Open Lab: noise measure / feel the city roar
1. indoor activity
The first part will be a really short introduction in what forced us to start the project and why we find it necessary to measure these environmental data, why we considered it as important to have not only measurement at one place but a hopefully increasing number of measurement nodes and finally why we want to combine it with yet existing concepts of crowd sourcing and crowd data.
The introduction will as well give an overview on the schedule of the workshop and in addition there will be some words, why we think that it is not enough only to measure sound/noise with electronic tools and why sensing of sound gives an additional layer of notion concerning the audible aura of a city.
The first practical part will focus on the technical way, sensing as measuring and getting voltage converted to numbers = data.
The first part is indoors: We want to present our state of development of an open source diy noise measurement system. So we present the state of the development and hope to meet with interested participants to enhance the system and hopefully to find solutions how to modify it to provide measurement data online e.g. on a open map.
We want to declare that we both do not provide any programming or coding knowledge, we only can provide the analog part of the measurement system and maybe some yet developed open source tools to convert the voltages in something more interesting. We still search for this and yet have found some solutions that look interesting.
2. outdoor activity
The second part is about sensing too, but more in the human way of sensing. Again the aim is to sense the city's roar, tweeting and murmur, but using the bodily sensing system coupled with our unique sensing algorithms. We will provide basic low-tech "sensor-tips" and "signal amplifiers" that do not consume any electricity, but transform audible airwaves into tactile signals.
The secont part is outdoor, it is an audio - walk through the city. The group will use the provided signal non electric signal enhancers, the ears the entire body and of course the system of interpretation to sense the city's audible aura. We will visit interesting places where we do the non technical and the technical measuring simultaneously. In addition the places audible reality will be captured with field recording devices.
3. reflection
The third part aims to confront the two sensing systems one with the other and moreover, to compare the subjective sensing notions captured to individual listening protocols with the recordings and the measurement data. Finally a discussion concerning the topic of sensing the audible environment is much appreciated.
What participants should bring:
For the development part: technological knowledge concerning audio amplifying, data production conversion, some knowledge on microcontrolers and open source technologies for online data providing, open maps...
For the sound-walk and final workshop part 3:
Mainly curiosity concerning the audible aura, acoustics and sound sensing.
List of used Open Source / DIY Information:
DIY Measurement Mic:
http://www.musiker-board.de/mikrofone-faq/409394-workshop-messmikrofone-selbstbau-eines-messmikrofons.html
http://www.cc.puv.fi/~gc/download/publications/ITST06-gao.pdf
DIY Audio Amplifyers:
http://sound.westhost.com/ (diverse projects)
Yet realized similar projects:
http://www.cc.puv.fi/~gc/download/publications/ITST06-gao.pdf