Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman’s Tested.com recently posted a very in-depth, fun, and entertaining interview with me by Norman Chan where we had the opportunity to chat about the Tricorder project, open source design, and my academic research in artificial intelligence. From the interview (speaking about my visualization experiments with the Science Tricorders):

…This collection of sensors is often called an inertial measurement unit. By coupling that collection of sensors with other sensors, say a non-contact infrared sensor, then you’re theoretically able to pair the Science Tricorder’s orientation in space with the temperature of what it’s pointing at, and (after waving it back and forth for a few seconds) construct something like a very low resolution thermal image for very low cost.

While that’s very exciting, the technique is fairly general, and so you could conceivably fuse the readings from additional sensors to, for example, make a volumetric image of the magnetic field intensity and direction in a given space, which is something that to my knowledge isn’t done with off-the-shelf instruments today.

You can read the full interview here.

The ArduSat is a nano satellite loaded with sensors connected to Arduino microcontrollers. Students, schools, or regular old nerds can use their satellite to take pictures or upload their own experiments, all for only a few hundred bucks. The thing that gets me most excited about the ArduSat is that it brings space science into the reach of everyday folks for the first time. I’m itching to see what comes next.

Kind of a nerdy thing to admit, but in middle school my buddies and I used to spend hours drawing and designing our own middle school grade space probes for interstellar exploration. I’m pretty sure that there were serious arguments about whether cast iron was an acceptable satellite constructing material. My job was designing the solar sails — if the ArduSat folks ever want to cruise their next satellite towards Mars, I’d be happy to design the warp core!

Check out their video, and help support (and participate!) in some of the first open space science!

Folks have asked a bunch about the next design — what sensors will it have, what will it look like, and so forth. I’ve been sketching out some designs in hardware and in code a while now, playing with creative elements to see what works well, and what needs work, and how the design can be kept tractable, exciting, inexpensive, and have the potential for manufacture so that folks can actually have Open Source Science Tricorders in their hands. Seeing the challenge that folks are having with building and modifying the earlier Science Tricorders (and rightfully so — they’re very complicated to assemble), it’s clear that I can do a lot better on my accessibility design goal. In light of this, I’d like the next design to be extremely easy for regular folks to modify over a weekend, both in hardware and software, maybe by adding a new analog sensor or changing one of the visualizations, and in this way serve as a vehicle for beginning to learn programming and electronics. The Science Tricorders are all about science, and helping people explore their worlds and learn about science, and the idea of making them as easy as possible to modify meshes very well, I think. I confess that I have partially selfish motivations for this — I feel like it would be extremely rewarding to read about all the interesting ways people have modified their Science Tricorders and all the wonderful things they’re learning about the world with them while I eat my fruitloops in the morning and begin the day.

I’ve tinkered with two experimental designs for the next Science Tricorder. One (pictured above), that I’ve been working with over the last half year, is an experiment in keeping things inexpensive and pervasive by placing sensors on something as small as a keyfob, that everyone could keep with them. The device would be paired with a smartphone for visualization, which saves the size and expense of adding a display to a design. It’s a pretty design (especially with the RGB led’s), and fun to play with something so tiny. The two hitches are that it’s difficult to include a diverse array of sensors in the design, and that by requiring a smartphone you’re discluding kids from carrying one around unless they also borrow their parents expensive phones, which is clearly a non-ideal use case.

The second and earlier design (pictured above) came after the Mark 2. The Mark 2 is absolutely beautiful, but it was a huge undertaking for only a single science nerd to develop, no matter how nerdy. And it was expensive. I tried experimenting with low cost design, and so the processor was changed from the ARM9 core running linux to one of the most powerful microcontrollers at the time (a PIC32MX), the dual OLED displays were swapped for a single TFT, and — critically — most of the sensors were taken out, replacing them with headers that sensors could be plugged into. This design experiment had good elements — it was definitely moving towards making things less expensive, and added connectivity options (like bluetooth) that I liked, but it strayed a bit too far off the path. I feel like Science Tricorders are about having lots of sensors integrated in a small package, and readily available. I don’t want folks to have to carry around a bag full of sensors with them, or have to swap sensors in and out on the field, only having some subset of them available at any given time.

So, two good experiments, and lots of lessons learned. With these “concept sketches” of the next Science Tricorder — sketches in hardware and in code — I’ve been designing something different from both and closer (at least conceptually) to the Mark 1 and Mark 2 designs. I think what comes out of this process will likely be fairly close to the final design for the next Open Source Science Tricorder.

The clam shell design of the Mark 1 and 2 is great, but it’s mechanically difficult and requires an extra screen for the bottom, which requires extra electronics — it really contributes to making things expensive. The keyfob is on the other end of the spectrum — tiny, inexpensive, and no screen at all. The PDA-style design was somewhere in the middle, but I’m not a fan — it’s very plain, and the screen is out in the open and could easily be damaged. It’s also very flat, and challenging to find space for everything (sensors, electronics, etc) to fit. With all this in mind, I’ve been trying to figure out a good mechanical design that I like.

I mocked this one up in Google Sketchup. It’s kind of inspired by the Tricorders in the Enterprise series, in that the screen is essentially in a protective pouch, and can be slid out for use. I flared out the sensor section (top), and added a bit of an angle on it. Often I’ve been mounting the sensors at a 90° angle from the screen, which would mean to sense something infront of you you have to hold the unit completely horizontal and look down at the screen. By having the sensors mounted at about a 30-60° angle, which seems to be where you naturally tend to hold the Tricorders when you’re walking around with them, you’ll be sensing what’s infront of you, but also holding the screen at an easily viewable angle — both to yourself, and to the folks around you. In that way I hope to make it more usable, and help bring the folks around a Tricorder user into the experience.

This is just a rough mock up, and I’m sure it’ll change a bunch. I was going to print one out to play with, before remembering parts to my 3D printers are hidden away in a UHAUL storage container until I find somewhere to live in the bay area!

To get a rough idea of whether things would fit, I sketched up a drawing in Adobe Illustrator with some of the big (potential) parts, and started shifting them around to get a rough idea on size. There are plenty of other things to fit in, but many of them are pretty tiny, and the details of their placement tends to be sorted out when designing the circuit board.

My working list of sensors and “big” parts is currently:

• Ambient Temperature, pressure, and humidity: likely Sensiron’s new SHT20 sensor (that replaces the SHT1x series), as well as a BMP085 pressure sensor, which looks /way/ easier to work with than the SCP1000 in the previous models.
• Non-contact Temperature: likely a Melexis MLX90614 series sensor. These are great, and Melexis has been very generous with samples in the past.
• 3-axis Magnetometer: still not sure on this one, but likely a HMC5883L or similar. These have very similar specs to the MicroMag3 in the first two models, but the sensor itself is far smaller. I’d also like to experiment with having two magnetometers mounted some distance apart, to give not just 3-axis direction and field strength, but ideally also the distance to the field source.
• Light level and colourimetry: I’m thinking some of TAOS’s (now AMS) line of sensitive light and colour sensors. Some of these have very high dynamic ranges, so they’ll be useful across a broad range of light levels. The Avago colour sensor I used in the Mark 2 had a small internal white LED to illuminate the sample, so I might have to include something similar beside the colour sensor.
• Distance sensor: likely a MaxSonar by Maxbotics. They have some newer models that are supposed to have better resolution, range, and noise rejection. I’d really love to use a laser-based range finder, but I don’t think there are any tiny (or inexpensive) options yet.
• Inertial Measurement Unit: everyone’s very excited about the Invensense MPU6050 integreated 3-axis accelerometer and gyro, and they have a version coming out that also includes a 3-axis magnetometer — which could act as the second magnetometer mentioned above.
• Sound: this was a big request. There were always headers for microphones on the first two models, but this model will include an internal microphone for doing FFTs/frequency analysis and such.
• Gamma ray detector: another big request. I’ve been experimenting with this since the Mark 1, but noise has always been an issue. Gieger tubes are way too large, and have hefty voltage requirements. PIN photodiodes still seem like the way to go, and folks have posted schematics online that seem to do okay — so this is definitely something to investigate again. I have also thought of coupling a scintillation crystal with a photodiode, but I’m sure cost, noise, and finding enough tiny scintillation crystals to make more than a few would be trouble — so directly using the photodiode as a detector (without a scintillator) may be a good compromise.
• Gas sensor: another request, and one that still needs a bunch of research before it’s officially on the list. I’d love to include a gas sensors that could sense something like greenhouse gasses emitted by vehicles or industry, or something simlar. Most of the sensors I’ve found are large, and use heaters that both heat the whole unit up until it’s very hot, and require a lot of power. I’d love to hear about a small, low-power sensor.
• Display: If Alibaba is correct, there’s a chance that the 2.8″ OLED touch displays used in the Mark 2 are back on the market, and so I’m looking at seeing if there’s a good supply of them for the forseeable future. If not, I’ll have to find an inexpensive TFT that’s bright and has good viewing angles — I’d love to hear about one, if you have one and a supplier in mind.
• Connectivity: definitely at least one of bluetooth or WiFi. Bluetooth would be nice for pairing with a close-by device (like a laptop or smartphone) if you’re out in a field somewhere, where WiFi would be nice if you’re at home or school — but WiFi modules are traditionally a bit more expensive, too. I’m still not sure on which one to go with.

I’m still deciding on the processor — there are one or two more options that I’d like to check out before making a decision, and hopefully their evaluation boards should arrive in the next few weeks.

I’m eager to hear comments on this high-level design before plunging into the details. If you have thoughtful comments, suggestions, or sensor/part recommendations, I’d love to hear your comments — either here, or sent to peter at tricorderproject dot org .

stay tuned!

A lot of what he says really resonates with me, and I’m sure a lot of other makers. I remember late nights at the hackerspace in grad school, slaving over a hot laser cutter to fabricate some fantastic machine that I’d dreamed up that morning and designed in the afternoon, and really needed to get out of my brain and into the real world to see it real, see how it worked — a sort of sketching in plastic and in gears and in code. The story is very much the same with the Science Tricorders, though the process a lot longer because of their complexity. I’ve been developing them for years, but more than that, I /can’t help/ but develop them. It’s almost like we’re compelled, as makers, and scientists, and Tricorder builders — there’s so much we have to see, so much we have to know.

At about 17:30 in the video, Adam speaks about project-based education — something I feel very strongly about — and gives a shout out to building your own fully functional Tricorders from Star Trek!

You want a vision for the future of health care? Don’t look to policymakers and regulators. Look to innovators and innovations. Look to San Diego’s wireless mesas and San Francisco’s silicon valleys. Look at Scanadu’s protean medical Tricorder. They get it, and it’s awesome. Watch their one-and-a-half-minute video before reading on.

Scanadu’s vision embraces patient-centric healthcare as a personal information service, in your control – in your hands – amplified by the Cloud. It is the key to unleashing the power of social medicine. Welcome to the future of healthcare.

Of course we can already use social media whether at Facebook [NASDAQ:FB] or its health-centric imitators like PatientsLikeMe to “friend” within a subject domain (symptoms, questions). But what we hunger for is hard facts about our personal medical problem that we can share with the best medical expertise. Enter Scanadu and the Tricorder.
Scanadu is competing for the Qualcomm [NASDAQ:QCOM] Tricorder X-Prize I wrote about earlier this year. (See New Era of Metadata Medicine) The underlying DNA of Scanadu is illuminated by the newest member of their impressive team, Canadian Peter Jansen, a polymath with a background in astro and optical physics, cognitive artificial intelligence, and medical imaging. Jansen’s talents speak volumes about the kind of imaging and information processing that will change the face of medicine. Jansen says “medicine must become an information science.”

…

You can read the full article here. Thanks Mark!

Mountain View, CA, May 16, 2012 –(PR.com)– Scanadu, the Silicon Valley based startup building the Medical Tricorder, today welcomes Peter Jansen, the one-man force behind the Open Source Science Tricorder. Jansen joins a brilliant 12-person team backed by the likes of Stephen Wolfram and Nicholas Negroponte.

Peter Jansen, PhD, recently made media waves when, on the heels of the Tricorder X PRIZE announcement, he released open source designs for two real-life Tricorders. Dubbed the “Mark 1” and “Mark 2,” these science Tricorders form the bedrock of Jansen’s Tricorder Project, an open hardware community adding to Jansen’s original design.

Jansen, a protean hacker – fluent in astro and optical physics, cognitive artificial intelligence, and medical imaging – is driven by the belief that free and inalienable access to healthcare is a basic human right. Growing up in Canada has given Jansen perspective on flaws in American medicine and political resistance to socialized care. The only solution, he sees, is to change the system from the bottom up, first by making expensive medical equipment cheap. The end goal? According to Jansen: “Medicine must become an information science.”

Jansen’s mission mirrors Scanadu’s own – to put the tools of a doctor’s office into the hands of the medical consumer, giving the individual access to the most deeply personal information possible – their health data.

About Scanadu
Scanadu is a health technology company that is building the Medical Tricorder, a device that enables consumers to manage their own health care. Consumers will have real-time monitoring of 6 vital signs in a single device. Sensor data combines seamlessly with user-device Q&A and personal health records (PHR), resulting in the most complete picture of health ever possible to-date. The Tricorder gives recommendations for medical care, when appropriate, and lets users schedule an appointment or speak with a medical professional immediately. Scanadu closed a $4 million Seed round of financing in 2012. For more information about the company, please visit http://www.scanadu.com/.

One of the most common questions I get (aside from “where can I purchase a Science Tricorder?”) is whether I’m working on a Medical Tricorder for the Qualcomm Tricorder X-PRIZE, and so I’m happy to finally be able to answer that question. On a personal note, I have to say that living at NASA Ames and working on developing a Medical Tricorder sounds like something from a dream (though replacing a Tricorder with a warp drive would make that spot on ). Scanadu is full of incredibly bright folks working on innovative technology, and I’m excited to be a part of the team. Their building on NASA Ames is also beside an ENORMOUS hanger for blimps, which is way too cool for a science nerd like me!

CNET’s Daniel Terdiman dropped by the Tricorder project at the showcase portion of the evening, and wrote an article about The Real Business of the DIY Movement.

If there’s one thing that I took from the night, it’s how excited folks get at the idea of having their own Science Tricorders, and the idea of placing them in kids hands — so that the kids who grow up today will be as fluent (at least at a conceptual level) with a broad palette of science as the kids who grew up recently are with computers. I really have to get these in peoples hands. And I’m excited and humbled that there are so many folks who want to help make that happen. Thanks again to Dale Dougherty for inviting me!

If you’re attending the MAKE Hardware Innovation Workshop, feel free to drop by the showcase to meet both myself and a bunch of other folks working on some wonderful and innovative open source hardware projects. Also, if you’d like to play with the Tricorders, try to find me in the first hour — I’ve just moved to the SF Bay Area yesterday (an exciting announcement to come on that later this week), and the spare Tricorder batteries are packed away. Either that, or bring 6 high-current AAA’s with you (for the Mark 1), or one of Sparkfun’s 1000mAh Polymer Lithium Ion Batteries for the Mark 2.

I also hope to attend the Bay Area Maker Faire this weekend, though much too last minute to formally present, so feel free to say Hi if you happen to bump into a person with some Open Source Science Tricorders!

The music also sounds like it’s an instrumental version of Cinematic Orthestras “to build a home”. Absolutely beautiful, and very much worth checking out.

The Tricorder project has received an incredible amount of attention since being launched a few weeks ago. Already we’re on the cusp of 100,000 unique visitors, a quarter million page views, and a positively overwhelming yet still overflowing inbox. It was very much my hope when I created the Tricorder project website that I would get folks excited enough about Science Tricorders that they’d want to build their own, make modifications, and share their experiences with a community of folks broadly interested in science education and learning more about the world around them.

I think all of this has happened, or is happening now. Inexpensive PCB’s usually take a few weeks to get fabricated and shipped, and I just packed up the Tricorder contest prizes this weekend for shipping, so it’s possible that within the next month or so we’ll start seeing Tricorders out in the wild. This is incredibly exciting! To help foster this — encouraging folks interested in building Tricorders, sharing modifications, build experiences, and stories using Tricorders — I think it’s important to help incubate a community. And that starts with an active and healthy forum community.

To do this, I need your help. I’m looking for an experienced forum administrator who wants to help build and shepherd the communication between a community of nerdy Science Tricorder builders. Currently the forum uses phpBB (though I’m very happy to entertain other ideas), and is in an unhappy state from spambots and a very well meaning but inexperienced administrator who accidentally erased parts of the forum attempting to rid it of spam. You are friendly, creative, and excited to volunteer a little of your time for science!

If you’re interested, please send me a note at peter at tricorderproject.org describing a little bit about yourself, and how you’d help build and incubate an online community of Science Tricorder builders! (Please include “FORUM” in the subject line when e-mailing).

thanks!