On the Water, Nils Ferber

http://www.nilsferber.de/landannahme.html

The platform a few days after its first erection in June 2010 in Hamburg.
It was assembled from 13 modules with a diameter of 3m and a 220l-barrel as floating body each.
The main structure was supplemented by floating patches, a six-person-tent and a roof-like net structure.

The platform could carry up to 20 people (if the weight was evenly spread).

Helium-filled registering balloons were used for illumination at night. A 12V bulb inside each balloon was powered by a car batterie in the barrel below.

The patches were kept afloat by PET bottles. Ducks were amongst their biggest fans but gave the plants a hard time.

Connecting the spiral-shaped modules created a rhombic structure in between the barrels. The rhombes were filled out with different materials like truck tarpaulins, nets and scrap wood.
Different material features proposed varying uses: The nets were often used as hammocks while the wooden rhombes provided a more secure base for standing up straight and more serious tasks.

A small rope ferry was installed to grant access to the island at all times and transport goods to and from the island.

At the first night on the water a band gave a concert. Providing electricity was a challenge, though.

Even though the platform was located very central, the actual place was rather quiet and sheltered (you can see the platform under the bridge, on the left side).

Everyday life right in the city.

The floating patches suggested the possibility to grow vegetables, herbs, fruits and berries around and under the platform. In this way the potential habitans could cover their basic needs self-sufficiently. In addition to the patches we used some barrels as planters for small trees.

The barrels can be accesed from the platform and make spacious, waterproof storage containers.
With 13 barrels there is enough room for drinking water, groceries, cooking equipment and whatever else is needed on the platform.

Posted via email from Open_Sailing

On the Water, Nils Ferber

http://www.nilsferber.de/landannahme.html

The platform a few days after its first erection in June 2010 in Hamburg.
It was assembled from 13 modules with a diameter of 3m and a 220l-barrel as floating body each.
The main structure was supplemented by floating patches, a six-person-tent and a roof-like net structure.

The platform could carry up to 20 people (if the weight was evenly spread).

Helium-filled registering balloons were used for illumination at night. A 12V bulb inside each balloon was powered by a car batterie in the barrel below.

The patches were kept afloat by PET bottles. Ducks were amongst their biggest fans but gave the plants a hard time.

Connecting the spiral-shaped modules created a rhombic structure in between the barrels. The rhombes were filled out with different materials like truck tarpaulins, nets and scrap wood.
Different material features proposed varying uses: The nets were often used as hammocks while the wooden rhombes provided a more secure base for standing up straight and more serious tasks.

A small rope ferry was installed to grant access to the island at all times and transport goods to and from the island.

At the first night on the water a band gave a concert. Providing electricity was a challenge, though.

Even though the platform was located very central, the actual place was rather quiet and sheltered (you can see the platform under the bridge, on the left side).

Everyday life right in the city.

The floating patches suggested the possibility to grow vegetables, herbs, fruits and berries around and under the platform. In this way the potential habitans could cover their basic needs self-sufficiently. In addition to the patches we used some barrels as planters for small trees.

The barrels can be accesed from the platform and make spacious, waterproof storage containers.
With 13 barrels there is enough room for drinking water, groceries, cooking equipment and whatever else is needed on the platform.

Posted via email from Open_Sailing

Launch of Protei, oil spill cleaning open hardware sailing robot.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cesarminoru/protei-open-hardware-oil-spill-cleaning-sailing-ro

Dear fellows. We just launch yesterday Protei on Kickstarter. 

Please share the link to our Kickstarter on your facebook, or if you know people in 
- environmental justice

- sailing world

- DIY

- open-source

- engineering

Protei is a fleet of Sailing Drones, developed primarily to collect Oil Spills under Open Hardware licensing. An oil spill drifts down the wind, Protei sails upwind to collect the oil. Everyone is welcome to join, contribute, modify, produce, distribute the design and share their findings.

You can watch the 3 minutes video under to understand the detail of how it works :

The technology is really exciting beyond the fact that it could help for ocean study and cleaning. 
Have a lovely TED2011!

Posted via email from TED Fellows

Launch of Protei, oil spill cleaning open hardware sailing robot.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cesarminoru/protei-open-hardware-oil-spill-cleaning-sailing-ro

Dear fellows. We just launch yesterday Protei on Kickstarter. 

Please share the link to our Kickstarter on your facebook, or if you know people in 
- environmental justice

- sailing world

- DIY

- open-source

- engineering

Protei is a fleet of Sailing Drones, developed primarily to collect Oil Spills under Open Hardware licensing. An oil spill drifts down the wind, Protei sails upwind to collect the oil. Everyone is welcome to join, contribute, modify, produce, distribute the design and share their findings.

You can watch the 3 minutes video under to understand the detail of how it works :

The technology is really exciting beyond the fact that it could help for ocean study and cleaning. 
Have a lovely TED2011!

Posted via email from TED Fellows

One Prize

http://www.oneprize.org/1dates.html

ONE PRIZE INVITES THE WORLD MOST TALENTED AND ENTERPRISING:architects, landscape architects, urban designers, planners, engineers, scientists, cleantech entrepreneurs, economists, artists, students and individuals of all backgrounds:

To propose the NYC BLUE NETWORK by expanding waterborne transportation and linking the five boroughs with a series of green transit hubs incorporating ferries, water taxis, bike shares, electric car-share and electric shuttle buses as well as providing in-water recreation, water-oriented educational and cultural activities and climate resilience.

To further propose for New York City a design for the WORLD LARGEST CLEAN TECH EXPO in 2014, and by doing so to create the world largest urban clean tech corridor along the water, and establish NYC as the ultimate green capital of the world.

ONE PRIZE is an Annual Design and Science Award to Promote Green Design in Cities.
January 10, 2011: Registration opens; Question period opens 

April 30, 2011: Registration closes 

May 31, 2011 by midnight EST: Submission Due 

July 15, 2011: Finalists announced 

July 28, 2011: Award Ceremony; Exhibition launched

Posted via email from Open_Sailing

Chemical Weapon Munitions Dumped at Sea: An Interactive Map

http://cns.miis.edu/multimedia/interactive_files/cw_dumping.htm

Between 1918 and 1970, the U.S. alone dumped CW agents in waters worldwide on at least 74 occasions. These disposals were no small undertaking, taking one fair example from this tour, in 1945 the U.S. military dumped 1,154 55ga drums of arsenic trichloride, 375T of adamsite smoke candles, 75,852 4.2in distilled mustard shells, ~56,000 smoke canisters, and ~23,000 smoke projectiles. This represents only one of dozens of dumpings conducted off the U.S. coast. While some dumping operations were carefully undertaken, including the keeping of detailed records; other dumping operations were done haphazardly with no or minimal written accounts of the disposal locations, quantities disposed or depths.

So far the staff at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (http://cns.miis.edu) have located and chronicled 127 locations where either human exposure to or disposal of chemical weapons agents and/or munitions has occurred. We are virtually certain there are more disposal sites requiring attention hence we present this material in hopes of garnering further interest into this subject.

Read more on "Chemical Weapon Munitions Dumped at Sea"

Posted via email from Open_Sailing

Unmanned drones track Arctic ice and seals simultaneously

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-12/15/arctic-drones 

By Mark Brown | 15 December 10 _ Via Ollie Palmer

The icy seas of the Arctic are not the most inviting location for scientific researchers. These remote, frosty areas are extremely dangerous places for observers and manned vehicles, meaning very little data is collected in this area.

 So two groups of researchers have got together for a joint observation project.

Environmental scientists interested in declining sea ice levels and biologists studying seals realised how closely their two fields are interlinked. Fluctuating ice levels -- dictated by global warming, weather patterns and pollution -- have a direct knock-on effect on bearded, ringed, spotted, and ribbon seals, who rely on the sea ice for breeding, resting and hiding from predators.

So the two groups of researchers teamed up to launch an unmanned drone, hooked up with cameras, to survey the areas without risking pilots or observers. The aircraft, owned and operated by the University of Alaska, has a 10-foot wingspan and flies three- to five-mile-long stretches at altitudes ranging from 100-350 metres.

But while clumps of ice are shown in immaculate detail, the seals are little more than ambiguous dots and smudges on the photos. For any human analyst, it would be a laborious process to pick out every animal in the snaps -- in fact, you can try for yourself at the University of Colorado's Where's Wally-esque " Find the Seals" page.

So the team went to Boulder Labs Inc, in Colorado, after hearing about their successes in facial recognition. "If they're able to tell faces out of the crowd and identify who is who, I thought they might be able to use that expertise with our problem up in the Arctic," said Elizabeth Weatherhead of the University of Colorado.

The newly developed software is a huge success, and was used throughout 2009 and 2010 to automate the identificaton of seals in 27,000 images. "We can send an unmanned craft out from a ship, collect 4,000 images, and have them analyzed before dinner," said Weatherhead.

This new data is giving scientists more insight into problems plaguing the Arctic, and is changing the way that biologists monitor seal populations. Just this month, NOAA proposed that ringed and bearded seals be put on the endangered species list.

Next, both teams have further ambitions for the drones. They hope to answer questions about how the ice is moving, and how polar bears are affected by the changes in ice levels.

Posted via email from Open_Sailing

Unmanned drones track Arctic ice and seals simultaneously

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-12/15/arctic-drones 

By Mark Brown | 15 December 10 _ Via Ollie Palmer

The icy seas of the Arctic are not the most inviting location for scientific researchers. These remote, frosty areas are extremely dangerous places for observers and manned vehicles, meaning very little data is collected in this area.

 So two groups of researchers have got together for a joint observation project.

Environmental scientists interested in declining sea ice levels and biologists studying seals realised how closely their two fields are interlinked. Fluctuating ice levels -- dictated by global warming, weather patterns and pollution -- have a direct knock-on effect on bearded, ringed, spotted, and ribbon seals, who rely on the sea ice for breeding, resting and hiding from predators.

So the two groups of researchers teamed up to launch an unmanned drone, hooked up with cameras, to survey the areas without risking pilots or observers. The aircraft, owned and operated by the University of Alaska, has a 10-foot wingspan and flies three- to five-mile-long stretches at altitudes ranging from 100-350 metres.

But while clumps of ice are shown in immaculate detail, the seals are little more than ambiguous dots and smudges on the photos. For any human analyst, it would be a laborious process to pick out every animal in the snaps -- in fact, you can try for yourself at the University of Colorado's Where's Wally-esque " Find the Seals" page.

So the team went to Boulder Labs Inc, in Colorado, after hearing about their successes in facial recognition. "If they're able to tell faces out of the crowd and identify who is who, I thought they might be able to use that expertise with our problem up in the Arctic," said Elizabeth Weatherhead of the University of Colorado.

The newly developed software is a huge success, and was used throughout 2009 and 2010 to automate the identificaton of seals in 27,000 images. "We can send an unmanned craft out from a ship, collect 4,000 images, and have them analyzed before dinner," said Weatherhead.

This new data is giving scientists more insight into problems plaguing the Arctic, and is changing the way that biologists monitor seal populations. Just this month, NOAA proposed that ringed and bearded seals be put on the endangered species list.

Next, both teams have further ambitions for the drones. They hope to answer questions about how the ice is moving, and how polar bears are affected by the changes in ice levels.

Posted via email from Open_Sailing

Unmanned drones track Arctic ice and seals simultaneously

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-12/15/arctic-drones 

By Mark Brown | 15 December 10

The icy seas of the Arctic are not the most inviting location for scientific researchers. These remote, frosty areas are extremely dangerous places for observers and manned vehicles, meaning very little data is collected in this area.

 So two groups of researchers have got together for a joint observation project.

Environmental scientists interested in declining sea ice levels and biologists studying seals realised how closely their two fields are interlinked. Fluctuating ice levels -- dictated by global warming, weather patterns and pollution -- have a direct knock-on effect on bearded, ringed, spotted, and ribbon seals, who rely on the sea ice for breeding, resting and hiding from predators.

So the two groups of researchers teamed up to launch an unmanned drone, hooked up with cameras, to survey the areas without risking pilots or observers. The aircraft, owned and operated by the University of Alaska, has a 10-foot wingspan and flies three- to five-mile-long stretches at altitudes ranging from 100-350 metres.

But while clumps of ice are shown in immaculate detail, the seals are little more than ambiguous dots and smudges on the photos. For any human analyst, it would be a laborious process to pick out every animal in the snaps -- in fact, you can try for yourself at the University of Colorado's Where's Wally-esque " Find the Seals" page.

So the team went to Boulder Labs Inc, in Colorado, after hearing about their successes in facial recognition. "If they're able to tell faces out of the crowd and identify who is who, I thought they might be able to use that expertise with our problem up in the Arctic," said Elizabeth Weatherhead of the University of Colorado.

The newly developed software is a huge success, and was used throughout 2009 and 2010 to automate the identificaton of seals in 27,000 images. "We can send an unmanned craft out from a ship, collect 4,000 images, and have them analyzed before dinner," said Weatherhead.

This new data is giving scientists more insight into problems plaguing the Arctic, and is changing the way that biologists monitor seal populations. Just this month, NOAA proposed that ringed and bearded seals be put on the endangered species list.

Next, both teams have further ambitions for the drones. They hope to answer questions about how the ice is moving, and how polar bears are affected by the changes in ice levels.

Posted via email from Open_Sailing

Protei, Oil Spill Collecting Sailing Drones @ TEDxMidAtlantic

A few days ago, I was lucky to be on stage of TEDxMidAtlantic to present Protei, a technology in development I am working on with a bunch of brilliant people (Open_Sailing, randomwalks and V2_ folks). 
Protei would be a Fleet of Oil Spill Collecting Sailing Drones. I just made this 7 minutes video that explains how it would work (also on youtube if you want to share / embed / rate). I am now working on the collaborative website and the documentation to meet Open Hardware standards - long way to go :) The video of the talk may come up sometimes, meanwhile you have my explanation here :) Sorry for my terrible french accent, hehehe

We are currently looking for ways to fund this project, if you have ideas of grants, competitions, Institutions or companies that would be interested in working on this, please comment, thanks ! 

Posted via email from TED Fellows