Learn more about the teams and the ideas they came up with in the #HackathonEkos

Learn more about the teams and the ideas they came up with in the #HackathonEkos

Learn more about the teams and the ideas they came up with in the #HackathonEkos
 
During the “Hackathon Ekos: Mãos na Mata”, promoted by Natura Campus in the city of Belém, from 16 to 20 of March, the 32 participants, who came from many different Brazilian states, formed 8 teams to turn the knowledge acquired after interacting with Natura’s consumers, consultants and supplying communities into prototypes for solutions to connect Nature to people’s daily lives.
 
We’ve already offered a brief description of the “Quintal Mágico (Magic Garden)”, the great winner of this edition. Now, it’s time to get to know in more details the other teams and the ideas they’ve prototyped in the Amazon rainforest:
 
Team: Caos
Members: Leandro Correia, Pedro Bulla, Karen Chavez, Joice Savietto
Project: The project presented by the Caos team is an app and a device that aim at encouraging users to do more open air activities and disconnect from their electronic devices, like cellphones, in moments of relaxation. The app recommends open air activities near where users are by matching data like geolocation, information from social networks and other preferences of its users, as well as reviews made by other users. The device, on the other hand, remains at the home of its users (or other places they would choose) and is activated by placing the cellphone on top of it. Besides reproducing sounds of nature and showing holograms of natural images (like trees, different types of Amazon fruit, etc.), it would charge the cellphone and put it in sleep mode, enabling users to disconnect and relax.
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Team: Colhetivo (Toque da Mata/ Forest Touch)
Members: Samir Hamra, Leonardo Adami, Naíza Vieira, David Silva
Project: The Colhetivo team created a multi-sensory board game that aims at providing information on specific natural ingredients (like fruit, for example) from the Amazon rainforest to children and people who are interested in the topic. The players move along the board as they guess the name of each of the 12 natural ingredients that are numbered and located in cavities on the board. Each player, in each round, can use cards that enable them to use their senses of touch, smell, hearing or sight to try to discover the name of natural ingredient in question. They have access to sensory stimuli like texture, photos of the plant or of where it grows, smell, etc. and even testimonials of members of the local community describing characteristics of the ingredient. The team’s idea is to make it a customizing game, enabling players to use different sets of fruit and even to create their own set of ingredients. Moreover, the game is not limited to the board, it can also be played in a visual platform.
 
Team: Decompõe (Ponto Verde/ Green Dot)
Members: Desy Frezet, Luiza Barbosa, Sérgio Tafner, Tauan Bernardo
Project: The “Ponto Verde” project, developed by Decompõe Team, offered a solution for the lack of green areas in urban centers. The physical part of the project consists of a vertical garden. It is modular, made with recycled materials, easily to assemble and automatically irrigated. Each person that assembles one kit becomes part of a network of people who are nature lovers and can tell what their “Green Dreams” are – creating flower beds in areas that lack care, planting vegetable gardens in schools or flowers and so on. There’s a platform that registers the dreams and calculates what is necessary to fulfill it – number of people required, cost, time to complete the task – and invites members of the network who are near to help. After each action is performed, be it the fulfillment of a Green Dream or assemblage of a kit, a green dot appears in the map of the area, showing the impact generated in a visual way.
 
Team: Sense! (KYA)
Members: Edmar Gomes, Guilherme Atan, Susan Moreno, Rafael Guimarães
Project: Aiming at empowering people technologically and making it easier to share experiences with nature through Augmented Reality, “Sense!” team created KYA, a solution to democratize the access to Augmented Reality. The project simplifies the process of scanning 3D objects, like elements from nature and inserts them in images and videos in the form of augmented reality. According to the team, this way of sharing experiences is likely to generate greater value to sociobiodiversity, increasing efficiency in learning processes and offering technologic empowerment.
 
Team: VirVer
Members: Isa Sobrinho, Geisel Alves, Marcos Bustamante, Ingrid Fang
Project: The VirVer project presented a concept that creates moments of relaxation anywhere connecting people with nature. The device that generates this experience consists of a pair of glasses, mask or other suitable piece of equipment with built-in headphones and voice recognition. By means of voice commands, the user is transported to natural environments through sounds and smells. Although it’s used with people’s eyes closed, the device produces flashes of light at a specific frequency, generating alpha waves that stimulate the brain and helps users to relax. The project also counts on a virtual network through which users can unlock new experiences related to the natural places they’ve been to and share these experiences with others using the device.
 
Team: Vitória Régia (Eco Terapia/Eco Therapy)
Members: Luz Ochoa, Douglas Freitas, Renato Rodrigues, Rogerio Ruivo
Project: The Vitória Régia team offered an experience based on virtual reality that simulates the perception of well-being of individuals when in contact with nature and provides it for those who are distant from nature or unable to reach it. The equipment consists of a pair of virtual reality glasses that uses magic textures to offer touch stimuli for users. There’s an app that controls the experience and offers different options of experiences using 360º videos, sounds and smells. Moreover, the magic textures simulate different temperatures and touch sensations.
 
 
Team: White Paper (Naturino)
Members: Edson Renel, Rafael Bento, Fabrícia Leme, Felipe Móz
Project: The White Paper team proposed the development of a long-lasting relationship with nature from an early age. To do so, they’ve created Naturino, which consists of different sets of materials (kits) to carry out science and technology experiments using elements from nature. By using the kits, children and other people from the target would get in touch with contents related to physics, biology, chemistry, math, electronics, programming and other related fields of knowledge, as well as find out more about fruit and elements from the Amazon culture that could be expanded to other ecosystems. The project also has a virtual platform with which users can connect and share the different projects they’ve carried out with the materials of the kits.
 
Team: Quintal Mágico/ Magic Garden
Members: José Neto, Luiza Voll, Marcela Porto, Paulo Paciência
Project: The great winners of the Hackathon Ekos approached an issue that is common to everyone, including themselves, which is the desire to have a vegetable garden at home and the lack of expertise to do so. The project offers a type of membership program to which users submit to receive pre-selected seeds that are delivered according to a defined periodicity (on a monthly basis, for example). Users also receive sets of sensors that enable the plants to “communicate” with them and provide information like the need for water, more light and others. It also has an interface that shows when plants are ready from consumption. The team was very careful because they didn’t want technology to replace the contact of people with their gardens by means of automation. They simply wanted to make it easier for users to grow food, restoring their contact with nature on a daily basis.