Last weeks stride onto water with Sonic Kayaks

Heading west with marine researcher Dr Kirsty Kemp for our Sonic Kayak open hacklab with FoAM Kernow. Excellent to be finally getting going on this. Sonic cycling is not so appealing in Kernow (Cornwall) as it’s pretty hilly, so when Dave Griffiths (sonic bike coder) and I had talked of the possibility of sonic riding in Cornwall where he is based, he came back with the sonic kayak idea. In a nutshell, lets waterproof up the sonic bike system and put it on water. Many months and discussions later and here we are. Except now the project has considerably evolved.

The Sonic Kayak will be a musical instrument with which to investigate nature. The kayaks will be rigged with underwater environmental sensors to generate live music from the marine world, providing the paddler with an extra dimension of senses with which to explore the underwater climate whilst also enabling citizens to gather important climate/environmental data.

Ambitious. On arrival we go straight to collect donated kayaks and plan tomorrow’s lab further. There will be 12 of us, with 7 being marine scientists. We also have the use of a professional temperature sensor as well as several of our own. Dave has made Pd patches that will be linked to different zones he has mapped out on the water. The FoAM lab sits right on the Penryn estuary at Falmouth. The weather forecast is good.