Hello and welcome to the new semester! This is Rain Gardeners, a team of 4 graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University – Entertainment Technology Center. We are working with our client Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, an organization that protects and restores exceptional places to provide the region with clean waters and healthy forests, wildlife and natural areas for the benefit of present and future generations.
In the first week, we had a meeting with our faculty instructor, John Dessler, to talk about the goal of our project. We settled down our weekly core hour meeting time on each Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. We also had a client meeting with Danielle, the representor from PA Conservancy, to go over the general overview of the project. On Friday, the team had a site visit.
The Team
- Xiaoying (Alexa) Wang – Producer, UI/UX Designer
- Leah Lee – UI/UX Designer
- Shiqing (Alyssa) Tang – Programmer
- Haoran (Harlan) Liang – Programmer
Project Description
Client: Western PA Conservancy
Rain gardens are dynamic greenspaces, providing vital ecosystem services including habitat for pollinators and other wildlife, storm water management, urban heat island mitigation, as well as a place for people to benefit from being in nature. At the intersection of Lincoln and Frankstown in the Larimer neighborhood, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy installed a rain garden adjacent to Pittsburgh Lincoln K-8 school.
Currently, WPC engages the school with spring planting and maintenance events. This project would develop augmented reality technology on tablets for K-8 educators to explore the rain garden with their students throughout the school year.
Site Visit
On Friday, Sep 02, the team had a first ever field trip to visit the rain garden near the Lincoln k-5 school. The rain garden consisted of two main basins, each of them planted with different species of plants. The basin has formed a small ecosystem and many small insects can be seen in the basin.
According to our observations, when it rains, the rain will first collect in the left side basin. After the left side basin is filled, the water flows to the right side. When both basins are filled with water, the water flows down the sewer along the gravel path. This rain garden can prevent flooding effectively. The rain garden also has multiple layers underneath the ground to support the water cycle.
