Data from the sensor network at Kew Gardens is now being uploaded nightly, available as raw data here. As can be seen from these before and after photos, the plants have grown a lot in a short time. This plot, maintained by Kew diploma student Jon Wood, also includes French beans, cabbages and lettuces, with flowers intermingled.

A sensor can be seen below, behind some courgettes which are almost ready for harvesting. Data is being collected every hour on soil and ambient conditions, and this data is now undergoing its first analysis. Interfaces will be tested for visualizing and alerting, before deployment in Kenya.

This shows the last readings from a photocell placed in my garden, to monitor sunlight conditions. This ran continuously for about 1 month. We are growing a broad bean plant. While not the same as French beans being grown in Kenya and Kew Gardens, this is for experimenting with interfaces for live sensor data. Shown here is only a first example. A text file with the raw data can be seen here. This live data will be available for a few weeks.

The raw data so far is interesting. Light values range from 0 to 1024, and in the captured data it can be seen that this reaches 0 at about 1 AM. An early an fast sunrise can be seen at about 4:30 AM. The first full day has been cloudy, and this archived image shows changing lighting conditions throughout the day. Day, night, cloudy and sunny conditions could be inferred by looking at threshold values.

VeSeL has organised a workshop to take place at the Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning in London on 13-17 July 2008.

In this session participants will gain an overview of user-centered and participatory methods for designing technology enhanced learning. These will be illustrated through a small number of case study presentations based on work with rural groups (e.g. in Kenya and India). The second half of the session will be a hands-on facilitated opportunity to discuss, apply and explore the relevance of such methods to the specific contexts of interest to participants. Time will also be allocated for networking and to discuss the formation of an online community interested in learner centred design for development. The workshop will be supported before and after the session by online materials. An offline version will be made available to participants at the workshop.

Sign up and find out further information here

VeSeL member Souleymane Camara worked with the Karia farmers group, and Kiine School. "Farmers are very busy at this time of the year. It's the rainy season so they are in shambas." In addition, the school was on break, but the head teacher managed to bring some teachers in for training on the new computers.

Electricity was sporadic, and he had to move around the area to get a good signal from the Celtel mobile network in order to connect to the Internet. "The connection speed," he said, "is not very encouraging." The limited Internet connectivity seemed to especially affect the Macbook laptop - without a connection, the farmers had difficulty in seeing the value of it, in comparison with a fixed PC linked to a printer, for example. But Souleymane tried a door-to-door campaign, showing that with the laptop they could bring the Internet into their own homes.

"I can't wait to send a full report on Silanga," said Vesel member Souleymane Camara in a message sent the day after delivering a Macbook laptop to Silanga School in Kambu. "But for what it is worth, this was a major success. Instead of just three teachers, we had ten of them. Also, two of the teaching staff have a very good ICT skills. This ensures and facilitates knowledge transfer," he said. "They only needed to be introduced to Mac."

"The headteacher and assistant headteacher have been so upbeat about the kit, and have done so well in mobilising the whole school for the event and training. They understood our ideas and expectations."

The wireless sensor network has been installed in a student plot at Kew Gardens, in which will be grown French beans and courgettes, to match crops being grown in Kenya. Click here for more photos.

This simple sensor network aims to harness agricultural intelligence to build a capable decision support system for farmers. This could help optimise natural resources to maximise production while minimising environmental and economic risks. It could enable long term modeling and planning as well as short term, real-time local response.

INFONET-BioVision being demonstrated during delivery and training of the VeSeL laptop in Kiangwachi

VeSeL is partnering with INFONET-BioVision which provides content about organic farming practices, with the aim to strengthen sustainable development of farmers and rural communities in Africa. Members of the INFONET-BioVision team are scheduled to visit the VeSeL partner community of Kambu during the first week of April, coordinating with VeSeL local partner the University of Nairobi.

Story to come...

For the benefit of our Kenyan partners, here is an instructional video on how to assemble and use the solar power kit provided with the first set of resources.

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The power kit consists of a Brunton folding solar panel, Tekkeon universal battery, and various cables and accessories. This charges and provides power to the Macbook laptop we have provided, as well as various small devices such as MP3 players and digital cameras.

Solar panel