A series of blog posts on the the growing DIY culture, its impact and the heroes of the revolution

William Kamkwamba

He is proudly known as the “Boy who harnessed the wind”. As you read his story, you will realize that this is a true tale of a boy driven by his desire to bring upon a change that was so imperative, and he brought it all by himself.
No experts.

William, was then a boy of 14 years, when in Malawi, in deep poverty and famine. He decided to build a windmill to power his home. What is exceptional is the fact that he actually does it!

Using materials collected from a local scrapyard, and armed with a book on “Using Energy”, this windmill is able to power a few electrical appliances.

In his own words

Windmill and other projects
Starting at 14, rather than accept his fate, William started borrowing books from a small community lending library located at his former primary school. He borrowed an 8th grade American textbook called Using Energy, which depicted wind turbines on its cover. He decided to build a windmill to power his family’s home and obviate the need for kerosene, which provided only smoky, flickering, distant and expensive light after dark. First he built a prototype using a radio motor, then his initial 5-meter windmill out of a broken bicycle, tractor fan blade, old shock absorber, and blue gum trees. After hooking the windmill to a car battery for storage, William was able to power four light bulbs and charge neighbors’ mobile phones. This system was even equipped with homemade light switches and a circuit breaker made from nails, wire, and magnets. The windmill was later extended to 12 meters to better catch the wind above the trees. A third windmill pumped grey water for irrigation.
Subsequent projects have included clean water, malaria prevention, solar power and lighting for the six homes in his family compound; a deep water well with a solar powered pump for clean water, a drip irrigation system, and the outfitting of the village team Wimbe United with their first ever uniforms and shoes. Since receiving their sun and wind-themed uniforms, the team has been on a winning streak that has brought the village together with pride.
The windmill project drew many visitors from kilometers around, including Dr. Hartford Mchazime, Ph.D., the deputy director of the MTTA, the Malawian NGO responsible for the community library. Mchazime brought press, including The Malawi Daily Times, who wrote a long story. Soyapi Mumba and Mike McKay, engineers at Baobab Health Partnership in Malawi blogged about the article, and news of William’s inventions reached Emeka Okafor, program director for TEDGlobal, a prestigious gathering of thinkers and innovators. Okafor searched quite diligently to find William and invite him to the conference as a fellow. William’s presentation led to additional mentors, donors, and companies supporting his education and further projects.

A true true DIY’er !

Watch the trailer for his documentary here:

I love the way he speaks at the TED conference. “I decided to build it, then I build it”

William on building a windmill

Ofcourse, read the book
The boy who harnessed the wind

A good video on his story told at Dartmouth

This is a piece of code that we wrote long back to control uCam-TTL by 4D Systems with an Arduino.

We suggest using an Arduino Mega as it has multiple serial port and this code requires two. One to communicate with the Camera and the other to send the captured image over Serial port.

You should also have the data sheet of the camera handy to write some additional piece of code that this library will require.

How to use

Just dump the .h and .cpp files in your project folder.

Then initialize the camera somewhere in your code like so:

UCAM529 camera(inSerial, outSerial, CAMERA_ON_PIN, PICTURE_QUALITY);

Where,

• inSerial is the pointer to the serial port where camera is connected
• outSerial is the pointer to the serial port where data is to be sent
• CAMERA_ON_PIN is the pin number where camera reset is connected
• PICTURE_QUALITY is one of the hex codes given in the camera’s data sheet

Important note: You will need to increase the RX TX buffer limits in the Arduino Serial library code.
Then you have to initialize the camera:

camera.init()

Then take a picture using the following command:

camera.takePicture()

Simple enough.

Additional Notes

This code will require some additional work to make it work properly but at least it will give people a good start with their own implementation.

You will also have to write some code on the receiving end to parse the image data and save it somewhere or display it somewhere or send it somewhere. If you are using a serial modem or some kind of serial transport you could send the picture directly over that using this code.

The library on Github: https://github.com/9circuits/uCam

Once upon a time, there were some people, who had the power to either help or not help projects or tiny startups with their money. You or me did not have anything to do with it. We did not get a whiff of what was happening, we could never contribute to bringing to life, paradigm shifting products or art.

Not anymore.

Creative projects now, have a new messiah, in the form of Kickstarter. One of the innovative and novel initiatives to give people the power to contribute, in projects that they believe in.

This model has helped some awesome projects to the fore, and some of them have been given the life force required to make them come to reality.

Following are some of the few projects on Kickstarter, some of them have been funded, and some still need funds. Do have a look at them and fund them, if you truly believe in the concepts.

1. Cosmic Quilt

Find it here:
Cosmic Quilt on Kickstarter

In their own words:

Have you ever wondered what buildings will look like in the future? If the kind of interactivity we have come to expect in our devices will ever make it’s way into the architecture we inhabit?

Soon, just as we can sense a space as calm, contemplative or frenetic, the space itself will be able to sense our presence and react accordingly.

This May, The Principals and 20 students from the Art Institute of New York will take the first step to allow the public to be able to experience this new type of architectural space. Over 1 week, we will instruct the students in the construction of a reactive architectural environment that will open to the public during New York Design Week, May 19-21.

Students will learn to network a series of sensors, motors and micro-controllers through a unique system developed by The Principals in their Brooklyn studio.

A unique experience tailored for every individual. The line of furniture that is designed for the contributors is also very appealing.

2. ReaDIYmate

Find ReadDIYmate on Kickstarter

In their own words:

reaDIYmates are fun wi-fi objects that you can build easily. They move and play sounds depending on what’s happening in your digital life.

Choose from a variety of existing designs, use our templates or create your own object.

Then decide what you want them to do through a simple web interface. Link them to your digital life (Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, RSS feeds, SoundCloud, If This Then That, and more to come) or control them remotely in real time from your iPhone.

You don’t need any creative or technical skills to build and use your reaDIYmate, but if you want to go further, we made it super easy for you to change designs, write applications, or add inputs and outputs. They’re Arduino compatible and you can plug 50+ solderless electronic bricks.

reaDIYmate is the new toolbox for the digital natives!

A compelling project with unlimited scope for play !

3. PayPhone Revival Project

Find PayPhone Revival Project on Kickstarter

In their own words:

Mission

The mission of the Pay Phone Revival project is to restore function and communicative potential to abandoned payphone booths while also creating meaningful interactions between pedestrians and their everyday surroundings in Austin, Tx. This will be achieved by commissioning innovative artists to transform them, by using them as the epicenter for art/design interventions in the urban landscape. Through an inclusive RFP process ten artist/teams were selected for round two of the Pay Phone Revival Project. The resulting art/design interventions will transform abandoned pay phone booths into dynamic objects that inspire play, create a new function, or tell a story.

Inspiring lessons. I can just imagine the possibilities with public spaces in India.

4. Performer in Times Square

Find Performer in Times Square on Kickstarter

In their own words:

What is PERFORMER?

A bright theater spotlight will illuminate a large oval on the ground. When a person walks on to the oval of light, a roar of clapping is heard. The enthusiasm of the virtual crowd increases with movement of the viewer and with the amount of viewers in the oval. If the viewer is still, the audience calms and eventually goes silent except for an occasional cough or clearing of the throat. When the viewer leaves the illuminated area the viewer hears applause proportional to the total amount of movement in that session.

This installation will use a real-time audio audience simulation and a movement sensor to produce an illusion that reverses the traditional relationship between viewer and subject. The audio in this installation will be extremely lifelike and never repeat. The simulation uses hundreds of live recorded sounds of clapping, whistling, hooting, and mumbling and layers them in real time. People will actually feel as if a real, 500-member audience is applauding them. Viewers will ‘perform’ in their own way and this will elicit different behavior from the virtual audience.

Made me happy! Fulfills the sense of achievement perfectly. Absolutely apt for a public installation.

5. ChalkTrails

Find ChalkTrails on Kickstarter

In their own words:

Miles of creative, colorful fun. Chalktrail brings the simple, timeless joy of riding a bike or scooter together with the creative expression of decorating the neighborhood streets and sidewalks with bright and colorful chalk. We like to call this unique combination of outdoor activity and artistic creativity “ARTIVITY”. It’s one of those products that you instantly get the second you see it. The concept is beautiful in its simplicity and the play pattern is expressive and fresh. No bright lights, flashing screens, blaring noises, cords, batteries or internet connections. Just kids, wheels, chalk, fresh air and fun. It’s the kind of product that could have been made a half-century ago but, for some inconceivable reason, wasn’t.

One of the brilliant ideas. Simple and simply nails it !

I urge you to have a look at more projects and pledge your support to them. This is the new beginning of a creative democracy.

Image courtesy: GigaOm

Data visualization seems to have become the new ‘black’ now. It is all around us. In the pins that are pinned, or the tweets that are shared. In numerous other infographics, where, right from the legalities of marijuana to the number of wafers in a pack are visualized in multiple ways.

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We came across this news today, and we will remember Caine for the rest of our lives.
Caine is a 9 year old who made an elaborate arcade game, with the spare auto parts from his father’s store. However, his father’s business is mostly online, and doesn’t receive so many customers in  the store. So, Caine was waiting day and night for his first customer to play the game.

We were looking at the game with open mouths. The kind of meticulous detailing and thought Caine has put into his game is mind blowing. He also thought of security and look what he has done with it.

A feat of pure unadulterated innovation and zeal. 9 Circuits salutes it.

Also, we salute Nirvan @nirvan and Caine’s father for their resolution and support for a young dream.

Look at the video:

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on
Vimeo.

We are extremely proud to be associated with Asim Waqif, an artist who has increasingly blurred the boundaries between multiple disciplines.

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It’s been some time since we made you face palm with one of our posts. Here’s one that will show you how Geeks celebrate Diwali.

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I’m going to talk about Capacitors today. I assure you that I hate them. But they are one of the three founding fathers of electronics, so to speak. You see, there are three fundamental properties of _any_ electronic device or for that matter any non-electronic device. RLC. Resistance, Inductance and Capacitance. So capacitance is a big part of whatever you do. Capacitors are of many types but since we’re discussing only the relevant stuff, it boils down to Ceramic and Electrolytic. You’ll be seeing them a lot on electronic circuitry. Here’s an image of a few not-so-well known capacitors. The first one (from the left) is a Film capacitor (doesn’t mean it watches too many movies, mind you). The third is a Variable capacitor. This is the one you’d use to make a radio (which we’ll be taking a crack at soon) and I really don’t know what the middle one is called. I’ll name it Clown because of all the colours on it.

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Buttons. Where would we be without them? Actually when I say buttons, I want you to think about switches. Yeah the ones that you push to turn on your fans and lights. In electronics everything is about those darned switches. Sometimes you’d like to add them, sometimes you’d like to remove them. But switches are always very important. I mean think of a world without switches. You’d probably make the hamsters do all the work. You’d wake up one day and say, “Hey! I think I’ll take a shower” and end up with something out of a Rube Goldberg cartoon, like this:

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I know plenty of people who would like to get into electronics. Like to create new stuff. But for some reason, they all seem to hold back. You see, ideas never end. That factory in your head keeps churning them out, almost regardless of conscious thought or effort. But like most things left uncared for, they eventually wither away. This is something I learnt from watching too many movies. Tell me, am I lying when I say you dreamt of creating a suit like Tony Stark’s IRON MAN? At some point in your life you would’ve looked at some problem and said, “Hey! I could make something like I saw in that movie to solve this! ”. I’m not talking specifically about the suit that allows you to fly (that would’ve been cool though). No, I’m talking about any machine which you can control somehow or some device that you thought was ultra cool………..or the less glamorous but just as important, ultra practical device.

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