Luxemburger Wort interviewed the team for one of  their special issue on Water. To sum up the interview: we’re working around the clock to prepare a new platform that will help everyone to learn, hack and visualise water quality!

Lynn proposed a workshop with the Service National de la Jeunesse (Ateliers CreActif). A group of young early school leavers were invited to join the workshop in the framework of the Science Club. The activity chosen by SNJ was creating water filters with left-over materials and actually was very much appropriate. Christian supported the group with a special tour of the LIST laboratories and got everyone interested while showing the tools he uses in his everyday activity.

In the context of the development of Watergram, Irina and Giacomo involved the same class from the Lycée to imagine the platform’s user-experience (UX) during a group-user test. After presenting the general layout, we asked each group to imagine a fictional “persona” that could use the platform in the future. Then, they sketched a scenario on how their specific character would use the tool-kit and platform. Finally, the participants prototyped their own platform’s wireframe and presented their ideas and suggestions to the others. This session validated our initial concept and provided some information about the way scientific data and the interface are used by the youngsters.

The whole group took part in an ideation workshop for the platform. This meeting has the goal to discuss and find interesting ideas for the web platform. We believe that we can find a way to gather important information on water quality via crowdsourcing. We all agree that the user interaction should be very simple. A storyboard of how this service could work should be helpful. Three information levels have been identified by Christian: Drinking water, Rain water and Surface Water (river and pounds). We decided that it has to be clear from where and from whom the data comes from. Observation of the user-experience should be carried on when organising the workshops.

See link HERE:

During ICT4S, “Watergram” was very well received as it triggered both discussion and exchange of ideas with researchers from the University of Toronto in Canada.

For the D’DAYS in Paris, we prepared an exhibition about a fictional project that will happen in the river Seine. In order to stimulate the use of the river and bring people closer to it, we decided to develop a DIY water boat (here a step-by-step guide to create your own) together with designer/artist Henry Baumann. In Paris, we invited the population to a Design Thinking Atelier where the citizens could reflect on the project’s findings and imagine new water services for the cities of Paris.

Water Hackers’ 1st workshop started during the Science Festival in 2013. This was the perfect occasion to collaborate with scientist Christian Penny and create a video of the water situation in Luxembourg. In the framework of the Festival we presented a video showing the everyday tasks of the scientists. During the Science Festival we pumped the water from the Alzette in a water filter wall. This allowed to purify the water and bring it back to the river.