[Mesh] Prototype Installation @ EBV Saturday Aug 12, 12pm

[Bullitt Bourbon]

1.
from an end user's perspective, they approach a situation looking for a 
client that does something, in this case, the gardening data service. 
Might be obvious to state, but when ppl think of Instagram they're not 
thinking about the servers or even the photos, they're thinking l tap 
this icon and this thing pops up that can do this & that. Make sense?
The idea of serving to *any client is exciting, but if l was just 
hearing about this, l'd ask: where is the website?/ What's this app 
called?
This is why consumer weather stations partner with 
weatherunderground.com.

l see the value in Garden Mesh as a service on community wireless 
networks, something like Rhizomatica (http://rhizomatica.org), the theme 
of the contest is feeding X million (humans). the existing video only 
has a passing mention of this idea. For us in this geographical area, we 
have Sudo Mesh/ Peoplesopen Network. l explained in another email 
earlier that did not go to the larger mailing lists that in rural 
Mexico, there is no municipal, Rhizomatica is all people have. Here in 
the bay ppl have many options, but we have users committed to meshing 
(on Peoplesopen Network) for specific reasons.


2.
l'm for **teaching a man to fish**, not for making a finished product. 
At a PON meeting, we had a discussion about 'hackathons' being 
exploitative of labor, but self exploitation for free R&D/ labor is ok? 
It hurts OTHERS as well, promoting a culture of working yourself to 
death. That's not OK with me. If people are willing to live with 
experimental stuff, they can go get the components and figure it out for 
themselves just like our project did here.

correct me if l'm wrong: what l hear Grant saying is that the units will 
remain cheaper than existing
consumer products because there's no 'mark up'. the user only pays money 
for the components and production costs.
Implicit is that the R&D, labor, warehousing are donated; those are the 
costlier aspects of a project IMO.

Also, Per the vegan slave shoes buy 1 get 1 model, l'm assuming that 
we're talking about a finished product/ kit of stuff rather than 
distributing code/ telling people how to make good, solid housing, etc..

if we want to talk about market mechanisms for finished products, once a 
lower cost product *that is not of inferior quality* enters the market, 
it drives competitors to either price more competitively and/ or present 
attributes to justify/ force a higher price point for themselves.


3.
At the previous Tuesday meeting, l spoke to Mario briefly, and it seemed 
that he did not have a firm grasp of how Peoplesopen Network/ Sudo Mesh 
is related to Garden Mesh beyond human resources. There is no front end 
client yet, as l understand it, but Garden Mesh is a service that runs 
on the Peoplesopen Network or can be applied to other wireless networks/ 
meshes.




On 2017-08-11 10:45, G Gallo wrote:
> Jehan, you're mostly correct. But I haven't seen an option much less
> than $60. Even after powering and weatherproofing the actual cost of
> these devices should be much less than $60. Also part of the "value
> proposition" so to speak, is the potential meshing in which the garden
> gnodes would create a distributed network to store their collective
> data that could then be served to any client who may stumble upon the
> mesh. Garden mesh is not about internet-connected plants, it's about
> building an internet of plants (IoP). There have been a couple
> different models thrown around for "monetizing" the garden mesh. Some
> have suggested a TOMS shoes model. Also I believe Joorit at one point
> suggested an educational model in which we do not sell them online
> just to anyone, but only people in our community who come to the Omni
> and learn to build one themselves (or something along those lines).
> 
> On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Jehan Tremback
> <jehan.tremback at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> How do these devices compare to the dozens of wireless garden
>> sensors already available
>> (https://www.postscapes.com/wireless-plant-sensors/ [1])? The one
>> distinction that I recall being mentioned at a sudomesh meeting was
>> price, but once you factor in power, weatherproofing, and everything
>> else, I suspect this price difference will evaporate. In such a
>> crowded field of devices already being manufactured, is anyone else
>> trying to be the low priced option?
>> 
>> On Thursday, August 10, 2017, Mario Gabiati <mgabiati at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello everyone,
>> 
>> Again, thank you for your interest in the GardenMesh project, keep
>> checking for our new landing page which should be in the next few
>> days at "www.peoplesopen.net/gardenmesh [2]".
>> 
>> For those of you unfamiliar with the project, Counter Culture Labs
>> and Sudoroom have teamed up to create a super low cost environmental
>> sensor that meshes automatically over a self-generated Wi-Fi
>> network. We are working to build software that makes gathering
>> real-time data elementary for any user at an accessible price.
>> 
>> We are ready with 5 new prototypes ready for installation into our
>> first test environments, and East Bay Vivarium (1827 Fifth Street c,
>> Berkeley, CA 94710) has graciously agreed to allow us to use some
>> of their enclosures as our first environmental test sites!
>> 
>> PLEASE NOTE : Due to a schedule change, we need to install the units
>> Saturday August 12th, NOT Friday August 11.
>> 
>> We will be meeting at EBV at noon (12p) Saturday August 12th. We
>> will be taking a look at the units and exploring the store, and
>> begin installation under EBV supervision starting around 1pm.
>> 
>> Afterwards, I will be hosting a discussion and meet-and-greet for
>> anyone who is curious about the project at Doc's Refresher (984
>> University Ave, Berkeley, CA 94710). I hope to see you there!
>> 
>> If you have any questions or are having trouble finding the group
>> after you arrive you can contact me, Mario, at (323)-314-0783 [3].
>> 
>> Keep on meshing on!
>> 
>> -Mario
>> 
>> On Aug 10, 2017 15:31, "G Gallo" <ggallo102 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello gardenmeshers,
>> 
>> Sierk and I have been hard at work preparing various parts of the
>> project for the Nat Geo grant and the East Bay Vivarium prototype
>> roll out. A few updates from my end:
>> 
>> 1. We have ~6 working prototypes (aka Garden Gnodes) thanks to the
>> prototyping party last Sunday
>> 
>> 2. We now have a way of remotely updating the scripts running on the
>> Garden Gnodes via telnet (if interested check out this script [4])
>> 
>> 3. With the help of Jake (from sudoroom), we also now have a few
>> Garden Gnodes being **safely** powered by Li-Po batteries.
>> 
>> 4. I recently procured some analog multiplexers so we should be able
>> to test the light sensors soon.
>> 
>> 5. The roll out at the East Bay Vivarium is planned for tomorrow at
>> 9:30am, this should be as simple as setting up one of our
>> peoplesopen.net [5] routers, connecting it to their internet, and
>> then plugging in the Garden Gnodes in their respective tanks.
>> 
>> I plan at being at the Omni most of this evening preparing at least
>> five of the prototypes to be deployed at the Vivarium. This will
>> involve flashing the NodeMCU firmware, uploading the gardenmesh Lua
>> script, and checking that the remote update feature works correctly.
>> If any one is interested in learning about the hardware/firmware
>> side of the project feel free to stop by the Omni tonight (it's also
>> weekly JavaScript night!).
>> 
>> I know there were a few people that came by this week interested in
>> the project, but I do not have their emails. Mario, if you want to
>> add them to this thread that would be great.
>> 
>> -grant
>> 
>> On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 12:04 AM, Bullitt Bourbon <bb at elleko.net>
>> wrote:
>> hi-
>> 
>> l read this and also the e-mail you wrote to Divine, very nice work
>> there. Some comments/ questions:
>> 
>> 1. Some of the monologues are kind of infomercially. An example is
>> cell 2: 'studies show that... the popularity of home gardening has
>> increased substantially'. that's not really stuff one would say IRL.
>> Maybe it's meant to suggest an ad-lib for similar content, just
>> wanted to point it out, though. l can help with all that.
>> 
>> 2. cell 2 - Definitely not an expert here, but often gardens have
>> better performing and worse performing crops, right?
>> The images can match what is being narrated, from a poorly producing
>> section when u talk about factory farming to a thriving section when
>> u say 'what if we can grow more food...'
>> 
>> 3. cell 3 - is this stock footage?
>> 
>> 4. cell 5 - this is a good opportunity to show the actual device
>> off. it can just pretend to be working. we can make a fake data
>> screen and show it working on a phone. we can have infographics
>> showing how it works as well, but since these things exist on the
>> market, people already know about all that.
>> 
>> -BB
>> 
>> On 2017-08-07 19:44, Mario Gabiati wrote:
>> Hey I found this cool PDF report on home gardening in america, it's
>> up
>> something like 20% in the last 5 years and it seems to be very
>> popular
>> with young people. Maybe we can rip some infographics out for the
>> video? Take a look and tell me what you think! Thanks!
>> 
>> -MARIO
>> 
>> https://garden.org/special/pdf/2014-NGA-Garden-to-Table.pdf [6] [4]
>> 
>> On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 1:16 AM, Mario Gabiati <mgabiati at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 1. Nat Geo Grant Video (please watch and comment)
>> 2. Prototype party August 6th 4pm-8pm
>> 3. Invitation to field test at East Bay Vivarium
>> 4. Gardenmesh meetings every Tuesday 8p
>> _____________________Hello everyone,
>> 
>> First off, I'd like to thank all of you for your continued efforts
>> on this project. We have some exciting developments I'm excited to
>> update you on:
>> 
>> With major help from Adam, I've put together a crack at the 1-minute
>> submission for the National Geographic 'Chasing Genius' grant
>> (www.natgeochasinggenius.com [7] [1]) due July 30th. I've chosen to
>> submit under the 'Feeding 9 Billion' focus. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE:
>> 
>> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1fJuy09hh37SlkyakdlVVgxdjQ/view?usp=sharing_eip&ts=59783ef0
>> [8]
>> [2]
>> 
>> We only have a few more days to make edits before I have to submit
>> so I am interested in hearing any suggestions you have! Not looking
>> for perfection, just want to get the point across.
>> 
>> Next, if you'd like to participate in BUILDING PROTOTYPES, we will
>> be hosting a prototype building party AUGUST 6TH 4-8PM at the
>> sudoroom hack space at the Omni Commons (4799 Shattuck Ave, Oakland,
>> CA 94609). No need to be an expert, we are all learning together
>> here. Thank you Grant for taking on the lions share of the soldering
>> and coding for this project, we couldn't do it without you!
>> 
>> If you are interested in getting more technical information on the
>> project, please visit our GITHUB WIKI
>> (https://github.com/sudomesh/gardenmesh/wiki [9] [3]) - thank you
>> Grant,
>> Jorrit, and Scott!
>> 
>> More good news: Sean Parnell from East Bay Vivarium has graciously
>> offered to let us test our first round of prototypes in their Wi-Fi
>> connected store. We will be able to test the units without solar
>> panels or batteries, or much housing so that we can hammer out the
>> software side of things and make upgrades for the exterior units
>> that we will be testing at Annie's Annuals in the fall (thank you
>> Cassandra!).
>> 
>> Lastly, if you are interested in getting more involved in the
>> project, we have gardenmesh meetings every Tuesday evening at 8pm at
>> the Omni Commons (4799 Shattuck Ave, Oakland, CA 94609).
>> 
>> Thank you!
>> 
>> -Mario Gabiati
>> GardenMesh Project Coordinator
>> 
>> Links:
>> ------
>> [1] http://www.natgeochasinggenius.com [7]
>> [2]
>> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1fJuy09hh37SlkyakdlVVgxdjQ/view?usp=sharing_eip&ts=59783ef0
>> [10]
>> [3] https://github.com/sudomesh/gardenmesh/wiki [9]
>> [4] https://garden.org/special/pdf/2014-NGA-Garden-to-Table.pdf [6]
> 
> --
> -Bullitt Bourbon
> 
> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] https://www.postscapes.com/wireless-plant-sensors/
> [2] http://www.peoplesopen.net/gardenmesh
> [3] tel:(323)%20314-0783
> [4] https://github.com/sudomesh/gardenmesh/blob/master/remoteupload.sh
> [5] http://peoplesopen.net
> [6] https://garden.org/special/pdf/2014-NGA-Garden-to-Table.pdf
> [7] http://www.natgeochasinggenius.com
> [8]
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1fJuy09hh37SlkyakdlVVgxdjQ/view?usp=sharing_eip&ts=59783ef0
> [9] https://github.com/sudomesh/gardenmesh/wiki
> [10]
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1fJuy09hh37SlkyakdlVVgxdjQ/view?usp=sharing_eip&amp;ts=59783ef0