increasing the lifetime of the show and making it more sustainable. We also included a sensor in the shoe that would sense the pressure on each part of the show and show how each part is taking pressure to see which part is worn out and needs replacing. The shoe also had spikes which would aerate the soil and a pollen pocket at the heel tab to spread seeds as the person ran. A weight sensor would tell the user when it was time to refill the seed pocket.
It was refreshing to see everyone work together online and come up with great ideas. Sustainability is an issue that’s becoming more and more relevant as time goes by because of increasing global warming and climate change issues. It was amazing to learn about technology changing the farming experience because the country I come from houses a 70% rural population which is connected to farming in some way or the other. In India farming is much more labour intensive and it was great to learn about technology and how it can make the framer’s job easier.
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