Thermal Comfort Study underway

Posted on February 1, 2024 by Alison Kidd

As the core part of my thermal comfort study, I am currently polling 86 participants from 65 different UK households every day for 30 days at different times of day with a quick survey of how warm they feel at that moment, the room temperature, and a list of factors which might be affecting their felt warmth, e.g physical or mental activity, what room heating is on and how many layers of clothing they are wearing. The households include Heat pumps, Infrared heating and conventional gas or oil boilers.

The daily data are pouring in and look fascinating. I’m really enjoying the anecdotal comments people sometimes add. This part of the study finishes at the end Of February and then the monster data analysis begins…..

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Progress on our ‘Ive got an Idea’ fund projects

Posted on November 17, 2023 by Alison Kidd

It’s always inspiring to hear from our various ‘I’ve got an Idea Fund’ projects on challenges they have faced and progress they are making in developing and testing their very different technical ideas. Turning ideas into reality is never straightforward! This past week, I’ve heard of encouraging steps forward from the melodica sound project in Ireland, the collagen fish waste extraction for contact lenses in London and lastly the geometric inspired collapsible accommodation on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Alistair on Arran has now got a set of 1/10th scale architectural style models showing the frameworks relative to lifesize – the collapsed structure being towed by a bike and then the stages of unfolding to the final size.

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Do you have a Heat Pump? – I’m looking for participants for a Thermal Comfort Research Study

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Alison Kidd

 

I am an experimental psychologist researching how we can stay comfortably warm at home without wasting energy (or money).  Our houses, heating and budgets all vary and so does our individual physiology, health, heat preferences and lifestyles … even within one household. 

Most research into ‘thermal comfort’ is carried out in laboratory settings or workplaces. Very little is known about what happens in ordinary life in our homes. This research project aims to find out.

We’re looking to recruit 100 UK homes of different sizes and locations and with different heating systems… from conventional central heating (gas or oil) to heat pumps to infrared heating. 

The study will run for 30 days during January/February 2024. If you’d like to help us by taking part in this important citizens’ research, please complete this simple online questionnaire about your house, the number of occupants and your heating system. We will then let you know if you’ve been selected as one of the 100 households. 

If you are selected, what will it involve? 

(i) Completing a more detailed online survey about your household and its heating.

(ii) One or more members of your household signing up to receive 1 mobile text message each day for 30 days in January and February 2024 requesting completion of a 5 minute online survey (if you are currently at home) about how warm you feel at that moment, what heating is currently on, the room temperature and your current level of activity. 

All data will be held securely and anonymised in analysis and reporting and all contact details will be deleted once the study is completed. 

As this research project is self funded, there is no payment for participation. Your unique thermal comfort data, in combination with 100 other participants in different homes across the UK, will help inform both government policy on domestic heating and energy as well as future technology and product development. You will receive a copy of the research results and an invite to attend an online presentation of the results.

You can contact me to ask further questions about the project at : alison@prospectory.co.uk 

Dr Alison Kidd

Experimental Psychologist

www.theprospectory.com 

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Idea Fund Award – A Braille reader enabling blind people to play digital games

Posted on August 2, 2023 by Alison Kidd

Blind and partially sighted people suffer from a lack of relevant Braille reading tools that allow them to engage with digital literature, televised sporting events and online gaming. Since 2011, Edward Rogers, CEO and founder of Bristol Braille Technology CIC has been developing innovative Braille reading tools. This includes their first product – the 9 line Canute 360 Braille Reader which allows blind people to access digital literature.

Our award will fund the next step in the company’s experimental-driven development – a customised Braille keyboard and adapted desktop screen to enable digital translation of digital games so they are accessible for the first time for Braille readers to play. Translating graphics in real time is a fascinating technical challenge and one which could not just offer joyful, inclusive entertainment but also open up job opportunities unlocking the creative potential of the blind population.

Having visited Bristol Braille’s workshop and discussed the project with Ed, it felt a perfect match to the spirit of the Idea Fund, namely a hands on experimental approach to realising novel technical ideas with a proven social benefit in an area crying out for it.

“We’re very excited to be given the opportunity, by the Idea Fund Award, to experiment with tactile gaming for blind people, and all the creative potential we hope that will unlock. We’re also excited to join the ranks of brilliant projects that have previously been backed by the Prospectory.” — Ed Rogers

We wish Ed and the Bristol Braille team well and look forward to following their progress.

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New Idea Fund Award – Contact lenses from fish waste

Posted on June 14, 2023 by Alison Kidd

We are delighted to announce our latest ‘I’ve got an idea Fund‘ award to Nicole Hakim who recently completed a Masters in Biodesign at Central Saint Martins.

Nicole explains the twin problem that she’s motivated to address. On the one hand, 40% of caught fish is classified as waste and poorly disposed of. On the other hand, thousands of disposable contact lenses are flushed down the toilet everyday releasing polluting microplastic particles into our rivers and seas. Nicole has been experimenting with extracting collagen from fish waste without the requirement for toxic chemicals or high temperatures and then developing a collagen hydrogel material that can be used for biocompatible applications in the contact lens industry.

Our Fund will enable Nicole to carry out her next crucial set of lab experiments optimising a scaled collagen extraction process and improving the hydrogel material properties for contact lens application.

We liked the inventiveness and ambition of Nicole’s project and the progress she has already made. We also always like to support people carrying out their own experimentation (be it lab, field or kitchen table) to see if their ideas work, learn and evolve them and have fun in the process. We look forward to following Nicole’s fish eye journey.

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Why UBI should be ‘Universal’?

Posted on June 6, 2023 by Alison Kidd

I was delighted to read that England is planning to run a 2 year long trial of UBI (Universal Basic Income) in 2 geographical areas. Given the number of positive results from trials across the world already though, I do hope trials aren’t being used as a way of avoiding ever implementing UBI for real!

But the thing that pleased me most with this proposed trial was that the participants within those areas would be selected randomly. The case for UBI is most often on providing a safety net for people who can’t work or are not paid enough for the work they do to meet their basic costs of food, warmth and a roof over their heads. It would be wonderful if UBI could solve that crisis without people having to endlessly prove they are desperate enough and deserving enough to receive state benefits in unhelpfully dependent and humiliating ways.

In contrast, a few years ago I read a mass of survey data on what people across the UK (if given UBI) would use it for. Many said it would give them the ability to get better qualifications or retrain for different work of the kind they would be more interested to do – nursing, social care, engineering and teaching being some of the ones mentioned. Some said it would take away the risk of starting up their own business. Others said UBI would enable them to work part time or not all so that they could care for their kids, a sick or disabled family member or their elderly parents. This, as it happens, could reduce the load on our struggling care system. Others who are artists (of every kind) would jump at the chance to be able to practice as artists (visual, musicians, performers, film makers, writers, poets, etc) without having to spend most of their time in unrelated jobs simply to pay the mortgage. How much richer our society would be with more art of every kind. Ditto, people who said they’d prefer to work for social enterprises or even as a volunteer in their community as this is work they consider much more fulfilling to them because it would be making a tangible difference to the community they live in rather than supporting large corporations from whom wealth is rarely redistributed in ways that benefit society.

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Scything a path through our field

Posted on May 9, 2023 by Alison Kidd

We discovered last summer that it was definitely necessary to cut back the grass to keep a path up the field to the wood. Last year we did this with strimmers which worked but were hardwork, noisy & fuel hungry. We recently discovered https://www.handpowered.co.uk/ who use traditional hand tools and age old techniques, including scything, hedge laying and drystone walling to help people (like me!) manage land in an ecologically friendly way.

Danny and Helene from Handpowered came over from Llanidloes today to scythe this season’s path through the fast growing field grass and up through the rougher ground at the start of the wood. I was amazed how quickly the path emerged with the unhurried swinging motion of the scythes.

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And a short while later, here’s the path for 2023…..

Next challenge the bracken……

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Update – foldable, deployable dome structures on Arran

Posted on May 5, 2023 by Alison Kidd

Great to hear the latest progress from another of our ‘I’ve got an Idea’ fund projects. On the isle of Arran, Alistair is experimenting with geometric principles to construct dome like structures for occasional or emergency housing which can be folded away in a compact format when not required. It’s proving a fascinating but challenging process involving repeated experiments to see what works – very much in the spirit of our fund! Alistair’s experiments involve switching between small scale cardboard modelling and then using 3D printing and the laser cutter (which we funded) to create parts and hinges to check the mechanism works. He’s now prototyping a more elegant telescoping arm mechanism and tessellated scissor panelling which will provide rigidity but also pack down.

Inbetween, the laser cutter also gets used for making parts for a local dementia craft project involving Easter chicks and highland cow clocks!

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Mobile waste water collector & washing station update

Posted on April 28, 2023 by Alison Kidd

Delightful to hear from Lucy Powell of Outside Lives Ltd in North Wales today with an update of the first ‘I’ve got an idea Fund’ award we made. They had an idea to try to construct a mobile handwashing station which collected rainwater and could then be trolleyed to wherever on their site they needed it that day. What appealed to us about this project was both the way that the Outside Lives team work together with community members to dream up, test and build their ideas but also their innovative re-use of parts from unexpected sources. You can catch a flavour of this in these photos

Solving problems together as they crop up
Getting there….
I love the re-use of this wonderful handle

Updates from our funded projects are always a joy to hear about. A few of our projects sucessfully achieve what they set out to develop and try in a matter of months but most projects (exactly as we would predict) encounter unanticipated challenges and setbacks which require further invention, redesign and experiments along the way. That is just fine with us as that’s how even the best ideas usually proceed and where the most fun and learning happens.

Our Idea fund is currently open for new applications but please read the criteria carefully before applying.

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Art, conversation & Pie-economics

Posted on April 25, 2023 by Alison Kidd

The endless joy and stimulation of working as an experimental psychologist with visual artists….

Larks & Ravens has just run our first experimental Pie Supper at https://bricksbristol.org/ We invited 4 guests to use art and sharing a pie supper to generate conversations about how to divide a pie in a fair way. Politicians and economists often talk about “growing the pie” so everyone gets “a larger slice” – but does that actually happen? How do you divide a pie fairly? What happens in your home? Who deserves (or doesn’t deserve) what size of slice and why?? 

It certainly stimulated convesation. I’m looking forward to the next one.

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