Sensational Buoys

Date & Time 

Saturday, June 26  |  15:00-18:00 CEST, 09:00-12:00 EDT, 23:00 – 02:00 AEST
Via Zoom 

 

Description

The workshop Sensational Buoys aims to explore the intersection between citizen sensing, toyification and monitoring urban waters. The participants will design and create the “Sensational Buoys”: small floating devices equipped with simple sensors and having a playful appearance. The buoys are playful devices to sense and visualize data about urban waters and are intended to raise awareness about the importance of monitoring our environment.

Citizen sensing is a way to promote awareness about the environment we live in and can be an empowerment tool fostering discussion and inspiring citizens to take action. Toyification is an approach to use toys and toy-like objects to support creativity, curiosity and exploration. The Sensational Buoys, then, will be characterised by toy-like aesthetics as a way to make them more enticing, so that they can engage participants and passersby in the activity and draw attention to the project.

The workshop will be divided in two parts: one dedicated to the speculative collaborative design and one dedicated to realisation and testing. The first part of the workshop will be dedicated to a free speculative exploration of how Sensational Buoys can be constructed and used. Facilitators and participants will discuss how citizen sensing can be applied to monitoring different kinds of urban waters. The second part of the workshop will be dedicated to the realisation of some Sensational Buoys made of recycled and craft materials integrated with a MicroBit board. The participants will create floating devices able to measure temperature near the water surface and display the collected information.

The workshop will be held online via Zoom. The participants can choose to participate in one or both parts of the workshop. 

 

Signing up 

Participants will be able to sign up for the workshop until the 25th of May. In the sign-up procedure they will be asked some basic information (name, email, level of proficiency with coding and/or electronics) as well as to indicate in which parts of the workshop they intend to participate. It is possible to participate only in one of the two parts, but participants planning to attend both will be given precedence.
To register your participation in Sensational Buoys Workshop, click here 

 

Workshop Organizers 

Artur Vasconcelos Cordeiro (Universidade de São Paulo)
Jéssyca Hellen Lima Rios (Independent researcher)
Mattia Thibault (Tampere University)
Federico Sassi (Independent researcher)

 

More information & Contact

For more info, click here or email artur.cordeiro@gmail.com