http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cesarminoru/protei-open-hardware-oil-spill-cleaning-sailing-ro/posts/86877

"Update #11: We are ready!

We've been around for almost 2 weeks in Rotterdam at the V2_ now, and we got our space set up, keys for everybody, internet connexion, a fridge for our lunches, a big table to work ect : the conditions to work !

This is Matthew Lippincot from Oregon - now studying in Swtizerland - working on our MEGA TABLE - to do large pattern cutting and large plastic sheet assembly. 

We have received our oil booms! Roberto Melendez and Piem Wirtz saying "YAY". May I say "LOL" even ? 

And we had an intense week of brain-storming and drawing : 

Here, Henrik Rudstrom, Logan Williams, Roberto Melendez and Qiuyang Zhou in the background. 

We have divided the team in 3 smaller groups to research shape-shifting hulls : 
1. Spine-based hull, moving around a flexible axe.
2. Hollow hull, actuated by it's surface. 
3. Pneumatic, entirely actuated by pressure transfers. 

That means that at the end of this week, you will see 3 mechanical principle prototypes coming along! Stay tuned :)

And this week, meet the wonderful Roberto Melendez!

 

 

Engineer 1 : Roberto Melendez (El Salvador, USA), Mechanical and Ocean Engineering , MIT. roberto@opensailing.net. Roberto, 21, is a student of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering at MIT. A native from El Salvador, he enjoys sailing, biking, windsurfing, fútbol and being outdoors in general. Thanks to Toni Nottebohm for the video. 

Get to know the Protei team on the people page.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

A week ago, we floated Protei 5.1 in Rotterdam by the famous bridge !!!

We gave a nickname to this yet undocumented version : Protei 5.1 "Alien" after we took this picture :

Protei 5.1 is mostly transparent body, so we can things move inside. 

Protei 5.1 is the baby of Piem Wirtz, Etienne Gernez, Henrik Rudstrom and Cesar Harada, all built for about $150 at the V2_  in Rotterdam, NL.

Protei 5.1 wasn't a truly functionnal prototype, but enabled us to :

It was great fun, we learnt a lot again but overall Protei 5.1 will be very useful for the whole Protei team coming this summer in Rotterdam to build the full-scale Prototype.

If you want to stay updated with the progress of Protei, we recommend you to join the Open_Sailing Facebook group:) 

Just as a reminder : there is only 5 days left to back Protei on Kickstarter. Thanks!

Original Post on Kickstarter, copy on Protei/news.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

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

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.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Also on Youtube. Cesar Harada (http://opensailing.net) and Adam Griffiths (http://www.wcu.edu) for Public Laboratory.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

"Crowd-sourcing Environmental Governance" workshop by Cesar Harada & Shannon Dosemagen. 2011 March 8 & 10, Design & Environment, Goldsmiths University of London.

Hello! Here is Cesar Harada and Shannon Dosemagen writing from the Gulf of Mexico, USA. We are thrilled to announce the upcoming hands-on workshop we'll be having in London : Come!

ABSTRACT : Problem, Questions, Objectives
Each of us is not only witnessing, but actively participating in the degradation of our environment, our only life support system. The symptoms range from climate change, man made catastrophes, resource wars, resulting environmental refugees, etc. We are lacking a powerful environmental authority, a court of justice, and coordination in general. We have amazing earth science but poor individual education, international collateral treaties but no capacity to reinforce them. Governments and institutions are powerless to mitigate such complex and border-less issues. Can the solution emerge from the civil society? Can the people re-invent environmental governance with new technologies, collaborative medias, crowd sourcing, and mobile technologies? Do we need a central authority or can we generate decentralized, local, humble, bottom-up solutions? Can we design alternative services, products, technologies, infrastructures and behaviors as the new form of environmentalism. How can we go beyond activism and sustain long term positive change - what is your strategy?

WORKSHOP
Social Geometry, Architecture of play, Natural or Man-made Catastrophe, Humanitarian response to crisis, Crowd sourcing Environmental Governance. During 2 days, 10 students will be supervised by Cesar Harada (France - Japan) and Shannon Dosemagen (USA) at the Design & Environment department at the Goldsmith University, London. During the first half, they will experiment with social networks and how they can generate an operational organization and architecture. The students will be introduced to existing forms of environmental governance and cutting edge design and activism. During the second half, groups of students will elaborate their own designs in the area of their interest. Workshop leaders will help them model-building ideas that are creative, local, replicable and scalable. The workshop is aimed at starting a discussion, to encourage the students to take action in the “real world” and have short-term local experiments to learn from.

THE PEOPLE : Students, Workshop leaders
The workshop for the Design & Environment students from Goldsmiths University will require the students to venture their thinking into diverse fields : architecture, law, economy, politics, environmental engineering, anthropology, computer science, social media etc. The groups projects are expected to be diverse and exploratory.  Cesar Harada has a background in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, won the Ars Electronica Golden Nica [NEXT IDEA] with the Open_Sailing project, worked as project leader and researcher at MIT, and is coordinating the making of the WEA (World Environment Action) website started in *iHub_ Nairobi, Kenya. Cesar is currently coordinating the development of Protei : an oil cleaning open hardware robot. Shannon Dosemagen has a background in Anthropology from the University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Shannon is the coordinator of the Oil Spill Map at LA Bucket Brigade, mapping the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, using Ushahidi, a software allowing people to report by SMS, twitter, mail, on the acclaimed website http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org. Shannon has also been piloting the aerial mapping of the Oil Spill by communities as part of the Public Laboratory group. Shannon has extensive community, field and teaching experience, interested in social implications of environmental events, and environmental refugees in particular.

DAY 1 : March 8th Morning : Oil Spill mapping, World Environmental Action. Environmental governance and cutting edge activism. Groups brainstorming. Afternoon : Social networks and Architecture of Play (choreography, construction)

DAY 2 : March 10th Morning : Design. Theory in practice. Afternoon : Thinking by doing. Evening : Presentation of project ideas.

Feel free to contact us before and after the workshop : contact {at} cesarharada {dot} com _ shannon {at} publiclaboratory {dot} org. Looking forward to meet you all! Cesar and Shannon.

Discussion
We would like to start asking questions to open up the discussion, please comment below and ask more questions - we'll answer in line :)

1>> When you think about environmentalism, what comes first to your mind? Is it the little actions like recycling / the activist social group / the  green 'leaders' / green designs and brands / the materials we use / scientific research / global warming / your own body / your children / the philosophical current / something else?  Which action has the strongest and longest lasting impact? Can you make a personal numbered list below here, in the comments?

2>> When you think about  environmental politics, what comes first to your mind? How do you feel about the current relation between the environment and politics today? How does it affect the majority of peoples life?

3>> As a designer what do you think is your role about environmental issues?

I would prefer if you could comment on the orignal post, thanks : http://www.designandenvironment.co.uk/?p=730

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I think, isolated from its context this image is very strange and funny :

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Yesterday we went aerial mapping a landscape that is just about to change radically : restoration of the oyster reef in Mobile Alabama, Dog river mouth - known as Helen Wood Park beach. In two hours from now (2011 January 22 6AM), hundreds of volunteers will come to install a massive oyster reef here. From 8AM today "Volunteers will be deploying approximately 23,000 bags of oyster shells to create new reefs and habitat at the mouth of Dog River" - see them in action here .

Aerial mapping Prof. Dawn McKinney & Prof. Leo Denton of the University of Mobile South Alabama. Thanks to Shannon Dosemagen for organizing the trip. 

We took about 5000 aerial pictures that I turned into 3 very large resolution maps to make one huge map (at the top of the post):



Download these full resolution maps to your computer as .zip file (27mb). If you want to learn how to make one of these map, check this post.

This time, in addition of aerial photography, I also took ground samples (~250x microscopy), sand, sediment, organic material taken at regular interval. The idea is : if we are able to say what is on the ground - sometimes we may find oil spilled still - we can qualify and quantify what we see on the aerial pictures. We will come back in a few weeks to map again and see the effects of installing an artificial oyster reef here : "before and after" :) 

--
date : 20110121@15:41, low-tide. 
Location : 30.57562, -88.07847 
Mapping for Grassroots Mapping & LA Bucket Brigade. 
Photos : Prof. Leo Denton and Prof. Dawn McKinney 
Stitching : Cesar Harada 
Left at 10:45 - return 20:30 
Milleage : start 761963 - end 764803

--
Re-Posted on the Grassroots Mapping blog page : http://grassrootsmapping.org/2011/01/mapping-river-dog-mouth-mobile-alabama/

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

How it looks from afar

Cold winter, people walking, absent

Chicago Aquarium, jellyfishes

Anxious

 _ Sex

Sight! 

Going nuts upside down dolphin 

Prairie Houses Milwaukee

Abandoned Child

Bombing of New Orleans... NO! New years Eve Fireworks above New Orleans, 2011!!! Woohooooo! Thanks Mrs Toledano!

Louis Amstrong International Airport. Return home :)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Very very early this morning (2AM), I witnessed the 2010 total eclipse happening the day of winter solstice (Dec 21) from Pontchartrain Lake in New Orleans.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

It is a great honor to announce today that I am a 2011 TED Senior Fellow.

Thanks to the TED organizers and the wonderful people that supported my application. Most of the projects I work on are collaborative, so this success is not only mine, but belongs to every person that was kind to work with me. Thank you very much. I will do my best to promote our collective actions. This also strongly encourages me to push my efforts in developing Oil Spill cleaning technologies here in the Gulf of Mexico. 
I hope I will have the pleasure to see you at
- TED 2011 : February 28-March 4, 2011: Long Beach, CA, USA.
- TED Global : July 11-15, 2011: Edinburgh, Scotland.
Again, thanks to all the amazing people I have been working with, let's keep going stronger.
I will have the immense privilege to hang out and share ideas with the following brilliant individuals : 

2011 TED Fellows
http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/552

• James Patten (US) A US-based inventor who is exploring new ways that physical objects can represent and control digital information
• Chris Woebken (US / Germany) A German-American interaction designer whose installations create novel relationships between humans and animals
• Yara Shaban (Jordan) A Jordanian electrical engineer who's working to engage women in technology education and development in the Middle East
• Camille Seaman (US) A Native American photographer whose work captures the harsh beauty of remote Arctic landscapes
• Isabel Behncke Izquierdo (Chile / UK / DRC) A Chilean primatologist who studies play behavior among bonobos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Prumsodun Ok (US / Cambodia) A Cambodian-American choreographer and performance artist whose work merges classical Cambodian and modern dance
• Sey Min (Korea) A Korean data-visualization designer who works with live data sets to creatively display information
• Luke Hutchison (US / New Zealand) A computer scientist and computational biologist from New Zealand who is looking for the structural blueprints of life
• Sumit Dagar (India) An Indian interaction designer and filmmaker working on the Braille Phone, a mobile phone for the blind
• Kaustuv De Biswas (India/US) A US- and India-based entrepreneur whose experimental design firm, dplay, is building open-source toolboxes for design
• Xavier Vilalta (Spain) A Spanish architect whose firm, XV Studio, uses fractal geometry to innovate in the built environment
• Suzanne Lee (UK) A British artist and fashion designer who "grows" clothing with bacteria
• Skylar Tibbits (US) An American artist and computational architect working on "smart" components that can assemble themselves
• Yale Fox (Canada / US) A New York City-based DJ who studies the mystery of why humans love music
• Minou Norouzi (UK / Austria / Iran) An Austrian-Iranian moving-image artist whose work reveals the curiosities of ordinary life
• Marcin Jakubowski (US) A Polish-American who is starting a new civilization -- from scratch -- in the Midwestern US
• Joshua Roman (US) An American cellist who, before his international solo career, was the principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony at age 22
• Nina Tandon (US) An American electrical engineer and research scientist who explores how electrical stimulation encourages tissue growth
• Sanjana Hattotuwa (Sri Lanka) A Sri Lankan human-rights activist and founder of Groundviews, a citizen-journalism initiative

2011 TED Senior Fellow
http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/553

• Jessica Green (US) Professor at the University of Oregon's Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology whose research focuses on microbial diversity
• Robert Gupta (US) Indian American violinist and musical activist, youngest member of Los Angeles Philharmonic
• Cesar Harada (France | Japan | US) Coordinator of the Open_Sailing project, developing open-source technologies for the International_Ocean_Station and oil spill remediation robotics.
• Mitchell Joachim (US) Professor at NYU and co-founder of Terreform ONE + Terrefuge, non-profit design groups that promotes ecological design in cities
• Manu Prakash (India | US) Junior Fellow at Harvard Society of Fellows, physicist and inventor pursuing research in the field of physical biology
• Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Pakistan | Canada) Documentary filmmaker and founder of The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, an educational institution and heritage center established to preserve Pakistan's history
• Awab Alvi (Pakistan) Pakistani dentist, orthodontist and author of Teeth Maestro, a prominent Pakistani political blog
• Alanna Shaikh (US | Tajikistan) Global health and development specialist and author of the international development focused-blog, Blood and Milk
• Aparna Rao (India) A part of the Bangalore-based artist duo Pors & Rao who works with electro-mechanical systems and interactive installations
• Saeed Taji Farouky (Palestine | UK) Documentary filmmaker, photographer and writer focusing on human rights in the Middle East and North Africa
• Candy Chang (US) Public installation artist, designer, urban planner, and co-founder of Civic Center, an urban design studio in New Orleans
• Esra'a Al Shafei (Bahrain) Bahraini human rights activist + founder of MideastYouth.com, a grassroots digital network facilitating the struggle against oppression in the Middle East & North Africa

More articles on the subject ... PR NewsWire

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

youtube.com/watch?v=OYWmBgHvlJU 
HD archive | Mp4 Archive | Flv mini archive

Thanks to the TEDxMidAtlantic organizers Dave Troy and Nate Mook for this great event.
You can see a shorter and clearer video of the Protei.org presentation without speech hesitations and working animations just below :

youtube.com/watch?v=uv5D6E5Nv_M
Download HD archive (84mb) | Original huge HD (1.2GB)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

My favorite website in the entire world is Instructables.com, I will never have enough enthusiasm to communicate how much I love this website!
Today, I received an email telling my inflatable filming trimaran got featured in the water section!!! YAY!!! 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Trace an oval on the floor with some chalks

how it looks in the end.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

For japanese reader, please click on the image above, the definition is good enough to read the text :)　ありごと！

Currently Open_Sailing focuses its efforts on developing Protei, an Oil Spill Cleaning Sailing Drone with a long absorbing tail : protei.org. 

OPEN SAILING オープン・セイリング
海で生きる－。未来の暮らし方
国際海洋ステーションの開発

 人口の過剰増加や気候変動など、いま地球が直面している問題を克服し、魅力的な未来をつくりだすために、多分野の専門家が参加する国際的なプロジェクト「オープン・セイリング」。地球で生き続けるアイデアとして、海に浮かぶ生活・実験空間“国際海洋ステーション”の開発を提案しています。本展示では、食料供給や発電システム、常に安全な場所に移動できるナビゲーションシステムなど、衣食住のライフラインがどのようにつくられているかを紹介します。また、この大規模なプロジェクトに関する技術やアイデアは、すべてインターネット上で公開されており、誰でもプロジェクトに参加できるのもユニークなポイント。より良い未来を実現する方法として、資金を持たない人や小さなアイデアが採用される可能性を示すことで、新しいワークスタイルの提案もしているのです。

●「オープン・セイリング」とは？

「オープン・セイリング」は、海洋問題解決の研究・開発をテーマとする“国際海洋ステーション”開発プロジェクト。すでに、高性能の船舶と潜水艦が完成しており、現在は、そこで生活をしながら海洋研究ができる「小型洋上ラボ」の開発が進められています。

 ＜ステーションの各ユニットのキャプション＞

①「変形自在なユニット」（Instinctive Architecture）

生命体のように、天候条件や状況に応じて自らを最適な形状に再構成する建築ユニット。天候が良いときは構造体を広げ、嵐などの危険な状況では自身の構造をコンパクトにたたみます。

 ②「発電システム（エナジー・アニマル）」（Energy Animal）

 風力、太陽光、波などの自然エネルギーを再生する装置。天候により、効率的に取得対象を選定し、確実にエネルギーを供給し続けます。

③「自動ナビゲーションシステム」（Swarm operating system）

カスタマイズ可能なナビゲーション。設定された対象を探索する以外にも、天候や世界情勢などのリアルタイムなデータをもとに、移動エリアの選択をアシストします。

④「海上農園」（Ocean Cookbook）

海の上での充実した食料供給のために、最適な植物の栽培や調理方法など、“非常食”ではなく、海上だからこそ楽しめる“美味しい体験”を研究しています。

●オープンな“R＆D（研究・開発）サロン”

「オープン・セイリング」は、様々な専門家とのコラボレーションで進行しています。このプロジェクトで開発された技術やアイデアは、すべてインターネット上で公開されており、より良い研究・開発のための専門的な知識を持つ人は誰でも、世界中から参加することができます。

＜各写真キャプション＞

①「オープン・セイリングのスタッフ」（Photo image of 2008. up to 40 people are participating）

 ②「“ゴールデン・ニカ”を受賞」（Photo image of 2009.）

「オープン・セイリング」は、2009年度プリ・アルスエレクトロニカ「ネクスト・アイデアカテゴリー」で“ゴールデン・ニカ（最優秀賞）”を受賞。

③「小型洋上ラボ“リンツ・ヴァージョン”」（Image of 5 people floating lab）

アルスエレクトロニカ・フューチャーラボ「アーティスト・イン・レジデンス」のプログラムで制作した、5名用フローティング・ラボモデル“リンツ・ヴァージョン”。

④「メキシコ湾原油流出」（Photo of protei (2010) / photo of Mexico oil ）

今年4月に起きたメキシコ湾原油流出事故。オープン・セイリングのスタッフは、いま、この問題の解決に取り組んでいます。

⑤「プロテイ（Protei）」

最新のプロジェクト「プロテイ」は、“流出原油回収用無人帆船”。自然の力を利用して航海し、原油を検知すると自動で針路を変え、風下に移動する油をとらえます。また、衝突しても自動的に復元するため、荒れた海での継続作業も可能です。汚染物質に触れることなく除去作業ができる「プロテイ」。あなたもその開発に参加してみませんか。

ウェブサイトURL http://protei.org

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

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 (especially Open_Sailing, randomwalks and V2_ folks).
Protei would be a Fleet of Oil Collecting Sailing drones. I just made this 7 minutes video that explains how it works (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 :)

Download Hi-Quality movie (82Mb) | Full HD quality (1.2 Gb)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

It's been a while :) So, here, some recent pictures of the places I have seen. 

Maybe, I should find myself labelled similarly : 

"IF FOUND ADRIFT CONTACT MOORING OPERATIONS GROUP WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION WOODS HOLE MA 02543 USA 508 548 1401"

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Back in the USA. More water, more driving, more swimming :) Thanks Nick!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »