As part of the sneak preview of the Grondstoffenstation Afrikaanderwijk we will show two versions of Wijkbot, and specifically the iteration developed in the Cities of Things LAB010 project with the residents of the Afrikaanderwijk. That iteration is named Inzamelbot, as it is part of recirculating resources towards the Grondstoffenstation. Next to materials like paper, plastic, food leftovers, wood, and cans, we also invite residents and other visitors to leave their ideas for Wijkbot.
Category: update
This post is written in Dutch. Below is an English translation added.
Afgelopen Koningsdag hebben we een nieuw experiment gedaan met de Wijkbot, de prototype-kit van een stadsrobot waarmee we in de Afrikaanderwijk aan de slag zijn. Na afloop van het bezoek van de koning organiseerde de wijk een festival in het park. Met de wijkbot was een zogenaamde Verzamelbot gemaakt die hielp het festivalterrein schoon te houden. Het ontwerp en maken van deze Verzamelbot was gedaan door de bewoners van de denktank Cities of Things Lab 010.
Friday 21 April, we will discuss the progress of the Wijkbot project in a workshop at Smart & Social Fest, organised by the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Next to the discussion workshop, it is possible to use the Wijkbot kit to create an urban robot!
On Smart & Social Fest: https://www.hogeschoolrotterdam.nl/go/social-fest
- Walk with Wijkbot
- Build your own neighbourhood robot
This update was sent earlier in a slightly different form (and in Dutch) to the partners and participants in the LAB010 project. Read more on the backgrounds of this Cities of Things field lab project here.
The Cities of Things Lab010 project has been running for a year now since its kick-off on February 16, 2022 at Gemaal op Zuid. It has been a busy year for everyone, and also for our project. In this update, I’d like to bring you up to date on the progress and plans for the rest of the project.
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Workshop at MCBW in Munich
Cities of Things will organize a workshop during the yearly Munich Creative Business Week (MCBW) on 16 May 2022 (13:30 – 15:30 at MunichUrbanColab).
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MUC-AMS Amsterdam workshop
Last 23 March we organized a workshop at the Marineterrein in Amsterdam to discuss the progress of the field lab plans and connect with existing and new contacts. The session was a step towards the planning of a field lab program – hopefully – later this year.
We had a good group of people in the hybrid workshop, both from Amsterdam and Munich (and Berlin). We first updated the attendees with the latest developments. Four agencies of the starting consortium have been developing the first conceptualization for the neighborhood hub we now call Collect|Connect Community Hub. Focus is a ‘commoning buffer’ that plays an active role in the neighborhood community life. From the people for the people.
As announced in the latter post the field lab Cities of Things Lab010 was invited to organize the hackathon together with Creating010 and Civic Prototyping Lectorate of this year’s IoTRotterdam event. In the end, four teams participated and build some very nice citythings; autonomous moving objects on the streets of our near-future cities. The goal of the citythings was not defined and part of the process of the teams. Great to see it turned out most of the teams made the decision to let the citythings take a social role in the city life.
At the 10th edition of the IoT Rotterdam event on 8 April 2022, organized by Creating010 of Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Cities of Things will be one of the organizers of the hackathon. More than even hacking, prototyping “urban smart-things” as a different name for citythings will be key. And these prototypes will be tested on the streets of Rotterdam by the teams.
In the hackathon teams of participants will rapidly conceptualize and prototype an “urban smart-thing”: a plausible, autonomously operating agent envisioned to roam the public spaces of the near-future Rotterdam. The participants will confront the prototype with the citizens of Rotterdam in the public areas of the city, interview them and jointly reflect on the necessary forms and shapes of the public debate around the role of AI in cities.
The prototype will use a pre-made “wizard-of-oz” platform, allowing a human operator to remotely simulate an AI algorithm, and control the movement of the prototype. Examples of possible prototypes include, but are (by far) not limited to a mobile garbage bin, interactive street signage, or a mobile plant.
See this movie to get an impression:
The teams will work at the new VONK Innovation Center located just off Coolsingel in Timmerhuis. The results of the explorations will be presented end of the day at Het Nieuwe Instituut where the conference program of IoT Rotterdam is located.
Find more information on the website of IoT Rotterdam, and if you read this on time, please join us!
The hackathon is part of the activities of Cities of Thing Lab010 field lab. We keep you posted on the results!
Background
AI is increasingly used in cities to improve their efficiency, as part of urban services and infrastructure, but is also being embedded in various kinds of soon-to-be-autonomously operating agents. Autonomous passenger cars are only one example of such use of AI that will become commonplace within the coming decade. There will also be autonomous garbage collection vehicles, safety, and traffic monitoring agents, advertising and informational bots, delivery vehicles, and many more… As citizens we still rarely think about the impact that such autonomous AI agents will have on our everyday life, beyond the advertised improvement of everyday conveniences, such as the comfort of care-free riding in a self-driving car, or receiving fast online deliveries. Autonomous AI agents will soon, however, impact almost every aspect of our lives, for example
- will share the public space with us on every step,
- will take over automatable jobs (chauffeurs, vendors, cleaners),
- will be used to monitor us and enforce rules and laws (street signage and access control).
We can’t fully predict what the impact of autonomous AI agents will be on our society and cities, but we can try to collectively envision, understand and democratically shape the applications of this future technology so that it serves our society to the best possible extent. However, as non-expert citizens, we lack first-hand experiences with autonomous agents in the everyday-life setting, which we could use as a point of reference for debate and contestation of AI-related developments.
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Update activities Cities of Things
Spring officially began. A good moment to share some of the activities of Cities of Things in the last months. I write a monthly update and reflection via this email newsletter you can subscribe to.
The two biggest programs at this moment are the field labs in Rotterdam as part of the CityLab010 program, and the field lab as part of Creative Embassy Munich-Amsterdam.
City of Things Lab010
We had the official kick-off with the consortium parties in February and we did start the research activities with a graduation student looking into the design for the Cities of Things design toolkit, and a team of Technical Information students that will work on a prototype of a citything that can be used in the further explorations in the neighborhoods.
We also will organize the hackathon of the IoT Rotterdam program on 8 April with the same prototype as a basis. The first wizard-of-oz version of the prototype was made by Tomasz Jaskiewicz.
MUC-AMS Cities of Things field lab
As reported here before we signed the Letter of Intent in October in Munich. Four of the Dutch consortium partners started to develop a possible field lab research program: a logistic neighborhood hub that will be designed for the neighborhood. Springtime, Space&Matter, Sophisti, and INFO are working towards the first concept to present to possible partners in both Amsterdam and Munich.
Coming 23 March a hybrid session will be organized at the Marineterrein Amsterdam to meet partners, both from Amsterdam and Munich, to update the program plans and discuss the hub concept. If you like to join, contact Iskander.
16 May we will travel to Munich again to participate in the Munich Creative Business Week with a workshop dedicated to the same goal; connecting the right partners for making the field lab project happen.
Other activities
Next to these more activities are starting or in the planning.
- Together with Advier we are looking into a research program for Living as as Service in Cities of Things.
- We plan to partner more with Responsible AI group of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. We commissioned a assignement for prototyping natural interactions with vocal citythings in the Applied AI minor.
- Cities of Things is part of two RAAK research proposals by AUAS.
- We organized a workshop at Mozfest March 11 with a presentation by Maria Luce Lupetti.
- Iskander was invited to
- participate in an academic workshop on “Design F(r)iction For Predictive Food Commoning“.
- in the editing board for De Lichtkogel, a publication of Rijkswaterstaat on the future biking landscape.
- to share our view on the future of public transport in the city of Utrecht for the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper.
We are very happy that our proposal for setting up Cities of Things Lab010 as part of the CityLab010 project is selected by the commission. Together with partners Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences research group Creating010. Afrikaanderwijk Co-op and Studio voor de Stad we entered the project in the summer. We plan to start the project in early 2022.
From the CityLab010-website (translated from Dutch):
After an exciting time for many Rotterdam initiators, the decision is finally made. 49 Rotterdammers will receive a starting budget from CityLab010. Good for over 3 million euros. With this, they can make their dreams come true.
Aldermen Roos Vermeij (Economy, Neighborhoods and Small Districts) and Arno Bonte (Sustainability, Air Quality and Energy Transition) and chairwoman of the city jury, Carolien Dieleman, congratulate all the initiators on their starting budget and wish them every success with the implementation.
The short description of the City of Things Lab010 project is:
More and more intelligent and autonomous objects are appearing on our streets. This is changing the city at the system level, with impact at the hyperlocal neighborhood level. The Cities of Things Labkar allows neighborhood residents to design and prototype citythings together with designers.
We will create a special page on this website to keep you posted with the progress of the project.