The Good Air Canary / ESDK

This is a personal favourite of mine, as the same project has two ‘starting points’ to engage with: The project was about raising awareness about Air Quality, during the Pandemic, without creating panic, or being too technical, or dull to engage with.

The lower device is for the nerds, (ESDK is the Environmental Sensor Development Kit) and boasts an impressive arrange of cutting edge sensors, in a [difficult to do well] LEGO-block style interface. Most people didn’t click on this, of course!

The upper device is a beguiling ‘Canary in the Coal Mine’ - a metaphor that most people can relate to, as it flaps at poor air quality, and gets more frantic, until it falls off its perch.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough” - Einstein.

The pleasing part of this ‘storytelling’ in tech, is that if you are an engineer - you’ll likely respect the canary metaphor is not ‘dumbing-down’ the serious science (ppm, VOCs, RH%, etc.), and if you’re a non-technical person, perhaps the canary has made the engineering feel less intimidating (open a window if the bird is squawking at you, is simpler to initially understand than “4000ppm is a dangerous CO2 concentration”!).

This ‘circular’ connection usually deepens a mutual respect for the science and the simple but life saving story around it. As per the Einstein quote, it often takes considerable understanding and creativity to make things this simple, accurate and memorable. The campaign was one of the highlights for the client RS DesignSpark, and was a precursor to what forged their global Activist Engineering campaign.

Read more about Good Air Canary covered by Make:

Full details visit DesignSpark for the build guide.