Words

Learners in the Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) program are developing a device that can block tech from passive listening. Their prototype will be one of the projects on display at the RE/ACTION Showcase on April 14.

Virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa always have their microphones active, as they wouldn’t be able to respond otherwise. This raises obvious concerns for privacy-minded people, as it is not currently known how much, if any, of this passive listening is stored or otherwise recorded.

“If you’re at home and you’re trying to have private conversations, our goal is to maintain that integrity,” said EET learner Caleb Smith. “If you’re in public you could have people listening in, you’re expecting that, but when you’re at home it’s your own safe space. We want to keep it that way by having a device secure that.”

Called “the Cone of Silence,” the device — developed in part by Smith and fellow student Adam Cacciotti — can distort passive listening by emitting ultrasonic frequencies in a contained area. These sounds will be picked up by digital microphones and efforts are being made to ensure the frequency remains inaudible to people and pets. It will effectively create a space in the home where passive listening is not possible, giving people more control over their digital security.

“Our main goal would be just giving people an option,” said Smith. “You don’t want your information to just be out there, right? Some stuff is meant to stay personal, and this gives you the option to keep it that way.”

Smith and Cacciotti’s efforts are a continuation of a prior effort at the College’s MakerSpace, which began developing the project in partnership with a local entrepreneur. The eventual goal of the applied research that has gone into this project is a market-ready product. According to Smith, there are few — if any — competitors to this product, and devices that block passive listening are not widely available for consumer purchase.

Smith and Cacciotti will present their Cone of Silence prototype at the RE/ACTION Showcase on April 14. They are looking forward to sharing the results of their hard work with the College community and showcasing the increasing need for digital privacy. Click here for more information about the showcase and click here to register.

“No one really thinks about making things like this,” said Smith. “The idea of [digital security] may cross your mind on occasion, but this is an actual physical product. I hope that people will be interested in seeing how we did it and how it works.”

Learners in the Biotechnology – Advanced program are working to change how we view common waste items, like food scraps, by turning biological waste into sustainable energy. Their biogas production project will be one of the many on display at the RE/ACTION Showcase on April 14.

Students Patrick Gravel, Colleen Griffith and Luke Seldenthuis-Preville have been hard at work experimenting with anaerobic digestion, a process that breaks down organic material in an enclosed vessel to create methane and other natural gasses.

“We’re doing tests on wood chips, our substrate, and what we’re [doing] with that is characterizing them, testing them for certain chemicals and putting them in bottles of manure,” said Gravel. “We run [the bottles] through daily tests to see how much biogas these bottles can produce.

“Over the past month or two, we’ve been preparing samples, running tests on them and measuring gas production every day since the beginning of March.”

According to Gravel, this project was chosen in large part due to the inherent sustainability behind converting common waste products into energy – turning “someone’s trash into treasure,” as he called it. Millions of tons of food waste and biological refuse are sent to landfills each year, releasing massive quantities of methane and other gasses directly into the atmosphere. By studying biogas production and the ability to capture it for energy use, researchers like Gravel and his team are adding to a growing body of work that could eventually make a significant impact on the environment and change how we view food and other biological materials.

“The solid [waste] can always be turned into fertilizer, that’s an important recycling method for farmers,” said Gravel. “The gas … is energy that can be converted for a cooking stove, could replace a propane tank, there are many different end goals for the energy that’s being created here.”

The scientific processes being followed by the group are currently in use on an industrial scale and for consumer purchase. However, the group’s professor, Charles Nasmith, noted that projects like Gravel’s are “hugely necessary” when it comes to scalability, providing the group members with a foundation to tackle more demanding projects in possible future careers.

“It’s critical to get all the ducks in order at this bench-top, pilot-scale, stage of the project. Accurate data at this stage will effectively inform the next steps, as the project is scaled up,” said Nasmith.

Gravel and his team are looking forward to presenting their findings on April 14 at the RE/ACTION Showcase, joining the ranks of innovative learners that make Algonquin College thrive. Click here for more information about the showcase and click here to register.

“I want to expose my [research] at this event, I want to be proud and present what I’ve worked on for the past year. I would like to see all this work that I’ve put in with my group and display it for others to see,” said Gravel. “I [also] want to make connections with people who might be interested in the work I’m doing, as I can definitely see myself doing this post-graduation.”

The spiced, sweet treat we refer to as hot cross buns are studded with raisins, and commonly toasted and eaten with butter.

Traditionally eaten during the Easter holiday, this beloved sweet bun can be traced back to the medieval Hertfordshire countryside. By many accounts, a 14-century monk called Thomas Rocliffe is credited as making the very first hot cross bun. The buns were handed out to the local poor on Good Friday. The Easter treat was so well-loved among the community that word soon spread, and imitations of the bun became popular across the country. To this day, hot cross buns are widely eaten on Good Friday to mark the end of Lent.

Continue reading →