PPlanter: Rapidly deployable, reconfigurable public urinal and sink

[beatpanda]

Hey all. I work for GAFFTA, one of the organizations putting on the UP festival, and I'm super excited to see this on Hacker News. Here's where you can see the rest of the UP projects:

http://sf.urbanprototyping.org/projects These are the projects chosen from our Open Call several months ago — they're longer term with bigger budgets.

http://sf.urbanprototyping.org/makeathon/projects These were chosen from our Makeathon a few weeks ago.

It's going to be awesome. If you're in SF this weekend, come down to 5th and Mission and check it out.

[lesliet]

Here is the facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/events/306073629499817/

[m0hit]

London has these $75,000 public urinals that disappear during the day http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/19/urilift-the-disappearing-...

[debacle]

Why did that cost 75k? I can only assume it's to be bulletproof against rowdy drunks.

[jlgreco]

I wonder if they have anything to keep people clear when those are rising/setting.

[lesliet]

This project is for the UP festival, and here are some more sketches/designs of the project: http://sf.urbanprototyping.org/projects/ppplanter/

There are some major efforts around this. eg. bill gates Foundation http://www.gatesfoundation.org/watersanitationhygiene/Pages/..., or the toilet masterplan in SF http://toiletproject.org

[wandermatt]

How will folks resist the urge to pee on the QR code?

[lightyrs]

Just curious, how would you go about detecting urine with sensors?

[m0hit]

The planter primarily senses smell, entry/exit and water level. There is also a mechanical system (construction is going on) that mixes an "appropriate" amount of water with pee, so that it is usable by the plant.

So in all we can sense:

- number of people that went into the planter (approx)

- amount of pee was collected

- smell levels based on usage/pee levels

there are also some more things related to plant growth.

[jlgreco]

Probably an "electronic nose" that detects a particular chemical or mixture of chemicals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_nose

[lubujackson]

This seems really great until you realize peeing on a tree is about exactly the same thing.