DIYBio SG goes to Switzerland : Water Hackathon in EPFL

The Water Hackathon is a parallel event of the Tech4Dev International Conference, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland from 4 to 7 June 2014. The main aims of the DIY movement tied in with this conference are succinctly illustrated by Jenny Molloy in this article. The Water Hackathon took place on 6 to 7 June and it is co-produced by Bio-Design for the Real World and Hacteria.org, together with Gabrielle Levine and Nur Akbar Arofatullah. The organizers who made this hackathon a possibility includes the following with no significance in the order

• Gabrielle who is an artist from Tisch School of the Arts New York University and Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design.
• Akbar, a member of Lifepatch, and a researcher from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
• Sachiko Hirosue , who is a senior scientist at EPFL and also one of the spearheaders in the Bio-Design for the Real World.
• Marc Dusseiller , one of the co-starters of Hackteria, owner of the dusjagr labs, and also a part of the Swiss Mechatronic Art Society
• Urs Gaudenz, the owner of the Gaudilabs that deals with open-culture technology, and also a part of Hackteria.
• Denisa Kera, an assistant professor at NUS and a fellow of the Asia Research Institute (STS cluster) and Tembusu college

The other participants were also contributory to the success of this event as friendships were forged and minds were opened.

A hackathon is an intensive marathon  pursuit of brain-storming, programming and making that bring together like-minded people, accompanied by the sharing of knowledge, skills and innovation. It usually revolves around a particular topic of interest.  This Hackathon, similarly in the spirit of  open collaboration,  is all about open source technologies for rivers, oceans and lakes, exploring the possibilities of open hardware for open Science projects. Human activities have put a toil on our Earth’s water bodies and this Hackathon hopes to create opportunities for hands-on exploration of open hardware as well as ideas to create solutions to these pertinent environmental and social issues. Some of the practical topics explored are the following:

• BUILDING AND TESTING THE FLOTATION AND MOBILITY OF THE BOATS AT THE LAUSANNE RIVER

all floated well…some danced on the same spot… more improvements made later! I kinda like it doing a cute cha cha in water.

some ended up as the children’s toys.. Life’s good 😀

and some were pretty nimble boats! But a pity it wasn’t captured on tape!

• WATER ROBOTS IN VARIOUS SHAPES

Water snake on left and water noodle on right…

• WATER SAMPLERS

Akbar’s efficient solution to boat-making and our  mini sample collector at the bottom of the boat. A collaborative effort!

• WATER SENSORS

the Augmented Water which changes from blue to red when over-usage of water volumes happen. An instructable to make this can be found here!

• MOSQUITO KILLERS FOR MALARIA PREVENTION

Marc Dusseiller Dusjagr (dusjagr lab, hackteria), his team mate and their mozzbuster

• DIY MICROSCOPE
  

Made by Urz Gaudens (GaudiLab, hackteria)

Different versions of MiCam made by Akbar (Lifepatch)

 

We look forward to more hackathons to come ! More pictures of the event can be found at the Hackteria website which also leads to a collation of various media coverages!

 

Posted by

-Samantha Kwah

 

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