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DIY Air Quality Balloons
An anonymous reader writes "A few students at Carnegie Mellon University outfitted weather balloons with air quality sensors, resulting in huge glowing balloons that respond to surrounding air quality. Their Instructables page shows that pretty much anyone can make these using a PIC, a tri-colored LED, and some off-the-shelf air quality sensors (about $10 each): 'This Instructable will show you how to make giant, super cool, glowing balloons that react to surrounding air quality. Inside each balloon is a tri-colored LED. This LED reacts to data from an air quality sensor, turning green, yellow or red based on low, average, and high values.'"
Someone farted?
How long until Boston locks down because of a terrorist attack.
1-31-07 Never Forget.
Poor air quality can usually be described as "there are way too many balloons up there."
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Homer: Ready!
Troy: First, patch the cracks in the slab using a latex patching compound and a patching trowel.
Homer: [to Bart] Hand me my patching trowel, boy.[Bart shrugs.] Hmm.
Troy: Now, do you have extruded poly-vinyl foam insulation?
Homer: No.
Troy: Good! Assemble the aluminum J-channel using self-burring screws. Install!
Homer: What do I do for-
Troy: After applying brushable coating to the panels...
Homer: Wait a minute-
Troy: You'll need some corrosion resistant metal stucco lath.
Homer: Wait a minute!
Troy: If you can't find metal stucco lath...
Homer: Uh-huh?
Troy: Use carbon-fibre stucco lath!
Homer: Ohhhh!!
Troy: Now parge the lath!
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Aren't you supposed to be making plastic crap for us?
GET BACK TO WORK CHAIRMAN, NOW!
And they use LEDs. Don't forget the tri-colored LEDs. Because it's important to mention tri-colored LEDs whenever they're used. And they're using tri-colored LEDs. Which are LEDs that come in three colors.
I'm going to stick my head in a microwave now.
From the summary:
and some off-the-shelf air quality sensors (about $10 each)
From the article (sorry, Instructable):
- Air Quality Sensor from Figaro (I recommend the VOC or the diesel/exhaust sensor, $10/$20 each)
I guess it was just too hard to copy/paste two prices.
The article is just as bad. I mean, this is Carnegie Mellon University. How's this for science:
Data sheet for both sensors suggests 48 hours of preheat to make the elements most stable. I've run them for about 24 hours and it seemed to work fine.
Oh, so your sensors "seem to work fine". Here's a quote from the datasheets:
[solvent vapor sensor] Standard test conditions: Conditioning period before test: 7 days
[gasoline and diesel exhaust sensor] Standard test conditions: Conditioning period before test: 2-7 days
No calibration whatsoever. Dumbasses.
I hope these wankers create an air pollution scare and the local population starts wearing gas masks to defend themselves from horrendous air quality because the people who'll build this kind of thing has no clue, follows the Instructable without question and makes the same mistakes as the UNI-FUCKING-VERSITY people.
A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
get off my lawn
don't you just hate the school holidays.
Instructables is a classic Web 2.0 invention where the responses and comments are far more important than the content of the article. They are meant to be a "look at me, see how clever I am" showcase of stuff that 1 person made, but no-one else is ever expected to be able (or want) to replicate. While they could be helpful articles presented in a way that explains the principles, provides clear information about how to make things and is actually useful, in practice it's all about the flashy and colourful presentation.
I fully expect that one of these days there will be an instructable article called "How we made a matchstick". First start off with a tree-trunk, then plane it down into 2 tons of sawdust and a piece of wood 2 inches long. Complete with videos of felling the tree, people playing in the pile of shavings and finally some spotty yoof holding a small sliver of wood. The article itself would then have hundreds of comments along the lines of "Dude, thatz sooooo coooool" and "Awesum"
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons