

PPlanter: Rapidly deployable, reconfigurable public urinal and sink  - georgethayes
http://pplanter.com

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beatpanda
Hey all. I work for GAFFTA, one of the organizations putting on the UP
festival, and I'm super excited to see this on Hacker News. Here's where you
can see the rest of the UP projects:

<http://sf.urbanprototyping.org/projects> These are the projects chosen from
our Open Call several months ago — they're longer term with bigger budgets.

<http://sf.urbanprototyping.org/makeathon/projects> These were chosen from our
Makeathon a few weeks ago.

It's going to be awesome. If you're in SF this weekend, come down to 5th and
Mission and check it out.

~~~
lesliet
Here is the facebook invite: <http://www.facebook.com/events/306073629499817/>

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m0hit
London has these $75,000 public urinals that disappear during the day
[http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/19/urilift-the-
disappearing-...](http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/19/urilift-the-disappearing-
public-urinal-and-we-do-mean-public/)

~~~
debacle
Why did that cost 75k? I can only assume it's to be bulletproof against rowdy
drunks.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Good hydraulic lift; custom manufacturing; extensive safety testing (what
happens if the lift fails?); cost of building a product for a bureaucracy
(paperwork, adherence to regulations, extension of development timeline); R&D
and payback on loans or other capital outlay; profit.

~~~
Someone
It likely also includes cost of transport (it is a fairly large stainless
steel structure) and installation (digging a hole, moving existing cabling out
of the way, etc)

If not, prices have risen very steeply since 2007. [http://www.visit-
gloucestershire.co.uk/boards/topic/2674-str...](http://www.visit-
gloucestershire.co.uk/boards/topic/2674-stroud-to-install-) states:

 _"The Urilift and associated installation costs amount to £45,000 (broken
down as £27,000 for the product and £18,000 for installation). As the
structure is made of stainless steel and is very robust its lifetime should be
15-20 years - equating to a cost of only £2,000-3,000 per annum in addressing
this serious problem. Maintenance costs are estimated at only £2,000 per
annum."_

If £27,000 still seems expensive, you must consider that these things stand
outside the whole year round, and, given the target audience, probably do not
get the best of treatment by their users.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Ah, I didn't consider whether or not transportation / installation were
included.

2007 was 5 years ago. Fuel and food costs have both risen sharply since then,
as have the costs for just about everything other than labor. So, I wouldn't
be surprised.

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lesliet
This project is for the UP festival, and here are some more sketches/designs
of the project: <http://sf.urbanprototyping.org/projects/ppplanter/>

There are some major efforts around this. eg. bill gates Foundation
[http://www.gatesfoundation.org/watersanitationhygiene/Pages/...](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/watersanitationhygiene/Pages/home.aspx),
or the toilet masterplan in SF <http://toiletproject.org>

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wandermatt
How will folks resist the urge to pee on the QR code?

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lightyrs
Just curious, how would you go about detecting urine with sensors?

~~~
m0hit
The planter primarily senses smell, entry/exit and water level. There is also
a mechanical system (construction is going on) that mixes an "appropriate"
amount of water with pee, so that it is usable by the plant.

So in all we can sense:

\- number of people that went into the planter (approx)

\- amount of pee was collected

\- smell levels based on usage/pee levels

there are also some more things related to plant growth.

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lubujackson
This seems really great until you realize peeing on a tree is about exactly
the same thing.

