LutetiumHi all -- we'll get started with the Hack Chat in a few minutes. Haven't seen @Laurel Cummings log in yet.
:)
speak of the devil
I stand corrected!
Aha!
Hello everyone!
Hi Laurel, welcome aboard, and thanks everyone for coming today.
Hey Laurel :-)
Laurel is here to talk about her experiences engineering solutions under less-than-ideal circumstances. Can you tell us a little about your background Laurel?
hi Laurel
Yeah! Firstly thanks so much for hosting this, Dan and Hackaday, and for inviting me to talk about the work I get to do!
My background is in electrical engineering, but I've been heavily involved in makerspaces and the maker movement as a whole for about 8 years now.
Lol. Hey Morgan :-)
When you're in these spaces, you get exposed to a lot of different and weird skillsets and learning opportunities, so most of my experience at this point has come from always being willing to go through those kinds of short courses, trying to help out in strange and varied projects, and collecting skills like you would quarters!
I really enjoy hardware work and do most of my work in Arduino and C, and on the side, I do some prop making and electronic music making. :)
Can you tell us a little more about the outfit you work for? I struggled with how to describe it, settling for a consulting and technology development firm. Did I come close?
Haha, it is a hard place to describe succinctly!
So Building Momentum is the company I work for, and our primary business is in the problem solving training field. A large portion of our work is done with the US military, in training active duty military members in a weeklong program called Innovation Bootcamp.
We teach them 3D printing, laser cutting, MIG welding, electronics, soldering, Arduino, Raspberry Pis, P2P communications, IP cameras, solar power... just about as much as we can cram in their heads, honestly!
The true objective of this training is to really teach these folks that failure is okay, and is not only acceptable but expected! You're never going to hit the best solution to a problem on the first attempt, and iteration is a vital part of the problem-solving work flow.
what does the US Military have to do with Arduino and raspberry pi?
i mean why is it usefull to the military?
/me leaves
And do you do those bootcamps in their world? Like on bases and forward deployments and such?
Yeah, we go to their bases, and usually have to make a fully functional workshop in about a day's time, which is usually a tall task.
It can be really difficult to forsee every possible tool, compotent, and technology you'll need to solve at least 95% of the problems that come into that workshop.
And that's where our work with the military really starts to tie in with the disaster response side of things, because it's those resource-deprived environments that we've practiced- and gotten good at- working inside of in both disasters and the battlefield.
It's funny - we're so used to thinking of the military as "$1000 toilet seats" that we forget the day-to-day stuff is resource limited.
Lazer, the military is a hugely diverse place, despite the projected image of a united front. You have people involved who may have a PHD in the sciences, to 19 year olds lads who have been playing with 3D printers in high school.
disaster response sounds really interesting, are you using radio comms for that, if so i'd be interested what type of RF stuff you're using
Yeah, exactly! So the thing is that it takes months and years to get those $1000 toliet seats, and by the time the seat gets to the battlefield, either the problem is gone, or someone duct-taped together a solution
So our training is really about empowering the lower ranking people to find their own solutions, even if it's with just a beginner's Arduino kit and a USB powered soldering iron, haha.
How important is duct tape in the field?
I did a story on a USMC unit that now routinely 3D-prints parts for F-35s:
https://hackaday.com/2018/08/23/marines-3d-print-part-to-repair-multi-million-dollar-fighter/
Marines 3D-Print Part To Repair Multi-Million Dollar Fighter
The good news: all you need to complete the repair you're working on is one small part. The bad news: it's only available in a larger, expensive assembly. The worst news: shipping time is forever. We've all been there, and it's a hard pill to swallow for the DIYer.
Duct-tape is a way of life, lol!
it's the Red Green way
Yeah, that is actually a big anecdote we use in trying to tell military brass why 3D printers can help.
So engineer a response to the battlefield itself.
Now i really am off before I spoil a hackchat. We all have a right to a voice, but this doesnt represent mine. Laters guys, take care :-)
With the disaster response RF stuff, we aren't really setting up brand new infrastructure in these areas, and we're usually in teams of 4 or less, and staying together the whole time for safety. RF setups aren't usually a big part of our kit yet.
I have a lot of fondness for Xbee radios personally, though, when I need to make a long range remote sensing project quickly, being able to swap transceivers with different antennas that easily is really nice!
What's more important for RF in those kinds of situations? Range? Bandwidth? Something else?
I'm sorry to see you head out, Morning.Star, but I understand the connotations around this kind of work. I like to think that by showing Marines they can build an arduino sensor, instead of having to stand at an output with a weapon, it might help move us to more peaceful resolutions in a lot of areas of the world, not just hot zones.
The most important thing is flexibility!
wow this is very interesting
i have to go now so thank you Laurel
good bye guys
When I'm packing up to go to a disaster, it usually is a carry on and a single checked duffle, so I have to have as many multi-purpose tools and components as possible
cheers, i guess xbee modules would be used for small textual type messages?
See you around!
Yeah, we're usually only needing to send either a boolean type message or just super small 256 bit messages, to give rough estimates
My approach is usually having to ask myself "what's the bare minimum amount of info I need from this field unit?" because I don't have much time to optimize both battery life and TX protocols
Are you ever in a position with these disaster-relief operations where you could have a shipping container sent with everything you need? I'd imagine they'd make great temporary workshops.
Learning how to honestly build to the objective of "the bare minimimum" has required un-learning a lot of assumptions from every other experience I've ever had in engineering, haha
So! We're actually building out one right now for a client for just that scenario! This works when you're reacting on a timescale of "6 months of disaster response"
but we're usually one of the first teams on the ground, in the "6 DAYS of disaster response" so we don't get the luxur, of having a container sent out to these places, unfortunately.
And if a container can get delivered to a disaster, say like the Bahamas, it's usually better off being full of first aid, food, water, etc, rather than 3D printers and RPis, haha
Interesting. I wonder if the solutions that roadies come up with for their austere engineering needs would work for that timescale. They generally have road cases kitted out as portable workshops to fix amps, lighting, instruments, etc.
What is the bare minimum you always bring?
I used to work local crew at a concert venue, so I saw a lot of road crews come through. Very rarely were they not able to repair something with what they had on hand for tools and parts.
Yeah! I had no idea they also traveled with their own workshops, but that could be interesting to look up after this!
Nicolas, our unofficial company motto is that all we need when we touch down is a knife, a multi-tool, and a phone- no service required.
ok, then what would you add to this barebone
I do love me an Arduino + sensors kit, haha.
@Nicolas Tremblay also interested
There are a lot of problems you can solve with a well-programmed microcontroller and some sensors, that usually require a person to otherwise take care of it
For example, in North Carolina during/after Hurricane Florence, there was a lot of risk of sudden bridge washout
Most towns had a policy of assigning four cops to one bridge to make sure no one tries to drive over it unless absolutely necessary and to keep an eye on the river to see if any large debris or sudden floods come rushing down to hit the bridge(s). This would also work as a warning system for other communities further down that same river.
One solution we proposed while we were down there was devolving a small network of bridge wash-out sensors, that either detected unusually high waters nearing the underpass of a bridge, or detecting a large tree or car washing down the river. This is what I mean by I need small, shorter range RF solutions, that I can change quickly.
I already know a limitation of such a system will be range of the RF, but if I can reduce the number of first responders watching say three bridges, to just one person watching a read-out, those other folks are now freed up to go do one of the other 10000 things you need to be doing after a disaster.
That seems like a situation where local officials would hesitate to embrace your solution, because it isn't off-the-shelf. Do you find that to be a problem?
That is usually a problem leading right up until the disaster, and then once again about 3 weeks after the disaster, once things return to stabilized.
And to be transparent, most of the projects and solutions we make and offer aren't permanent solutions. They're meant to be triage, in a way, because that's usually all you can afford to do in those really early stages of a disaster.
That's the other hard lesson I had to learn/unlearn as an engineer getting into this work- sometimes you don't want to build the best version of your project because it doesn't need to work for more than two days. Code optimization seems silly when this will most likely see a trashcan in a week, haha.
I think that was the big lesson I learned from your Supercon talk - deliver something - anything - within 24 hours of getting there.
Seems like that's good advice even under non-austere situations
hi all, i have got a sense hat for raspberry, i want to use it but it keep give me an error: it can't find the Hat. Don't know why, it was not broken!
Intellectually, this looks like work that I would love to do. IRL I know I wouldn't be able to operate effectively in those kinds of situations.
It is very much something you practice!
I was just about to say that the 24 hour problem-to-solution challenge is a good thing for anyone to try at home, even just for fun!
It can really help illuminate where you can optimize your personal prototyping process, and hey, you might surprise yourself with how well you do under these conditions.
i think i committed part of the nasa raspberry hack by thinking too much
Along those lines, a lot of the people I work with are actually technical theatre people.
Was a judge at an event where students built some solutions with random items. Programmers also came. A low tech solution won out of 6 groups, one programmer group got very upset about that.
Exactly! I always come up with these grand ideas for builds and spend weeks mulling them over and making them perfect on paper. Maybe if I just try to get anything working within 24 hours of having the idea I'll be better off and actually do something other than make paper.
They're really good at seeing a problem, and immediately seeing the shortest path to a functional solution. When you have a background in having to fix something in the 30 seconds between set changes, and it turns out, that trains you really well for disaster response and rapid prototyping, haha.
It's really something I should try out, once I finally finish setting my station. I haven't had access to any of my workshop in over a year.
Dave, that's a great point! I see that a lot too, where groups who aren't steeped in technology see the shortest, most efficient solution much faster than other people who may spend all day at an oscilloscope, like myself. :)
Maybe that can be your challenge! Don't set up your station until you start your 24 hours, see what you really need in your workshop to solve that one problem, and see if you can afford less.
I'm looking for collaboration over the internet, can do 3D and the graphics... need coders
I guess I'm advocating for a Marie Kondo-ing of our work stations, component bins, and prototyping processes, haha.
Like, just on the topic of instrumentation, I never take that into the field with me.
I'm already condensing most of my equipment, the problem is that my workshop looks more like a disaster area than anything else. i don't even have a flat surface to use.
If I need to break out an oscilloscope to fix something or solve a problem, my solution is too complex to likely work well. It's no use if I have to spend 20 hours making a floating wireless water height measuring device if a string and a floating can would also work.
Gotta love renovations because of a new baby
That does sound stressful, haha.
I do have a question for the folks here, though.
Would you all be interested in hearing and taking a stab at the problems we bring back from disasters?
I'm game
We usually find at least 10 to 20 good problems, with rough ideas of how to solve them, but we're still only a 10 person team, and can't always get to them all.
When your bosses stop causing disasters give me a call. Sorry, but thats how this is. :-)
For example, we had a problem in the Bahamas where someone had a 10 feet deep water well, but it ran off the power grid, which was annihilated by the hurricane. We weren't able to help that family with that problem at the time, but I know in my gut that a solution is out there for them.
use a dc motor as an ad-hoc hand generator
We tried a few things, like sailboat bilge pumps on batteries, but at the end of the day, we just didn't have enough fluid dynamics knowledge on hand to overcome 10 feet.
In those scenarios, I think it'd be great to work with the Hackaday community to try and crowdsource knowledge/experience/ideas to solve those kinds of problems. Y'all already have ideas!
You had to build a new pump, not just repower the old one? 10' is a lot of head. You could go with a jet pump, but almost impossible to do in the field.
I like the idea of thinking through those problems after the fact. Not sure what the right way to do it would be, though. Maybe just post the challenge here and see who bites?
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