Monthly Archives: June 2015

North Fork Citico Creek Digital Lab (NFCCDL) (Owl Camp) – Hugh

Building the infrastructure for North Fork Citico Creek Digital Lab (NFCCDL) (Owl Camp):

From This: image  to This: P1060078

First day out of Unicoi Gap (TN) opened with an easy (albeit pack-heavy) stroll down an old logging road, later turning steep, wet, and slippery. After a night sleeping in a trailside encampment and a shorter hike down a much easier trail, we arrived at the NFCCDL (Owl Camp) site. Lunch was followed by a short but intense rain shower, what we erroneously supposed would be the first of many, so we scrambled to set up tarps for protection and as the first stage of the NFCCDL.

A 20×20 silnylon tarp stretched between four trees– a hickory, an oak and two dead hemlocks–and tied up by the Jeannette Andrew Elevation Team (JAET) became the main staging area, with headroom provided by another conveniently located uprooted hemlock trunk (probably the result of an earlier wind storm which also produced a ready stock of dead branches). Protected from water from above, the next order of business was avoiding the stream flowing through the nascent NFCCDL. Shiva gathered forked sticks, planted them upright, and we arranged and lashed rows of sticks, forming a 4×4 low table. Rain all you want, the designing can commence.

-Hugh Crawford

Standing on the shoulders of giants – Jeannette, Andy

J- I loved my role as Master Blaster. At 5’, 96 lbs and agile, I could stand on the shoulders of Andy Q and reach heights that we could not have reached alone. We raised the tent of our workplace to unprecedented heights.

Master-Blaster for hanging Ropes high!

Master-Blaster for hanging Ropes high!

A- Our formation as the amazing Master Blaster duo was an important tool for the camp. As a 3 meter high mega monster, we were able to hang the roofs of our hacking labs quite high, to make for comfortable making!

 

eleven-foot-tall-woman

Diving in Heavy: First Day Hiking

After the last day of the prelim workshops, there was still SOO much for me to do.

I had to finish charging all of our batteries, finish up several projects, organize the last bits of electronics we needed to take, and prep the hacking laptop (hacktop). Just getting this laptop ready was a major time suck. I had recently switched to an old macbook air (2010, 11 inch version) because it was super lightweight, cheap, and rather power efficient. But i didn’t have lots of the software and drivers and libraries we needed on it t work with lots of different projects. We were leaving at 6am, which mean i just didn’t sleep.

Luckily Laura drove my car for me, and I passed out immediately (while trying to charge an extra battery). I apparently put a penguin mask on my head to block out the light. I have no recollection of this:

Hitting the Trail

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Everyone was already loaded to the gills with STUFF. The lightest packs were over 35 pounds (16kg), and most ranged around 18-23kg (40-50lbs) . Paul was pretty worried about us being overloaded, but I was feeling bizarrely terrific. So i tried to hide the fact that I was carrying a superfluous 50 foot fire hose and generator in my backpack. I had so little room I had to carry Hannah’s portable day pack on my front. My total load ended up being 36.8 kg (81 lbs).

I was a bit worried. I had little sleep, and just 6 weeks before I had broken my left foot. But the weird thing was, i felt fantastic. My whole body just felt comfortable and strong tromping through the forest with all this gear. I think all the injuries and illnesses from the previous hiking hacks had torn my body down to rebuild it into a fantastic machine for carrying ridiculous amounts of potentially useless stuff.

 

Field Power

The first question we always get when talking about making electronics and computers in the wilderness is how to power all of our tools. During this trip we tested out numerous different ways of getting the electrical power our devices needed.

P1060217

Coding around the Campfire

 

Needs

From extremely rough estimates of previous hiking hacks, we came up with a basic idea of what our electrical needs would be.

Where does the power go:

  • 60% Documentation Gear (camera batteries)
  • 20% Computer for programming
  • 15% Lights (Headlamps, etc)
  • 5% Powering microcontrollers

Total power needed (Based on the batteries we went through):

3x 20a-H batteries  2x26a-H battery 4x5a-h batteries

In Madagascar we recharged the biggest batteries about twice, and the smaller ones 1-2 times. In total I would estimate needing about 60+60+52+52+52+20+20 =~ 300 amp-hours of power total. This amount of power would help keep documentation cameras rolling, lights shining, computers programming, and microcontrollers booping-and-beeping for a full 7 days in the field.

 

Different strategies are available for supplying this power.

Just carry a bunch of batteries

This is the most fool-proof plan, and most important for shorter trips. Just charge up a bunch of power packs, and carry them with you. Obviously the major downside of this plan is all the additional weight.

P1040499

Solar

Solar is terrific, but it tends to need much more direct bright sun than most people anticipate. The difference between a cloudy day and a clear day is greatly magnified when trying to charge off solar. You also might find yourself chasing patches of sun throughout the day if you are in a thick forest (like we were).

Pyro-Electric

Pyro-electric devices are starting to come out on the market. They use peltier devices which are little ceramic tiles that create an electric current when there is a large heat-gradient from one side to the other. Thus the key to making electricity is getting one side really hot, and the other side really cold. This type of electricity is generally quite inefficient, but the advantage is that you can forage for fuel. This form of power only really makes sense if you are going to be making fires every night anyway. The amount of power we got out of one fire, though seemed quite small. We could maybe charge 2-3 amp-hours of a battery over the course of a couple hours. You also need to be constantly paying attention to the position of your device in the fire.

Hydro-electric

This was one of the craziest forms we tried out in this recent trip. If you know beforehand that you will have easy access to a source of running water, you can try to tap into this resource. You will need a way to control or direct the water, and a way to generate power from it (turbine). Our technique was to carry a large (50 foot) firehose that could be attached to an electrical generator.

Our early tests with DIY hydropower still need much development. We were able to place the hose at two different spots in the flowing creek and get a decent flow of water. We were also able to find a generator that could get 3-5 volts and power and LED by spinning it. Unfortunately this generator needed a much higher pressure than was available from our hose. The hose also tended to collapse unless the flow was much better. Our homemade turbine (that we created from a vibration motor and a plastic cap), showed that we could generate power, but only in the 40-50 mV range.

Future designs will be made to more efficiently harvest energy from low-pressure systems.

 

 

Shakey or Crankey – Electric

We didn’t try this on the trips, but you could also generate power with your own body. They have those flashlights that you can shake or crank to make electricity. Such devices could come extremely in handy during projects that also featured addition transportation gear (like a bicycle when mountain biking).

A crank could also be attached to some pulleys and makeshift gears to create a gravity-powered electricity generator.

 

Hanging the tarp

Hanging Out – Laura’s Guide to Hammock Camping

The smallest things can make the biggest differences when you’re out in the field for long periods of time. After years of being a ground dweller in tents, I was ready to take to the trees and finally develop my hammock kit.
Since I got confirmation that I’d be going on this trip, I’ve spent hundreds of hours combing through hammock camping resources and making DIY modifications to my gear. Camping hammocks and accessories are largely driven by cottage industries and an active community of people trying, testing, and developing their own tools to get “the perfect hang”. There’s a wealth of knowledge on the Internet for people interested in getting into hammock camping.
Why choose a hammock over a tent?
  • They’re cooler in warmer temperatures
  • They can be lighter in weight and take up less pack space than a tent setup
  • They can be cheaper than a tent setup
  • You don’t have to worry about finding flat or debris-free ground
  • You don’t have to worry about flooding
  • No condensation issues commonly experienced in tents
  • Comfort!
Common hammock misconceptions:
  • You can’t lay flat – you can by laying diagonally!
  • You can’t sleep on your side – you can with asymmetrical designs!
  • They make you motion sick – once you’re in, you’re not moving unless you want to
  • It’s hard to find the right trees – this is rarely a problem and, in the worst case scenario, you can pitch a hammock on the ground as a bivvy
A basic hammock set-up consists of the following:
  • Camping hammock, with a built-in bugnet
  • Suspension
  • Tarp, guylines, and stakes
  • Bottom insulation (sleeping pad or under-quilt)
  • Top insulation (sleeping bag or top-quilt)
Camping hammocks are generally much longer (11-13 feet) than the standard ENO relaxing hammocks you see at the beach. This length is important in creating the diagonal flat laying position desired. Warbonnet Outdoors and Hennessy make excellent camping hammocks and were used by a few members during our trip. There are a few different suspension methods, but the most common is a simple cinch buckle with webbing looped around the tree and clipped to itself with a carabiner (see upper right of the photo below). It’s important that you use webbing of at least 3”, as thinner lines and webbing can cause damage by digging into trees and are actually not allowed in most national and state parks.
The tarp you use for rain protection should be longer than the hammock you’re sleeping in. The simplest diamond shaped tarps, like the Kelty Noah 9’, are great for all but the most severe weather. I use a tarp by Warbonnet called the SuperFly, which is cut to provide doors that protect from heavy downpours and also provides privacy. Basically, the setup becomes a floating tent!
Hanging the tarp

Here, I’m using a continuous ridgeline so I can perfectly position my tarp over my Warbonnet Blackbird hammock without running back and forth from tree to tree

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This tarp with built-in doors looks like a floating tent, once staked down. I’ve added a couple of DIY short tent poles to pop out the tarp wall tie outs and this gives me more headspace inside.

The tarp ridgeline also makes a great drying line for wet clothes!

Tying up the corners puts your tarp in “porch mode” – a great way to get ventilation and views

A unique consideration in hammocks over tents is insulation. Hammocks are great for use in warm climates (particularly hot, muggy, tropical locations) because air flowing under you keeps you breezy and cool. However, most people suffer from what is known as “Cold Butt Syndrome” (CBS) in temperatures under 75F if they are not using bottom insulation. This bottom insulation could be as simple as a sleeping pad put in the hammock, but those can slip around and negate the natural comfort of having the hammock yield to your body shape. I prefer using an under-quilt, which is a rectangular quilt that hangs flush under the hammock. It’s important that this be under the hammock, because if you compressed it between yourself and the hammock then the quilt would lose its insulation properties and you’d get CBS.

The blue quilt is my underquilt that kept me warm and comfortable on the coldest of our nights

For top insulation, I use a down top-quilt with a cinch footbox at one end. Sleeping bags can also be used as top insulation, however, note that it’s easier to use them as a blanket rather than climbing into them (difficult to do while laying in a hammock). On the warmer nights of our trip, I found that I didn’t need the topquilt as the underquilt provided the only warmth I needed to be comfortable.

The black topquilt in this photo is stuffed with down and has a durable water proof protection that kept me toasty all week

My last luxury item was a little pillow, though I probably didn’t need it because the hammock gave my head and neck great support.

Packs up small and the synthetic down kept my head warm

That’s the basic setup, but the real fun comes in tweaking your gear to match your kind of camping. After a week spent in the hammock, I won’t go to ground willingly again!
Here are some great resources if you are interested in getting your hammock setup together:

Preliminary Projects – Wearables in the Wild

During our initial workshops we brainstormed about different gear and superpowers we wanted to bring with us into the field. The targets were for digital, wearable devices that could help us explore the environment or interact with other living creatures.

DSC_1094

We batted around ideas covering a broad assortment of topics, and these then we loosely grouped to find interesting categories that emerged. Some of these basic categories consisted of augmented means of navigating, obtaining the extranormal senses of animals, and new ways of capturing the rich multimodal experiences we were likely to enjoy.

Our group opted to try to build two initial devices from our assortment of interesting new ideas.

P1040507

embodied ethogram machine

A traditional Ethogram machine

A traditional Ethogram machine

The first device was an embodied tool for creating ethograms. Ethograms are long lists of observed animal behaviors, and they are usually made by meticulously logging the actions of the animals for a specific time period in a notebook or computer program. This process can get boring, and somewhat divorce the researcher from the world around them. By making an embodied suit, the participant could map actions and animals to actions performed by her or his own body. It could not only improve the researcher’s memory of what happened, but also make the experience more enjoyable and fun!

P1040518

The other device we worked to create before heading into the field was the Photosphere. Big arrays of cameras are gaining in popularity for capturing immersive environments (such as Google’s streetview). These are super expensive though. Matt Swarts had an idea to make an array of cheap photoresistors that we could wear into the field which could capture a 360-degree sphere of the changing light as we walked through the forest. These experiences could then be inexpensively re-created by mapping onto a dome with similarly placed LEDs.

 

Both of these projects were further developed when we got into the field.

Starting the Wearable Hiking Hack

This latest hiking hack is the most organized one to date. Lessons learned from the magnificent experiences in Panama and Madagascar left me prepared to tackle the many obstacles standing in the way of prototyping digital equipment in the wilderness.

This is also the first funded hiking hack thanks to Georgia Tech’s wearable Computing Center which gave us nearly $5,000 to run this expedition. It’s amazing how far this little bit of money can go!

The weeks leading up to this expedition were full of the millions of little tasks always needed before any big trip. We have to purchase supplies, figure out food, scout locations, and work out meetings between everyone’s schedules.
I held informal building-stuff workshops just at my house throughout april and may. We got some of the participants up to date in learning basic electronics and soldering skills, and we also built some of the major infrastructure for the project, such as sewing and sealing our own custom tarps.
We bought lots of our supplies from a great site called Diygearsupply.com, where they have lots of materials perfect for outdoor crafting and weatherproofing. For instance we could purchase huge lots of silnylon, which is an silicone infused, ultra-light, ultra compact-able material for making waterproof tents and tarps. Usually these tarps are extremely expensive, and a >20×20 foot tarp could cost well over $200. Instead we purchased silnylon “2nds” which have imperfections in their coloration, so they are discounted in cost, but are stuff waterproof and light! Working together we, sized, cut, and sewed the french seams of the fabric into a massive tarp within just a couple hours. Most importantly these early workshops helped us to get to know each other and understand our backgrounds and strengths.

The first two days of the workshop were held at Georgia Tech’s App Lab. We brainstormed ideas for wearable devices that could solve problems we expected to encounter in the field. We came up with many ideas (which ill describe more in posts tomorrow!)

P1040482

Dirt on My Mind: Angela’s Initial Musings

Animals are sexy! We’re fascinated by them, fear them, watch viral videos of them, and feel a special rapport with them. Then there are plants, which help us breathe, feed us, shelter us, and provide satisfaction or awe when that prized orchid finally blooms. However, the biomass – all living things – in any given ecosystem is only a fraction of that with which we can interact. That’s why my mind has been turning to the nonliving foundation for most life – dirt! Being a generally pragmatic person, I want to create something that’s also utilitarian. What if soil testing could be done with the soles of your shoes? Step on a patch of soil with the perfect composition, and you get all tingly (from the wearable)! Or your toes light up. You could be the coolest geologist/archaeologist/environmental chemist/paleontologist! I’m not a gadgety whiz so I’m hoping my more tech inclined teammates can help me figure out a way to make this possible. Of course, there are questions about durability and the type of soil testing. Can soil soles be a possibility? Answer will becoming in the next few days.

Ethogram Jam – Laura

Perhaps the only thing more interesting than the history of ethology itself, is the history of the crazy contraptions that have been designed to support such a science. The most temperamental, yet pervasive, of these tools is the ethogram device.
A traditional Ethogram machine

A traditional Ethogram machine

Looking a bit like a bloated calculator, an ethogram is made up of rows of cryptic keys that can be programmed to code in variables of interest. For example, it could be coded to specifically describe the sequence of actions that make up a duck preening its feathers. It could also be coded to log bird songs as they’re heard in a forest. Unfortunately, both ethogram hardware and software has left a lot to be desired resulting in frustrated scientists wrestling a baffling interface. The biggest problem I faced in the field with ethograms was the steep learning curve to a newly programmed set of keys and the uncomfortable knowledge that high error is just part of the game (“Ugh, did I hit A3 or B3 just now?”).
Recording behavior is fun and a behavioral recording tool should be just as fun while also making the job easier! A wearable apron or smock with sewn-in buttons representing behaviors, actions, or species representations might be just the thing to finally re-design the much-maligned ethogram.
Imagine you’re interested in the frequency, type, and maybe even geospatial location of birds calling in a forest. You could program buttons located on your arms, shoulders, hips, and/or thighs to represent different species. By tapping these different locations on your own body as birds call, you’d be leveraging the benefits of embodied cognition – you might learn faster, with less error, and it would be more fun and engaging. Built in feedback using LED lights, and possibly sound, would reinforce your understanding that yes! You did what you thought you were doing (an unfortunately rare feeling using traditional ethograms). You heard a cardinal, you tapped the associated cardinal button and it lit red in response to your touch.This data could be stored and analyzed later to understand call frequency and order sequencing by species. By pulling bird call mp3’s to match with the logged data, you could also aurally recreate that environment any time you like.
EthoSmock

Ethosmock realized later in the field!

This kind of wearable could also be useful for recording transect lines of plants, trees, and other animals or even logging firefly flashes. I like the idea that the “etho-smock” could not only be a passive logger of information, but also play it back in the form of light and sound (reminiscent of Close Encounters of the Third Kind).
Part science and part performance arts piece – the ethogram might finally enter the 21st century!
-Laura

It’s Over There – a box with a good sense of direction – Paul

I’ve been thinking about navigation in the wilderness and how digital media can support it. There are a couple of things that are particular to the type of navigation in the wilderness we’ll be doing  (foot travel in a place where routes aren’t necessarily defined and never square)  and some related work that might give some insight in to that topic, which might be the subject of a later post (GPS, FeelSpace Belt, compass).

http://feelspace.cogsci.uni-osnabrueck.de/

Having given it some thought, I’m still not sure where I fall with respect to a persistent sixth sense sort of set up because it fundamentally changes the experience of the world, which isn’t what a naturalist is after. It also adds a layer of complexity that’s not necessary for prototyping and testing tools. So I’m thinking of making a tool that can be used when needed or wanted, but not relied upon constantly (like GPS often seems to be for some reason).

This tool is basically a compass, but it always points to a user defined location. The simplest version I can think of would have a sensor (magnetometer or GPS depending on software) and a microprocessor in it, and a button and an LED with an arrow drawn next to it on the outside. The user pushes the button to set a location. From then on, if the arrow points at that location, the light turns on. I guess a vibration or anything could happen. Output shouldn’t be arbitrary, but I haven’t given it much thought yet.

There are lots of good uses for this, but primarily for me, it becomes a tool for developing a sense of direction that aligns with the type of movements, terrains, environments, and durations that are part of exploring the forest.

Sketch forthcoming.

– Paul