City GO! – DIY Traffic lights of air pollution

PIKSEL Kidz Lab
PIKSEL18 – Buzzocrazy!

5th – 7th November – 10:00- 14:00
8th – 9th November – 14:00 -18:00

To sign up: piksel18(at)piksel(dot)no with the subject CITY GO – DIY Traffic lights of air pollution.
Free entrance
No prior knowledge is required.
Age: 8 – 18.

DIY Traffic lights of air pollution.
An eco-design workshop for kids. During a week kids will be assembling “air traffic lights”. This workshop aims to visualise the pollution in our cities.

The goal is to experiment with a sensor (MQ-07) which detects levels of Carbon Monoxide (CO) concentrations, the main gas produced by gasoline and diesel cars. The project mixes artistic, environmental and social concerns and adheres to the design principles of open hardware and software: Everyone is invited to learn how the electronics and the code functions in order to be able to modify it.

We will learn how to use it with an Arduino board, participants will program a series of behaviors in colour variations that allowed us to translate the sensor signals into color changes on a RGB LED screen: red ?, orange: I, green ?.

To then assemble all the pieces inside a hand-held traffic light designed for laser cutting.

The workshop part occurs over 4 hours in which the operations of the circuit and the code will be explained while assembling the circuit. The group will then walk in order to listen to the city in a different way.

The workshop:
1.- Assembly
The assembly process is developed in three phases:
1. electronic circuit. 2. programming. 3. assembly.

2.- Electronic circuit
The electronic circuit was previously designed. Use an attiny84 microcontroller, programmed through arduino as ISP. The circuit controls the sensor, the intensity of each RGB color and regulates the electrical voltage.

3.- Programming
The program translates the mq7 sensor signal into a sensitivity range of an analog input of 0 to 1023, 0 = 10ppm (particles per million), 1023 = 10000ppm of CO in the environment. At the same time it determines in that range the color mix in the RGB screen, based on this signal.

4.- Mounting
Finally, the RGB LED screen, the power supply (battery-switch) and the container were assembled.

5.- Testing on the streets ?