BeeScope

What it does

BeeScope is a handheld product designed to collect data on bee populations over the UK whilst educating the public on their importance. By being placed in National Trust properties nationwide, BeeScope is accessible to a wide range of users.

Your inspiration

During initial research, we spoke about wanting to create a product which would contribute meaningfully to environmental sustainability projects. This is when one of our team recalled reading about the harsh decline in bee populations within the UK. From there we started to research bees and became instantly "Bee-witched". After researching further, and speaking to professionals, we discovered the important work of the "Bee Walk". This is one of the most important annual data collection methods monitoring bees in the UK. Speaking to the walk organisers inspired us to address some of the issues which were common for the walkers.

How it works

One of the first things you notice is the red dot sight. This is a simple way to allow people to aim the product at a bee. This is aiming a camera system which records videos of bees when the trigger is pulled. This video, along with audio recorded on a mic, is fed into an image recognition chip. This then identifies the bees using a bank of information and references. The user is then notified by haptics to look at the screen, which is angled to not be visible when scanning for bees in order to stop it from taking people out of the natural environment. The screen then quizzes the users to keep them engaged as well as educating them. The user is encouraged to walk where they choose. Their movements are tracked by GPS, which is used along with time to attain weather data. This data is then all put together on device and sent off at the dock to the scientists for examination. After this point the system works the same as the current process.

Design process

We started off by identifying the issue with a mix of digital, written and verbal research methods. From there we reached out to different levels of stakeholders, from bee enthusiasts at a local beekeeping club to top level management staff at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. From there we used a range of techniques, from mind mapping to Affinity diagrams to refine the problem and discuss solutions. We tended to work in a group and bonce of each other as we found this created more interesting ideas. We then individually sketched versions of these ideas to bring them together and discus the different versions. After many different rounds of back and forth we developed a few major ideas and themes. The were then developed down to a couple of core concepts. We evaluated these ideas before deciding on the national trust based, hand held camera scanning method with inbuilt computer image recognition. From there we built models of different aesthetics to test ergonomics and test the different use methods. We also bult different models to test different interaction types, from camera requirements to sight testing on butterflies (Sadly we were in mid winter with no bees). This building and testing of models to balance all different elements carried on until a final design was confirm

How it is different

The current method is to teach people in hour long videos on how to identify a bee and then send them out with paper and pen to write down what they see. They then send their findings in to the scientist teams. There are around 800 volunteers who gather this invaluable data.

Future plans

Currently we are in the early stages of looking at how we can get sponsors on board and what they would like to see from us. This is new for us and is being balanced around us being new graduates so is going slowly but steadily. Bee scan completely changes the skill level to entry and allows anyone to help and learn.

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