Shower with Friends: Gamify your water consumption!

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Thanks to Bob for sending in his great project and congratulations for winning the hackathon! Bob writes:

Hey we used your $9.95 flow meter for our Tech Crunch project. Wasn’t sure if you saw on our slide but wanted to give a quick thank you to you guys for the flow meter – we got it working with some of Lady Ada’s code and a few hacks on an Intel Galileo 2.

We ended up winning the hackathon – the flow meter arrived literally the day before the contest so we wanted to thank you for such prompt service as well.

Thanks!

Read more at TechCrunch.

An engineering team from Mashery may have a good solution to California’s drought problem – just shower with friends. The team of five presented Shower with Friends at the TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon today, an Intel technology similar to Arduino that lets you compare your water use against that of your friends.

The idea for Shower with Friends actually came from a kegbot in the Mashery office. As you might guess, the kegbot actually detects how much beer each person is drinking to compare who drinks the most. The story goes that Intel CEO Brian Krzanich dropped by the office one day, saw the kegbot and asked the engineers if they could apply the same idea to something he would actually use in his house. Thus, the seed for Shower with Friends was born.

Shower with Friends is different from your regular old Home Depot low-flow shower head. It will sense your total use of water and then send you an SMS notification to let you know if you are using more or less water than the previous day. It can also show you how much water your friends (or roommates, or sister) are using to compare your consumption to theirs.

This could be an important device in a drought-heavy state like California. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor Report, most of the state is currently in an an extremely exceptional drought. Over 58 percent of the state is in this state, with 82 percent of the state listed in the extreme drought category. The National Drought Mitigation Center calls this “a once in a generation type of event.” According to a UC Davis study released in July, California agriculture faces the greatest drought ever seen.

Read more.


Featured Adafruit Product!

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Liquid Flow Meter – Plastic 1/2″ NPS Threaded: Measure liquid/water flow for your solar, computer cooling, or gardening project using this handy basic flow meter. This sensor sit in line with your water line, and uses a pinwheel sensor to measure how much liquid has moved through it. The pinwheel has a little magnet attached, and there’s a hall effect magnetic sensor on the other side of the plastic tube that can measure how many spins the pinwheel has made through the plastic wall. This method allows the sensor to stay safe and dry. Read more.


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