I Want To Wire-Up Salt Lake City

[Forrest Ethington]

Greetings all,

I remember seeing on the kickstarter campaign as a kickback for donating (albeit donating a lot) one could wire up their city with a hundred AQ Eggs. I want to make this happen in my hometown of Salt Lake City, UT.

I know many places have it bad (and that ain't good), however, here's a timelapse cam showing today, the last week, the last month, the last year, and the last five years:
http://www.timecam.tv/view_cam.aspx?C=7082ACFM3174

Today's pretty bad, yet the airnow.gov index says we're merely to 'moderate' levels of bad air.

I'm putting together a plan to use wide open-data tracking of the air quality index of the city to create a transformational difference in the way our government approaches decisions of industry in UT and elsewhere. I want to create educational programs for use in our schools to interact with the data to discover what stories there are to tell because of our bad air or not. I want children of all ages to learn about how the effects of the air they breath affect them, their families, their peers, and that they can use this knowledge to do something better.

I want data that can't be ignored. Utahns are hungry for it.

The AQ Eggs are the linchpin of this project; what do we have to do on the AQE-end to make this idea a reality? Is there a precedent? A hundred eggs is a good start, though, I'd love to be able to expand the number of eggs further throughout the valley and the state.

I'd love to speak directly to someone about this project, either here, or off-forum.

Best,

Forrest

[Alex Huth]

Hi Forrest - my impression is that the collected AQE units are not currently generating "data that can't be ignored." There are issues with consistency and interpretation, and the project leads appear to have made a conscious decision to fall back on "it's an awareness project, not a data project" at present (perhaps indefinitely?). I don't think that makes anyone happy considering that data is exactly what the Kickstarter aimed to deliver.

According to the Kickstarter page, four pledges were made at the $10,000 level to "sensor up a city" with an estimated delivery date of 08/2012. As of right now, the densest cluster I can see on the website is 15 units in a neighborhood of Portland, OR. It has been 6 months since the last Kickstarter update and I don't know the status of these large donations. Perhaps the donors in question are very patient, or perhaps their contributions have been quietly refunded. But I would guess that if none of those four cities are on the map, you will need to move heaven and earth to jump the queue in SLC.

The one thing that I do know is that you can still buy individual eggs. Perhaps WickedDevice would consider offering you a bulk discount on the $18,000 price tag for 100 eggs "a la carte" which would allow you to take matters into your own hands in terms of installation. Though I do not expect there are 100 eggs currently waiting to ship; I would expect considerable lead time.

Best of luck. Let us know if the greater community of egg users can help.

Alex

[Dirk Swart]

Hi Alex,

I'd like to respond to your comments.

- Cities are working well. There are over 100 eggs in Boston at the moment. They are part of a BU study, and delivering great data. There are also "sensor up a city" eggs in other places (Eg: Montenegro). 

- You are right that there have not been updates to the Kickstarter. I can't directly post any updates to the Kickstarter site. Please keep an eye on our blog, where we post news and updates, including new firmware when we make updates.

- All orders we were given to fulfill, were fulfilled.

Best regards
Dirk

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[Alex Huth]

Dirk, that's great to hear. I took another look at the map to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me, and observed an inconsistency in how eggs are displayed. Perhaps this is a known bug, or an undocumented feature? I took some screen captures to illustrate that some eggs only appear on the map when viewing an active feed; here is an album: http://imgur.com/a/f2Kfg (6 images, 960x570, 2.33 MB total)

I've been reading your blog - this is the one on WickedDevice, yes? - and haven't found any news about sensor cities. I've also been trawling through old threads in this group, and Vic's twitter feed. Where's the publicity for these accomplishments? Seems like a big step for the project but until you dropped the above hints, I hadn't come across any evidence of these sensor cities. Even after the hints, Googling "air quality eggs at Boston University" is fruitless.

I'm hardly an expert, and my research project is teeny-tiny, but I'm still spending hours every week trying to dig up information. If I can't find this stuff, what about the person who just happens across your website? What about the window shoppers who want to know at a glance if your project is healthy?

I'm not trying to bust your balls, honestly. I'm just really surprised that, after such a powerful Kickstarter pitch, you're not promoting yourselves more.

[Dirk Swart]

Hi Alex,

Yep - we are more tech than marketing. Are you offering to fill the gap :)

[Mark Gibbs]

Dirk,

You might think your reply is amusing but the reality is that many of us who invested in the AQE got something far less useful than we thought it was going to be. Before and since the product shipped you made a number of technical choices that didn't further the usability of the AQE and left so many loose ends that now I, and I suspect many others, are just writing it all off as another project that disappointed us. I didn't back the AQE expecting to have to go into development mode just to do an update. I didn't expect the services that show my data to be so primitive and configured such that I can't control my own device account. I didn't expect to have a device that produces readings that are relative to some arbitrary baseline. You want a community that supports your goals then you need to have goals that support the community's expectations which means that marketing matters.

Yours,

Mark Gibbs.

[Dirk Swart]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for replying, and I wholeheartedly agree with you - marketing does matter, and my request was serious.

You clearly have a strong feeling of frustration - I appreciate you can see the product in that light, and it is certainly your right to do so. I would offer a different interpretation of the facts: We developed a product, from scratch, using less money than we said it would take, and delivered it. [As a comparison, 30% of top Kickstarter products promised in Nov 2012 have still not delivered anything, and there are questions if they ever will*]. We proved that it is possible to take a product which costs several thousand dollars and produce a reasonable alternative. We also partnered with Pachube (now Xively) to deliver the data, and they continue to do so, although I understand not in the way you would like.

We continue to support the product, and the fact that we are active in this forum is evidence of that. We also continue to work hard to revise and improve it, and to improve the understanding of science by non-scientists. I stand by the egg as a product.

My hope is that people backed the Kickstarter because they believe in Citizen Science. And the Egg has been one of the leading lights of this movement, helping to change people's perceptions. The list is partial proof. Ed did a great job of building a community.

I gave the Egg project 100%. As a backer, you were and are part of a movement to help people understand their environment, and in a very small way, change the world. Thank you.

Finally, since this is going to a list, and not just you: I'm happy to have this conversation so long as it remains constructive, which I think your comments are, Mark - marketing matters. I have no interest in participating in an egg-bashing.

* http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/kickstarter-projects-shipping/

[Alex Huth]

Dirk - I wish! My hands are full of 4 month-old boy right now, it's all I can do to fulfill the commitments I've already made. :)