Measuring Pollution with Ancient Kite Tradition

After some time ago in this blog review about robotic fish used to measure the pollution that occurs at sea. So on this occasion will be discussed on the use of a kite as a measure of pollution.

As we all know that a kite is one of the ancient tradition in China. But now a group of Chinese graduate student and the United States using a kite as a modern tool to monitor the air quality in Beijing sky.

The Ancient Chinese kite-flying tradition has become a new citizen tool for monitoring air quality in the skies over Beijing. (Picture from: http://www.livescience.com/)

The project, named "Float Beijing" was first inspired by controversy regarding China's air pollution statistics that occurred several months ago. The "Float Beijing" project's kites carry air pollution sensors as well as colorful LED lights that show the level of air quality — green for good, yellow for moderate, red for unhealthy and pink for severely unhealthy.

This project has increased funding U.S. $ 5,000 (approximately Rp. 48 million). "This sensor is fairly easy to kite up into the mountains. With these tools, kites helped us find the best places after some tests done," said Deren Guler, a master's candidate in tangible interaction design at Carnegie Mellon University.

Beijing residents prepare to fly a kite for sensing air pollution. (Picture from: http://www.livescience.com/)

Deren Guler working with Xiaowei Wang, a master's candidate in landscape architecture at Harvard University. They tried to develop kite as a solutif step to satisfy the Chinese government to create a tool that can read a more detailed air pollution. Finally, the ​​"Float Beijing" project made that combines ancient Chinese tradition and modern technology.

Wang talked with kite flyers at a local Beijing park who recommended a master kite maker in a nearby kite market. The kite maker and his wife were "very enthusiastic" about the project, and helped the Chinese and American graduate students refine their kite design. Guler said, "They gave us some of their own kite-light decorations to help experiment with and offered to sell our modules."

Beijingers learn how to assemble kites that can detect air pollution in a Float Beijing workshop in August 2012. (Picture from: http://www.livescience.com/)

The first Beijing workshops taught Chinese citizens how to attach the air pollution sensors and lights to the kites. Such kites are able to not only detect and display general levels of carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, but also collect the data and store it for later. This workshop took place in August.

Float Beijing aims to eventually create an online interactive display of the air pollution results collected by the kites, as well as a book about the project. The project founders also left some of their open-source kite modules in Beijing so that Chinese citizens could begin sharing the design on Weibo, China's version of Twitter. *** [NB | LIVESCIENCE | JAM | PIKIRAN RAKYAT25102012]

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