My Air, My Health was the title of a Challenge calling innovators to work on a wearable project integrating air-quality measurement with heart rate and breathing.

The promoters of the challenge, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Services (NIH), launched it because they think that the possibility of understanding the relations between air pollution and people’s health in real-time could have an important impact in preventing disease and illness in the population. In the description you can read:

The required system design must be capable of linking air pollutant concentrations with physiological data, providing geocoded and time-stamped files in an easy to use format, and transmitting this data via existing networks to a central data repository. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this challenge, solvers are highly encouraged to form teams drawing on multiple relevant expertise…

At the beginning of June they finally announced the winner of the prize of $100.000, it’s called Conscious Clothing and is a project developed by David Kuller, Gabrielle Savage Dockterman, and Dot Kelly.

The team created a system around self data-tracking, specifically calculating particulate matter inhaled and collecting basic health data,  transmitting them real-time to any Bluetooth-enabled device and allow their visualization in different format.  The prototype was made using Arduino Lilypad connected to a particulate matter air sensor that hangs near the neck and a series of stretchy strips of silver-knitted yarn wrapping around the chest to measure breathing.

We had a chat with David (in the pictures), who developed both hardware and software, and asked him what was, in his opinion the feature which made them win: ” I think that Conscious Clothing was the project that was most comfortable, truly wearable and also affordable, compared to the others”.

You can watch  the video below to see the prototype in action!

Photo Courtesy of Angel Devil Productions, Inc. and Conscious ClothingTM

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Thursday, July 11th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Competition(s), Enviroment, LilyPad, Lilypad, Wearable Computing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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I’m reblogging from Core77 this interesting wearable project because I’d like to highlight the using of Arduino Lilypad board:

Bio Circuit stems from our concern for ethical design and the creation of media-based interactions that reveal human interdependence with the environment. With each beat of the heart, Bio Circuit connects the wearer with the inner workings of their body.

It was created at Emily Carr University by Industrial Design student Dana Ramler, and MAA student Holly Schmidt and provides a form of bio feedback using data from the wearer’s heart rate to determine what “sounds” they hear through the speaker embedded in the collar of the garment. Here’s the schematic of technology:

Have a look at the video below to see how it works and don’t miss BioCircuit Project page on Dana’s Portfolio:

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, LilyPad, sensors, Wearable Computing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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