Kickstarter Pick: 3rd Ward's Michael Zick Doherty Takes "Green Thumb" To The Next Level With Bitponics

As we've mentioned before, 3rd Ward's Michael Zick Doherty always seems to be working on innovative and inspiring projects. And today is no different. Teaming up with software engineer Amit Kumar, Doherty is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to support Bitponics, which they describe as "Your Personal Gardening Assistant." With just over a week left to go, they're raised over half of their $20,000 goal. Help them get there and you can score everything from a shout-out on the Bitponics website and a laser-etched Bitponics clay pot to a hydroponics workshop and your own Bitponics device.

We first caught wind of Bitponics when it won an Open Scholarship Scholarship last fall at the Open Hardware Summit, and that winning 26-second YouTube pitch has blossomed into an even more exciting and amazing project. In addition to automating and tracking any hydroponics system, Bitponics can help you cultivate anything that you'd like to see sprouting in your urban garden. "Once you tell it what you're trying to grow, it will use a database of knowledge built up by the community to create a 'growing plan' for you," the Bitponic Kickstarter page explains. "Bitponics will automate anything that can be controlled by a power outlet, like water pumps and lights." And for tasks that can't be automated? "We'll remind you by whatever means you choose: email, text, or in-app notifications."

The full Bitponics setup includes the sensor device, which collects readings like temperature, brightness and pH and lets you set up timers for lights and pumps, and an account on the Bitponics website, which helps you generate a growing plan, gives you recommendations if something in your system has gone awry, and lets you track all of your data and upload photos of your garden as it grows. The device will retail for $395, but you can get it for just a $250 Kickstarter pledge. You'll be able to store a year of growing data—or an unlimited amount for a higher-tiered membership. Anyone who just wants to give the website a whirl can store six months of growing data for free, and both the device and its Arduino-based firmware will be open source, making the possibilities endless.

Check out the Bitponics Kickstarter video and some photos below, then head to Kickstarter to learn more and pledge your support.

-- John Ruscher

EcoATM: Recycle Your Technological Waste and Get PAID

If you're one of those people who waits in line at the Apple store the morning a new iPhone is released (guilty), then you probably have an outdated gadget or two lying around. You probably also have no idea what to do with all your e-waste, and you're not alone. 100 million cell phones are trashed each year, not to mention all the improperly recycled computers and mp3 players leaching mercury, lead and arsenic into the ground. But the EcoATM seeks to change all that and throw some cash your way in the process.

Think of the EcoATM like a reverse vending machine. Instead of inserting money, punching in your selection and getting a candy bar (or, in many places now, a new iPod), you insert your old phone or mp3 player and get money in return. The machine has super smart robots inside (our personal term for artificial intelligence) that determine what you've inserted and calculate its worth. To make sure people aren't ripping off cell phones and heading to the nearest EcoATM to make a buck, you're asked to enter some personal information as well. Then you can decide what to do with the cash; donate it to charity to send your phone off to a responsible smelting facility and pocket the cash.

So far, EcoATMs are mainly a West Coast operation, with a few locations popping up in the Midwest. Though according to rep from EcoATM, we should see them start showing up from D.C. up to Boston sometime around August--with 100 of 'em throughout the area by the end of the year (!)

Now excuse us, we've got a line we might need to start standing in...

Watch This Now // Parsons' DESIS Lab Amplifies Social Innovation in North Brooklyn

 

People in our neighborhood are always up to amazing things, so it's not surprising that last year the DESIS Lab at Parsons The New School for Design focused its lens on North Brooklyn to highlight local examples of sustainable living and innovation.

As part of its two-year Amplifying Creative Communities project, which looked at the Lower East Side in 2010, DESIS (short for Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) explored different organizations and initiatives in Greenpoint and Williamsburg to learn how they work, help them improve through design service, and share information that will allow others to create their own alternatives to standard commercial and government services.

In addition to an exhibition and a series of workshops about local sustainable change, Amplify Brooklyn also produced some inspiring videos featuring examples of local food, sharing, biking and more, including interviews with the people behind the Greenpoint-Williamsburg CSA, the North Brooklyn Compost Project, Not An Alternative, Times Up!, the Pa-La Loma Bicycle Club and the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative.

Check out a few of those videos after the jump and head over to the Amplifying Creative Communities website for more insight and inspiration.

-- John Ruscher

Go Here Now // Carrotmob Chooses Carrots Over Sticks, "Buycotts" Over Boycotts

If you were excited by the infographic about The Future of Money that we posted back in December, you'll likely also share our enthusiasm for Carrotmob, an idea that fits right into that chart's "new lenses of wealth." Before you go any further, hit play on the video above for a quick and entertaining look at what it's all about.

Carrotmob takes the age-old concept of a boycott and flips it on its head. Rather than gathering together a group of people who promise to withhold money from a business to bring about change, Carrotmob proposes having a group pledge positive financial support for a business to achieve the same end. "We are called Carrotmob because we use the 'carrot' instead of the 'stick,'" the Carrotmob website explains. The reasoning? "In a boycott, everyone loses. In a Carrotmob, everyone wins."

In a recent feature on food and consumer choice, BBC 4 highlighted Carrotmob's "buycotts" as an example of a "growing attitude about technology and the desire to make things happen." Founder Brent Schulkin described how he started Carrotmob after noticing that boycotts don't really connect with how businesses make decisions. "What really matters to a business is money, spending, new customers, marketing and that sort of thing," he says.

On the Carrotmob website you can explore past campaigns that people have successfully organized across the globe. Focusing on convincing businesses to make environmentally friendly and sustainable changes, they range from asking a Bangkok grocer to stop using plastic bags to a Park Slope hardware store that agreed to use 22% of the money spent by Carrotmob shoppers on energy improvements. 

You can log into the Carrotmob website and share your own completed campaign, and soon you'll also be able to create and promote new ones. Start thinking of the carrots you and your network can dangle.

-- John Ruscher

WATCH THIS NOW // How To Fit Four Full-Sized Rooms Into A Small Studio Apartment

New York wouldn't be New York without its bountiful supply of exceptionally small apartments, but we prefer to think of these pocked-sized pads as creative opportunities rather than style crampers.

Your own place probably isn't as "cozy" as this one or this one, but if you're feeling like there might not be enough room for all of those great gifts that you've received this holiday season, this video might give you some ideas for better utilizing your little slice of the Big Apple.

In the clip faircompanies, a cool website devoted to sustainable and simple living, takes a tour of the Manhattan studio of third grade teacher Eric Schneider, who enlisted architects Michael Chen and Kari Anderson of Normal Projects to turn his place into something more than just a 450-square-foot box with a tiny kitchen in the corner. They did just that, packing the features of four full-sized rooms into the space with an ingenious design that overlaps, slides and folds. Behold, the Origami Apartment!

-- John Ruscher

ILLUMINATING // LuminAID Is Spreading Sustainable Solar Light Across The Globe

 

The folks behind LuminAID reached their fundraising goal of $10,000 just two days after launching their campaign on IndieGoGo. They've now raised more than triple that amount, and the total continues to climb with over two weeks left to go. 

Such enthusiasm and support is no surprise considering what an amazing idea they have. The LuminAID light is a solar-rechargeable waterproof lantern that's lightweight, portable and inflatable, making it useful in almost any situation where light is needed, from a weekend camping trip to disaster-stricken areas or developing communities across the globe. 

These lights will be particularly valuable to the many people around the world who lack regular electricity and are forced to rely on dangerous kerosene-fueled lanterns. That's why, for a pledge of $25, you can purchase your own light while also donating one to LuminAID's worldwide community projects.

After charging in sunlight for four to six hours, a LuminAID light can provide three hours of light on its high setting and six on low. It can also be shipped more efficiently than other light sources, with more than 50 LuminAID lights taking of the space of 8 traditional solar flashlights.

Head over to LuminAID's IndieGoGo page to order your own LuminAID light and help spread safe and sustainable light around the world. For larger pledges you can receive and give even more, from your own LuminAID t-shirt to helping supply an entire orphanage with lights. Check the community map to see places that have been illuminated so far. A LuminAID light has already made it to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro!

Hit the jump for more photos and a video about the LuminAID light.

-- John Ruscher