Gadgetory

here in the studio today we've got project owl who were the winners of the 2018 call for code and they're pulling back the kimono to show us their Ducks so Ducks are small transmitters that allow a huge Wi-Fi mesh network to be deployed quickly and easily now they're not the kind of thing that you would use in your house but they can be invaluable during a disaster when cell service or other essential communications infrastructure might be down so let's take a look at how they work while also giving a big thanks to call for code founding partner IBM for sponsoring this video project Dowell started as a submission to call for code last year and call for code is a global challenge inspiring developers to create sustainable technologies to help communities prepare for and respond to natural disasters so the team was actually inspired by the floods caused by a hurricane in Houston and the idea was to create a Wi-Fi network that could be distributed by what is essentially a bunch of rubber ducks so when the flood comes in a fleet of these ducks could just be dropped into the water and they would just float around and allow users to connect to an emergency Wi-Fi network now to be clear the goal was never you know like look out AT&T cuz we've got this amazing fast Wi-Fi like it doesn't even give you an internet connection but what it does do is allow people to connect with an emergency response center and share crucial information like their location if anyone needs medical attention and so on and so forth so let's look at how they got this to work this right here is a duck it's a shockingly simple device we've got an Arduino dev board that's equipped with a Wi-Fi chip a lower chip and an antenna this is the actual housing that they won't look like this and the way that these work is that in every deployment there's one main duck that acts as the primary connection point so that'll maybe be located in an emergency response shelter or at a hospital then from there the satellite ducks can be spread out around to send messages or relay them back to the main duck so the user would connect to the Wi-Fi on the nearest duck to their location and then their messages would be sent over Laura which is a long range low powered transmission standard that allows the satellite ducks to maintain their connection from distances that are much further than traditional Wi-Fi thing is though even with Laura you can't get too far away from the main duck and this is where another really cool thing about project owl comes in so a bunch of these satellite ducks can actually connect together to form a cluster duck creating a kind of mesh Wi-Fi network so if each duck has a range of about 400 meters the distance they can cover adds up really fast a dozen might cover a small community and as you get more that area just keeps on increasing so why don't we try it out Charlie here is part of project owl so he's gonna turn on the main duck which we have over at the end here so just open it up and click it on and I'm gonna turn on one of our satellite ducks so I click this it says mama online and then each of these is run off a battery pack that's super simple it's just three double a's that will power it for up to 12 hours and in the future they figure these could be powered completely off of solar energy all right so we should be in business let's see just how well this is going to work in an emergency I fire up my Wi-Fi here got my screen recording running we go ahead and see SOS mama emergency portal I think if I saw that in an emergency I would probably connect to it and boom owl emergency network on Espanyol you're connected to the owl emergency networks sending an SOS message we'll send your GPS location to first responders and emergency message you can add details about your emergency and the closest facilities to you are located at Willowbrook shopping center where'd you get that from if you guys just pick something okay that is a nearby mall indeed and perhaps a place you know they've got a big parking lot that could be set up with tree edge of sorts so I can go ahead I can add some details first name where are you what's your emergency flood landslide trapped building collapse and violence really bad we need first aid food evacuation financial aid hygiene for sure all kinds of good stuff in here we go ahead and send our SOS and we can send updates as well pretty cool stuff of course though this is Linus tech tips and a simple little demo like that here in the studio is not going to be enough for us we supposedly have enough satellite ducks to cover a small community so let's do it shall we so for our hypothetical example here some kind of emergency has taken place let's say a flood and we have fled to high ground actually it's not even that unrealistic fun fact our office is located right adjacent to an enormous flood plain so the more you know so basically we're up here we're panicked we're scared and we have no connectivity whatsoever either because it's been taken out or because everybody's spamming it at once and signals are not going through so this right here is our main duct and it's connected to the Wi-Fi right here and this is sort of our base of operations for the afternoon so in order to cover as much area as possible we've got one of our satellite ducks right here that is going to go up and hopefully not be obstructed by any buildings or stuff so let it go yep oh that really wants to go ah I'm just gonna pop a couple more around the neighborhood to get nice coverage of everywhere so on mama online and now let's just put it like right there I guess perfect Hey all right so I've got a bunch of them around the neighborhood has anything popped up yet oh look right there oh damn it Linus survived the hell does he want hello oh no way burger fries man you're a lifesaver there's no ketchup in here now although our example had a bit of silliness to it this is a very serious solution to a very real problem and our demo did show how easy it is to create a nice big network to bring connectivity to those who might have lost it so thanks to support from IBM project owl has actually been able to expand this and even do a field test in Puerto Rico so if a disaster like hurricane Maria happened again they would be able to get connectivity quickly back to the island and there are lots of other potential uses like setting up basic networks in places that currently have no cell service whatsoever or even just using the lower tracking of the ducts to help find disaster relief supplies once all is said and done it is shockingly common for things like tents and shelters or even portable toilets to get put down amidst the hubbub and then kind of forgotten where exactly they are so none of this would have been possible for project owl without the boost that they got from call for code so here's the thing guys if you have an idea that you think could help communities prepare for respond to and recover from natural disasters then submit your solution into the 2019 call for code we're gonna have that linked below where the top prize is $200,000 and additional support from IBM and their partners to make your solution a real so thanks to IBM for sponsoring this video thanks to project owl for coming up here and thanks to you guys for watching if you guys dislike this video you can hit that button I guess but if you liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description okay it's more of like a community thing I don't know we probably have community managers that watch this channel share whatever at the link in the video description once it's available also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally join I don't think the fishing line is gonna break I don't know you can just give it like another couple hundred feet we're just tied to the park bench sure okay it's a hurry wait did it take off okay ah well oops so that's gonna end up in Chilliwack somewhere well let's not cry over spilt milk yeah I think we could honestly just cut that whole thing out