Okay guys, here’s the low down on our first project. It’s a major one! It will be challlenging and a lot of fun. We think it will probably take weeks to complete. 







SMART BIRD FEEDER PROJECT
We’re each going to build a smart  bird feeder to take home when completed and put up somewhere in our yard. And, then, to observe the behavior of our local birds toward this new home. Do they like it and use it, or not? we're also going to build one to leave on campus so you and you teachers can observe how the birds are doing

This won’t be an ordinary bird house. For consturction we’ll need to use wood and metal materials. Other materials, like recyclables, are optional too. This will challenge you to learn the use of tools that are probably new to you. Of course it should look really cool – and original – so it will need to be very well planned and decorated. And, it will be smart. 

What do I mean by smart? Well, it will have electronics that communicate from the feeder to nearby computers. It might send text message or a Tweet each time a bird lands, or maybe take a picture and wirelessly send it each time a bird starts feeding. We'll need to explore the options together and figure out what we want the smart features to be. Then we'll need to research what it will take to  build. 

We're very excited about this project!

Smart Bird Feeder 

In short, design thinking incorporates three main components:

It’s centered on the user.
It is collaborative 
It is experimental. 

To achieve all the three goals we all have to openly participate in the creative process. There’s no such thing as a wrong idea so we can’t worry about that. In other words, we can’t worry about the fear of failure. And to be experimental. 

We have to innovate. We have to believe in ourselves. 









We have to think different.

We’ll use three words to describe the three parts of the design thinking process:  Immerse. Invent. Implement.

Immerse
When we start with the process of design thinking, the first phase is Immerse. Immersion is sort of like swimming– get yourself completely wet. Get deeply involved in what you are learning. This phase is about research. Talk to experts, use the internet and take notes to keep track of what you've learned. 

We can’t solve problems to satisfy everyone so it’s vital that we define our stakeholders – the group we are designing for. We need to build what is called a user profile by focusing on the WHO – who is the user we are designing for?  

When you feel you understand who you are designing for and you can predict what they need and want, you're ready to move on. 

Invent
Now you're ready for Phase II, Invent. Here we need to define the problem clearly and create potential solutions. The invent phase has two steps – Define and Create.

Define means to arrive at a clear understanding of the user and his or her needs based the understanding gained from your research. Then comes Create. Thinking of solutions the the part w most of us love to do and cannot wait to jump into. 

But you can't rush it. The important thing to remember here is that without a definition of the problem we aim to solve and a clear understanding of the intended user, even the most creative ideas don’t have any meaning. It's not enough if something sounds great to you or your friends. You need to ask yourself if it's right for your users (birds, in this case). Sorry, but it doesn't matter if you think it's cool. The birds have to think it's cool too for there to be success!

The Create step answers the question: what are the possible solutions to solve the problem and to meet the needs of the user. The goal of this step is to come up with any and all possible solutions to the challenge. 

Implement/Build
To Implement means to create working solutions and get user feedback. Here we could perhaps use the word Build. We must pick among the ideas we have considered and select the one we feel is best. 

Then we build, first, a prototype. The word prototype refers to mock-ups, model of the finished projects. Sometimes one will do it. Sometimes we need to build several to get it right. 

For us makers what prototype does is give you a simple model you can get feedback on. Prototypes usually lead the way to the user test. Getting people in your select group to try out what you have made. 

This is not always possible before the you have built the finished proejct. This will be true with our birdhouse project. In this case, we will try to onsult experts and looks at similar projects that have already been done. 

This phase should not be bypassed if at all possible. It is one of the most critical steps in the design process.

After having build your finished proejct and reaching your goal, don’t forget to look back to to see how far you have traveled. And to judge the journey. We can keep revisiting the Immerse, Invent and Build phases, doubling back as needed. Design Thinking does not require always going forward. Sometimes doubling back and repeating part of the process is necessary. 

With all this in mind, the Design Thinking schematic we presented above is worth looking at again. Take a look at the left facing arrows. Some times we have to go back, repeat, and then go back again, to really do get it right.

Designing  your Bird Feeder

We going to be talking a lot about design when we're together. We'll brainstorm ideas for different designs as a group before we do any planning on paper or prototyping. Then, you'll be designing and building a feeder of your own to take home, but you won't be working alone unless you want to. You can work with a buddy when the actual designing and building begins for your feeder. Or if you prefer, you can work alone.

To get you thinking about possibities, here are links to a bunch of bird feeders that have been built. Remember, your design will need to incorporate wood and metal, and can use other materials so it is not likely there will be anything online you can copy. The idea of looking at what others have done is just to get you thinking about the options. 

Here are the links:
20+ Unique Bird Feeders 
50 Free Bird House and Bird Feeder Woodcraft Plans
DIY Bird Feeders to Make with Kids on Pinterest 


Learn About Your Bird

How to Attract Birds to Your Yard
The Cornell Lab of Orthonology is probably the very best online resource to learn about birds. They really know their stuff. Sure, take a good look around Google, but you gotta spend time on the Cornell Lab website. There's tons of information. And you can be sure it is accurate and truthful. 

Here's a good link to get started: 
Cornell Lab - Attracting Birds

Birds and Predators
Lots of critters love bird seed as much as the birds. Part of planning and design of your feeder should be devoted to preventing predators from stealing the food you'll be putting out for the birds. Squirrels, racoons, your pet cat, hawks, even bears and lots of others want to get in on the birdseed action. This link to the Cornell website it a good place to start learning strategies to keep the birdseed from feeding the wrong animals.
Dealing with Pest and Predators in your yard.

These days when we talk about smart technology  we're referring to range of microcontroller boards that can be configured to perform a variety of functions. For example: they can be coupled with sensors to read any number of varaibles (like temperature or moisture or motion), or to store information. And a bunch of other things too. These microcontrollers can be programmed to communicate with other microcontrollers to perform complex actions  and transmit information wirelessly from the devices to a computer some distance away.

What do we want the bird feed to do? 
We have a lot of choices. I would say they all probably start with wanting to know when a bird arrives to feed. What do you think? 

How would our smart technology know? Well, there are many different kinds of sensors. They can sense temperature, distance, weight, motion and so on. Sensors can be controlled by microcontrollers like the Arduino. 

Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and control a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. There are other microcontrollers that can do that too. Raspberrry Pi Is one of them.

Raspberry Pi
We'll be learning a lot about Raspberry Pi because it is quite unique and very powerful. It has the functionality of a single board complete computer, but it's the size of a credit card and costs $35.

The Raspberry Pi can plug into your flat panel screen and a keyboard. It is a capable little computer that can be made to display high definition video and can be used in all manner of electronics projects. It was developed in the the United Kingdom  with the intention of promoting the teaching of basic computer science in school.  Much to the surprise of the the school teacher who invented the Pi, it has become a tremendous success worldwide! He thought if 10,000 were sold that would be a lot. Raspberrly Pi first went public in 2012 and by early May, 2014, three million Pi has shipped.

What other smart features will your bird feeder need to be useful?
Okay, so let's imagine we have decided what sensor variable or variables will be needed to detect a bird landing on the feeder. And we have reserched various microcontrollers and have determined what technology we need - like the Arduino for example, to manage the sensor data. And, we have built all this technology into our birdhouse. Does this mean we're done? What are your ideas for smart features?

You're right, there's more to know. Suppose we were sitting in our house by our computer and our new bird feeder was in the yard all hooked up to it's built-in Arduino board with a motion sensor. (We haven't talked about the powering this equipment yet so let's just assume that somehow our gear has battery power.) Now imagine that a bird landed and began to eat. If we were sitting in our house and couldn't see the feeder through the window, would we be able to tell what's going on?  

The answer, of course, is no. Smart technology really isn't that smart. It can't guess what we want it to do. It can only do exactly what we tell it to do. So far we haven't even decided what information we want to have delivered to our computer. We need to go the rest of the way to enable our bird feeder able to deliver interesting information.

Here we have a number of choices. I think we can agree that we want to know a bird has landed, right? But what kind of information do we want? Should it be a text message or Tweet? Or sounds? Or pictures, or even video. What do you think?

We're going to spend a fair amount of time together brainstorming on all this when we're together, but you should be thinking about it before we meet. 

The process of arriving at the answers to these questions is the same as we have been learning for all of design processes. We need to decide what form the information we want takes and reseach the technology to determine if it can be done, how complicated it is (which will have an effect on how much it costs), who makes the needed bits and pieces, and what is involved in making them work together. I can tell you it is not easy, but it is definitely something you can learn!

I can say pretty confidentally that there will be more that one
piece of hardware so part of the project will be to write instructions to the microcontrollers so they are able to communicate with each other and with our computer and relay the instructions needed to carry out our plan. If you didn't know, this is called programming.

It's going to be really hard to equal, much less surpass this terrific bird house project done in Norway by a professional still photographer and set designer. It's been a three months long live broadcast from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, NRK, called The Piip-Show and people are loving it. 

They built a little "set" decorated to look like a miniture coffee bar. The bird seed is hidden behind the counter. To follow life inside the coffee bar, take a look at the video below. It is hilarious! 

Highlights from Piip-show . . . Piip  means "Beep" in English

Below is another video by the same team. This time they built a set to look like the inside of a home for people with wallpaper and pictures on the wall, but the occupants are birds. Amazing and so interesting. And funny!

NRK Piip-Show: The great tit chicks are leaving the building

What kind of camera would be good as a feeder-cam?
Like the Piip Show video, let's say you wanted to make videos (or take still pictures) of your bird feeder in action. What are some important the properties the camera would need have to be a good choice to use in the project?