The start of the project for YR-Design was an extension of building bGiegies in Aizu Wakamatsu. By being in Aizu, having build a few bGeigies for SAFECAST and being exposed to the GreenSmile project from Jun Yamadera (Eyes-Japan), it was a logical step to enter the project. Jun Yamadera first came to YR-Design with his, at that time current version, sensor, a big box behind a bicycle. The box contained a custom build Geiger counter and other sensors. It also contained a big battery to power the WiFi access router. Jun asked us to looking possibilities for modifying the design to make it smaller. At that time YR-Design could not commit enough resources and time to help out.
In November 2012 we could commit more time to the project and at the same time Pieter Franken asked us to help with building bGiegeNanoKit prototypes. We made two prototypes (breadboard and wired by hand).
At the Safecast Hakathon in January, 2013, Naim Busek taught me how to program the Xbee’s (modules that extend wireless communications for Arduino). Although we did not get an Ad Hoc network going at that time, I knew it would not be too hard to do.
At the Hackathon I mounted temperature and humidity sensors on one of the bGiegieNano, but did not test/develop the software (see picture). Also I mounted the modified bGiegieNano, with sensors, on a nice modern bike that could display data or advertisements on the wheel with Money Electric Videopro8 .
Back in Hikone, YR-Design made the software for interfacing the wheel and sensors with the bGeigie. Temporally using the existing data string as a base. And extending the data string with temperature and humidity fields. We made the interface working on WiFi (Xbee WiFi in AdHoc mode) with an Iphone, so Jun Yamadera could use it on a trade show for Carbon Credits. Also the bike with sensors was used for the introduction of Clif bars in an event organized by Duco delgore with the logo displayed on the wheel.
A second bGeigieNano with sensors was made for another bike. The sensors for that bGiegeiNano were mounted with the expositor of the sensor at the bottom to prevent water entering the sensors. The bike was also showed at TV News of Fukushima TV