Solve Global Warming through a Smart Device
Major Studio 1 | MFADT
1D | Ideas in Form
Akshansh Chaudhary & Sunah Hong
Team Dexter and Dee Dee
Ideas in Form is a 5 part project where we look into the several dimensions of work. So, we start with a concept and build it to a final product.
Our project idea started with a combination of two opposing ideas: Warming and Smart. Sunah had the idea of making a smart device and I wanted to work in global warming. Combining the two ideas, we thought of creating a speculative design of solving the problem of global warming through a smart device.
This post is the first part of the project: 1D or 1 dimension. In this, we had to write a story for a user scenario. We came up with an idea of a smart device we call picoDetect, which connects to the brain and receives signals from the sense organs. Now, whenever our body performs an action that harms leads to global warming, picoDetect will detect that information coming to the brain and will transmit it to the nearby devices. Once you have the data from your brain outside your body, the constant stream of notifications will force you to adopt environment friendly practices.
Story
This is a story about John Dexter. John lives in Manhattan, NY. He is a Biotechnology Engineering professor at Johns Hopkins and is a father of two daughters. His routine involves commute to and from work, teaching at the school, and taking care of his two lovely daughters. At Johns Hopkins, he teaches a course: Sustainable Development, in which he teaches the negative impact of global warming on the environment – burning fossil fuels, generating CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons) – and its effect on climate change.
In his every class, John highlights why his students must know about global warming and what urgent actions they must take. While he has been spreading awareness through his lectures, he starts to see a trend – reduced response of his students to the intense problem of warming. Over the years that he has taught Sustainable Development, this growing disinterest among his students concerns him. John begins to realize that his daughters are about to face the same future, and if awareness was not impactful enough, the world would eventually collapse because of warming.
In the interest of a sustainable future for the world, John decides to create a smart solution to solve the issue of warming. He starts researching the latest advancements in biotechnology. Being a researcher and a teacher, he wants to go beyond awareness to so that the people cannot ignore their acts of global warming.
With that thought, he resolves to the idea of creating a smart device which can stay with the person at all times. John conceptualizes it to be a chip which can connect to the body and monitor human actions. At the time, Biotechnology has not advanced sufficiently for him to directly build a device. But John is determined and decides to dedicate his remaining life to creating the technology behind such an interaction.
After a decade of research and experiments, he builds a device which can connect to the brain and sensory organs of the body. With this connection established, John can now receive and interpret signals from the sensory organs and the brain. This means that the device, once connected to the body, would know when we interact with the world through touch, sight, taste, sound, and smell. John can also receive and interpret the actions taken by the brain based on those interactions.
This device is a square chip with a dimension of 28 picometers (one trillionth of a meter). Made of organic material, the chip powers itself through ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) molecules which are synthesized during glycolysis. So, when the body produces energy, the chip takes ATP from the cell cytoplasm through osmosis. The chip is implanted in the brain above the spinal cord to establish a connection with medulla oblongata through motor nerves. This physical connection enables the chip to receive signals going to and coming from the brain through neurons. These signals are in the form of proteins. John detects the receipt of these messages through a digital circuitry which stays connected to the chip and the body of the person using the device.
This remarkable breakthrough gives John a lot of recognition in the scientific community. But he has more work to do; his objective is still incomplete. Now that he has the information of the responses from the brain, he must filter those responses based on the decisions involving global warming. This means that he must prioritize the receipt of only those responses which occur when a person burns fossil fuels or triggers the production of CFCs, Once he has that, he can schedule the chip such that it activates only for those responses and stays dormant for the rest of the time. To achieve that, John connects with other biotechnology scientists in the US.
After 2 years of constant data reception from the brain, the scientists are able to detect a pattern for the protein generation for specific actions. They use Big Data to process the 137 ZB (Zettabyte) of data received from the brain. The results are astonishing. John and the scientists find that the brain ignores most of the responses which trigger CFC generation, mostly because of the way it has been taught. The world recognizes the second breakthrough and John is awarded a Nobel prize in Biochemistry.
While John and other scientists are working on building this chip, the world faces its first impact of global warming: the water levels of earth’s southern hemisphere get disturbed and parts of Australia, Africa, and South America get submerged in water. Tectonic plates shift for continents in the northern hemisphere. A massive migration takes place around the globe. This brings the world on high alert. The UN (United Nations) proposes that country borders be removed and a free migration be established.
John knew that this day would come. While the world establishes rules for a new way of living, John continues to work on his project. Till now, he had been monitoring the signals in a lab setting. Now, he must develop a way of storing this information and activating it remotely so that people can use this chip on a daily basis to prevent warming to aggravate. To wirelessly store the chip data and to communicate it with the body, John asks the scientists and engineers in China and India for help.
It takes all the scientists about 5 years to develop a new wireless technology which can transmit data across any device. The engineers install a wireless internet connection to the chip and transmitters around the world so that the chip can transmit signals from any part of the world and even from inside the body. They call this technology picoFi (Picometer Wireless Fidelity).
Now, John and other scientists have another challenge. They must develop a mechanism to store all this data. Instead of setting up servers, the biochemists working on the project get successful in tapping the hypothalamus of the brain, which is responsible for memory. This enables the team to store the filtered responses on the inactive regions of the hypothalamus and then use that data to transmit across devices through picoFi.
This breakthrough completes the project objective. John names the smart chip picoDetect. With seamless integration of hardware and software, the team begins developing wearable devices which can display the messages sent from picoDetect through picoFi.
With the impact of warming on the rise, John starts to test the prototypes on users and it is a rapid success. This biotechnological breakthrough transforms the world. The World Health Organization sanctions the use of picoDetect on a human body and the global leaders at the World Economic Forum propose a worldwide implementation of picoDetect for coping with warming. Biotechnology companies start developing picoDetect in mass scale to cope with the requirement. The UN launches a worldwide installation of picoDetect on the body of every person with ages 5 or more. After several discussions and debates, all country governments follow this guideline. The world acknowledges John’s invention and awards him with another Nobel prize in Biochemistry.
Very soon, the entire population gets picoDetect embedded on their bodies. Now, whenever they do anything that triggers CFCs or fosters Global Warming, picoDetect alerts them on every device around them. Like this, the world becomes a community of people being self-aware of the damage they are causing to the environment. With a mass adoption of picoDetect, the warming impact slows down drastically. The temperature variations become less common and weather analysts project a sustainable future for the world.
John prevents warming through his smart device, picoDetect. John saves the world.
Download PDF: picoDetect – 1D Story
Brainstorming
Thoughts:
Story of a world which got destroyed due to warming (Global warming/ climate change). Now, a smart system gets implemented to solve the problem. Finally, everyone gets to a new earth which is liveable.
Areas to look at:
Global warming: how to explain the problem of warming?
Smart system: what kind of a smart system?
Answering questions regarding global warming
Letting users know ways to improve global warming each day
Usage of CFCs (via AC, etc) measured in the house and let the users know?
App that can detect the pollution level at anytime and inform the users about it.
Mobile app, wearable device, home kit, personal accessory
Additional device that can measure? Built-in?
KEY AREAS
- DEFINE GLOBAL WARMING; ITS SIGNIFICANCE? WHY IMPORTANT?
- DETAIL ABOUT THE IDEAL DEVICE THAT SOLVES IT IN SOME WAY
How smart to solve a problem
What will the smart device do?
How will it solve the problem?
User-friendly design: easy to use, access; intuitive design
Details?
Eco-friendly design: the way it is designed does not pollute the environment in any way
Wearable device: smart sensor attached to the body
- Built-in chip in user’s body
- VR that tells users whether users are polluting or not in real time
STORY FLOW
// Introducing the character and the environment
// Introducing the problem
// Relating the problem to the character (decides to solve it)
// Explaining details of the problem and its impact
// Creating a solution: Concept, Iteration, Prototyping and Finalization
// Testing the solution: user test, beta test
// Implementing the solution: Target audience, implementation
// Describing the challenges
// Concluding the story
Inspiration
The Entire History of You | Black Mirror | S01: E03 | Netflix
