Aug
30

Livin’ green in T.O. + Active Surplus

By DW

Hit the Live Green festival in Toronto today down on Yonge. Click through for deets and interesting finds at Active Surplus…

Bike to work? Hell ya! This is my second season of biking to work. Hoping to get to the end of October again this year.

Tree Guy was popular.

Good music.

Two stilt-walkin’, long-haired dudes.

I think these are tin can windchimes.

A hydraulophone (invented by Steve Mann) and made by the folks at Funtain.

I talked to Connie who does industrial design for Funtain and she told me the hydraulophone sound was based on vibrations of the water itself and changes in pressure. Not just a MIDI translation as I originally suspected. I asked about the internals of the device, but she told me it was top secret, patent pending sort of stuff. Ok. They fab their own instrument out of fibre glass and also make the tub for it. They use an aquarium pump for the water. A 12V system. They were powering the big audio amp off of some lead acid gel cells. Very interesting, sort of haunting sound.

Talked to Jerry from Arise (go Waterloo!) about going solar. I should expect to break even on a $26K investment in solar in 9 years.

Selling back to the grid, I’d have two power meters at my house: one for street power and one for power I’m producing. Waterloo North Hydro records them both and credits me for surplus power I supply. No ugly batteries here. It’s intriguing.

The folks from Love Bottle were selling… um, empty glass bottles as substitutes for stainless steel water bottles. When asked the benefit of glass, they said “you can see what you’re drinking”. Ok.

Solar smores? Now that’s my kind of green tech.

And while I was wandering the line of a hundred tents, I took mental note for kwartzlab about what makes an effective presence:

6′x3′ stand-up banners really catch your eye
any words across the top edge of the tent are lost ’cause everyone’s looking into the tent
using big clips to hold your handouts from blowing away is better than piling rocks on them
buttons and stickers are popular giveaways
you can have too much stuff in your tent
tent tenders that sit under the tent and chat with each other are not very approachable
having something simple for visitors to make is very engaging
capped 4″x3′ PVC pipes filled with water/sand can be tie-wrapped to tent legs making effective anti-wind anchors
some sort of curtain draped at the back of your tent creates more of an impact of what’s in your tent
you never want to be the first or last tent in a line