User Study Updates

Lots of stuff has been happening, and I have been crazy busy, however I have some updates of my thoughts.

Last week I really focused in on my user group, and with help from my visits to the Open Hardware Summit, I was able to focus my thoughts a little more, on who and how I should think about the people and organizations around my project.

 

 

Check out the presentation files about how these groups can come together.

presentation_wk3

Additionally some user test photos:

Initial User Map

I began to explore my user group in a little more in depth way. After reading about the various places Cornell University seems to think we should be teaching hydroponic systems I became very intrigued in the notion of potential job creation of future jobs. Additionally I tried to think about how restaurants and grocery stores might fit into the ‘open source’ food model.

After our discussion in class today I feel that there are probably more avenues to explore with the direction and depth of this user map (even just related to the notion of a Stakehold Tier, and then an ability to access at what level these tiers might affect and effect the process.

Just to get it up, a minor update to domains – this will probably change throughout the course of the year, so I thought it might be interesting to map.

Brooklyn Hydroponics

There was a recent article in the New York Times highlighting, a successful local hydroponic farm. The article brings up many interesting points about the segment to the restaurant business and the benefits of taste vs. soil based vegetables. Chefs, and restauranteurs discuss pros and cons hydroponics in a very intriguing NYT article.

The article makes me think that there is definitely a market for fresh local goods (hydroponic even); I wonder who is buying this produce? I am also curious about how these individuals feel about hydroponic vegetables, and if they have ever considered growing there own.

To me it seems there also might be another potential user group for my ideas.

The Beginning

This is a recap of my work to date exploring urban agriculture. Last semester I used two courses as a jumping off point to explore the subjects of data visualizations and urban aquaculture/ agriculture. You can see my final posts for each of the projects that combined together here: http://makingtoys.net/2011/05/17/easy-edibles/http://teaching.vargatron.com/dataVisSpring2011/?p=304

Additionally, you can check out a pdf of my first presentation, check back for more information about this project.