Towards an urban motivation for sustainable wind power on the tops of buildings.  (A collaboration with Teresita Cochrane, Akio Wada, Phaedra Riley and Venu Chitturi.)

WindLink involves urban, rooftop wind-speed data networked to a data sonification and visualization systems. WindLink's goal is to educate viewers/users about the feasibility of utilizing wind energy in an urban setting as a viable alternative power resource. WindLink was the first project of the interest group, SMIT:: Sustainable Minded Interactive Technologies.

Wind turbines are a well-proven form of energy procurement. There is novel thought towards the potential for wind energy collection near prime energy consumers - i.e.: within the urban landscape. Recent architectural designs, including the design of New York's Freedom Tower, have begun to give consideration to the savings and advantages of harnessing wind power through design.

On the roof is a custom designed wind ticker that uses a servo-motor and 5 inch vaccuum fan blade with 2 earth magnets and a reed switch on its face. This determines the speed of the wind in whatever direction the ticker blade is facing. This object is networked to a computer with a representational Flash animation (pictured below) and spatial sound that can be affected by what directional numbers a user punches into the display on the screen. An anemometer is attached near the wind ticker on the roof to get a reading of the actual wind speed. This is also networked, but cannot be adjusted by a user.  The activiy becomes one of trying to match the maximum windspeed read by the anemometer, by adjusting the direction of the adjustable vane.