Tech Project

Description of the challenges faced by the Tech Project

The overall objective of hackAIR is to develop and pilot test an open platform that will enable communities of citizens to easily set up air quality monitoring networks and engage their members in measuring and publishing outdoor air pollution levels, leveraging the power of online social networks, mobile and open hardware technologies, and engagement strategies.

Brief description of technology

hackAIR enables the collection of data from publicly available sources: a) measurements by existing air quality stations and open data, b) geo-tagged and time-stamped images posted through social media; and contributions from the hackAIR community: c) images captured by the users of the hackAIR mobile app, d) measurements submitted by citizens using low-cost open hardware devices. hackAIR establishes models for estimating the air quality through visibility of available images. All these data are aggregated and are freely provided to the users though the hackAIR web and mobile platform. hackAIR will provide instructions (and code) to users so that they build an Arduino sensor compatible with the hackAIR platform. In addition to Arduino, we are also supporting a PSoC sensor, where sensor data can be uploaded to hackAIR using a Bluetooth low energy module.

What the project is looking to gain from the collaboration and what kind of artist would be suitable

The artist could give us a totally new perspective on the design of the hackAIR sensors and of their cases. As our project addresses citizens, and especially young people, the hardware should be visually appealing. Added to this, the hackAIR platform should be user friendly and easy-to-use, so that we involve as many active users as possible. The hackAIR platform is under development and it is going to include various gamification elements to keep users engaged. An artist could help us to make our platform even more attractive and, for sure, could contribute to the dissemination activities of the project.

Resources available to the artist

Office facility, computer, internet connection, partial access to the platform’s code, prototypes of the hackAIR sensors.