The Copenhagen Wheel Project

The Copenhagen Wheel Project, from the MIT Senseable City Lab, provides a new approach to an old technology, and then adds some very interesting twists.

In the past, the best way to integrate an electric motor and a bike was to either purchase a moped, essentially a light bike that is not as cool as a Vespa, or to install an electric motor assist to your existing bike.  The downside to the electric motor assist is how heavy it is, and that you have to charge the battery.  And a moped, well, is a moped.

The good folks at MIT have an innovative approach that is not dissimilar to the approach (conceptually) that Toyota took with the Prius.  Essentially the Copenhagen Wheel stores the energy that the rider uses while pedaling and braking, and then 'recycles' that energy when the rider is is need.  To enable this, the wheel is bluetooth enabled and syncs with your mobile devise, such as an iPhone.  With the iPhone mounted to the handle bars, the rider can select the appropriate gear, and how much the motor assist assists.  Because the mechanical bits, including the gears, motor, and battery are integrated within the wheel, there are no external wires.


















Image from MIT Copenhagen Wheel Project.

The interesting additions to the wheel include its ability to sense ambient pollution (specifically NOx, CO, and Noise), as well as your personal riding data such as effort (not sure how this is measured), number of calories burned, ambient temperature and humidity.  The point of this is to help commuters meet their exercise goals and to plan health bike routes through their urban environment.

Through the use of a social network, riders can share their data anonymously and the data is aggregated to provide a bigger picture of air quality.  Furthermore, this data is fine grained and detailed.  For instance, Alberta Environment currently maintains one AQ monitoring station in downtown Edmonton. The AQ data is location specific (to the top of a building on 102 Avenue) and not reflective of the air that people are breathing at street level, in a different location.

Image from the Copenhagen Wheel Project

I imagine generating a daily map of Edmonton where the NOx and CO levels are displayed (i.e. if all the bike couriers had this wheel!?!), and where ground level ozone levels are extrapolated based on the NOx, CO and sunlight / heat.  It could be a very powerful tool to help understand, at a fine grained level, the pollution within Edmonton.

For more information, please check out the project and / or have a look at the cool YouTube video below:

Dawson Bridge Time-Lapse

You may or may not know that the Dawson Bridge, on the east side of down town, is going to be closed from January to November 2010 for rehabilitation.  I am intrigued by this; what is done to the bridge, how will it look during the different phased of rehab, and how do people work when it is really cold out.  As such, I am interested in running a Time Lapse Photography project (last minute!) where I would mount a camera on one of the power poles adjacent to Dawson bridge, and for 11 months capture 4 images per day documenting the work on the bridge.  There are a couple of barriers:

1. What photo equipment do I need? I am thinking of the Canon Powershot SD990 with a modified waterproof case and a power cord.
2. How do I power the equipment? I am thinking that a car battery with a plug adaptor in a waterproof case.  But, I really don't know.  Is there a solar solution that would trickle charge the battery?
3. How often do I download the images? This would depend on the size of each image, how many images I capture and the size of the card I use.
4. Who gives permission to mount photo equipment on power lines in public spaces?

Any thoughts?

Land Use Visualisation

WPA2 : Local Code / Real Estates from Nicholas de Monchaux on Vimeo.


The video above provides some insight into the uses of technology as a means of linking geospatial features that would not otherwise be visualized.  This 'unused' urban land within major American cities represents space that could be utilized to help the adjacent, marginalized, populations by improving air quality and access to green space.  Or, for those who have need of fresh food, by building community gardens and teaching the skills pertinent to maintaining a garden and cooking fresh food.

Or, better yet, tap into the mental maps that citizens possess to access their needs and uses for space.  We might be surprised in what we learn by understanding how local people want to use the unused land adjacent to where they live.

The video also raised interesting questions within an Edmonton context.  How much City owned land is not being used? How hard would it be to re-purpose that land?  To plant some trees, or erect a playground?  Can we get the City data to understand which land could be re-purposed?

75:25

Don Iveson raises some very interesting and pertinent points in his blog The Way we Grow/Sprawl. Within this context, I was thinking about citizen engagement in the urban policy and design process. My thought is a create an open interface that would allow citizens to collaborate on two types of data:


1. Data that is text driven. For instance what would it look like to provide a City of Edmonton MDP wiki where people can create policy pertaining to the urban form. This wiki would have to be accompanied by community forming events to enable and build understanding within the broader public of Edmonton. The goal of these community events would be twofold a. to engage those who are already active in spreading the word about the interface and the need to become involved in the future of Edmonton (i.e. a grass roots movement, not an administrative movement) and, b. educate on the issues and the use of the technology tool in exploring those issues.

2. The wiki would also link to the geo spatial (a wiki enabled 3D model / mapping environment) in that people would be able to create simple urban models to express what they want. For instance we are told that there is no market for urban single family homes. Is this really true? What do people understand by this? Are they really willing to exchange 4000 sqr ft for a 1 hour commute? What if they could look at, modify and comment on / discuss their ideal urban environment. What would the give and take look like?

Being able to crowd source and wiki 3D environments is becoming technically and socially easier (look at Google Earth and Second Life). If we are a city interested in open media and in attracting the best and brightest, why are we reliant on old industry (developers) to tell us what the market is. We need to create viable alternatives with the input (direction) of those who will be living in those communities, not at the direction with those who have a vested interest in with the old. For more thoughts on the interface between the City and local IT, please see: Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally – Open House on November 17

If Toyota had listened to dogma we would not have a new wave of gas-electric hybrids being developed by all of the major car manufacturers.

Towards a Conceptualization for Location-Based Mass Collaboration

My final abstract as submitted to the Association of American Geographers conference where I will now be presenting in April 2010 in Washington DC!  How cool is that!

Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) can be described as a central authority that narrowly defines a problem and selects those who are best able to contribute to the problem. In contrast, the evolution of a Social Internet and web-based mapping applications is enabling a grass-roots platform for location-based mass collaboration between multiple, self-defined, users.  Such location-based mass collaborative systems facilitate broad public access to cooperative processes where citizens are empowered to (1) define a geospatial attribute within a mapping environment, (2) contribute data and information to this attribute, and (3) collectively make sense of the contributed data and information.

Prior studies provide conceptualizations of the PPGIS domain (Schlossberg & Shuford 2005, Carver et. al. 2001) that highlight the difference between various PPGIS applications. The recent evolution of Internet based GIS applications is challenging traditional PPGIS conceptualizations. Namely, novel web-based collaborative mapping applications offer new ways of defining ‘public’ and ‘participation’ and how these concepts interact with a GIS. Thus, existing PPGIS conceptualizations are not adequate for understanding location-based mass collaboration.

This paper will propose a new conceptualization of the PPGIS domain that reconciles traditional PPGIS frameworks with the affordances of emerging location-based mass collaboration systems. Our survey of the domain reveals the broad range of approaches utilized by existing location-based mass collaboration applications, and provides insight into how ‘public’ and ‘participation’ are being redefined in light of mass-collaboration. We expect that our proposed framework will contribute to the understanding of this emerging research area.

DRAFT Abstract - Association of American Geographers

I am planning on attending the Association of American Geographers conference in Washinton DC in April 2010.  I will be presenting a paper, the draft abstract is below.  Please have a look and let me know what you think.  When I am done the presentation I will likely include the paper as the first chapter of my thesis.

Towards a Conceptualization for Location-Based Mass Collaboration

Matthew Dance, Arie Croitoru, Ofer Arazy

Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) have traditionally been characterized by a central authority that narrowly defines a problem and selects, from a small group of stakeholders, those who are best able to contribute data and information to that problem. A central weakness of this approach stems from a lack of support for large groups of citizens to leverage their collective spatial knowledge.  In contrast, the concurrent evolution of a Social Internet and web-based mapping applications provide a platform for geo-spatial collaboration between multiple users.  Such location-based mass collaborative systems enable broad public access to geospatial collaboration processes where citizens are empowered to (1) define a geospatial attribute within a mapping environment, (2) contribute data and information to this attribute, and (3) collectively make sense of the contributed data and information.

Prior studies provide conceptualizations of the PPGIS domain (Schlossberg & Shuford 2005, Carver et. al. 2001) that highlight the difference between various PPGIS applications. Recent developments in location-based collaboration are challenging these PPGIS conceptualizations. Namely, novel web-based collaborative GIS applications offer new ways of defining ‘public’ and ‘participation’ and how these concepts interact with a GIS.

This paper will propose a conceptualization of the collaborative GIS domain that reconciles traditional PPGIS frameworks with the affordances of emerging location-based mass collaboration systems. We expect that our survey of the domain and proposed framework will contribute to the understanding of this emerging research area, and help distinguish between the numerous research projects and applications that are mushrooming on the Internet.






This is not the final draft as I would like to tighten up the opening paragraph and include a couple sentences that reflect the findings in the final paragraph.

Google Map Maker

From the Google Operating System Blog, Google has just announced their latest and greatest, Google Map Maker.

"Google Map Maker allows you to create a map by adding or editing features such as roads, businesses, parks, schools and more. Using Google Map Maker tools, you can visually mark locations and add detailed information about them. Once you have submitted content, this information may be edited by other users or moderators. Your mapping contributions on Map Maker are eventually also made available on Google Maps"

This is a game changer that I am very excited about!  With the addition of map making to their suite of tools that includes Google Building Maker, Google is positioning themselves to create an interavtive 3D mapping environment.  Now all we have to do is wait until Canada is added to the list of countries that can be mapped.  I wonder what this will do to the Open Data discussion occuring in Edmonton.

Stay tuned for more as I will update in the next day or so the features and limitations of Google Map Maker.