We’ve made it through another week of quarantine! I don’t know about you but this week has been a little tough for me. We’re still waiting for warmer weather where I am, and the sameness seems to be wearing me down a bit. If variety is the spice of life, then my spice rack is a little wanting. I was joking with a friend that we should just rename the days of the week “Same Day”.
On the flip side, my team and I have enjoyed curating inspiring stories about how people and organizations are adapting in the lockdown life. It’s been a real respite for me and I hope these offer the same for you.
How are you enjoying these stories so far? Is there something you’d like to hear more about in future newsletter? Drop a comment on the blog (insert link)!
Have a great weekend,
Suzanne
***********- Who Needs a Water Cooler? A new startup called “Hallway” is an app designed to work alongside Slack to provide 10-minute casual conversations between colleagues that they might experience in an in-person break-room environment. The founders noted that their own experiences with boredom during quarantine and interest in informally catching up with their coworkers led them to create this app. The initial app took only four days to build, and is already used by 170 teams from various companies.
- To lift spirits, Berliners turn their balconies into art exhibits. In the installation, called Die Balkone: Life, art, pandemic, and proximity, artists in Berlin mounted works of art on their balconies and street-facing windows, taking advantage of a middle-ground space between private and public life.
- New Touchless Testing Equipment for COVID-19. Inspired by South Korean technologies, the New York architecture firm SITU has created touchless screening equipment to test for COVID-19. The concept was designed to be an outdoor tool accessible for places like New York, where drive-through screening is less feasible. While currently a prototype, these cleanable screening booths are designed to enable contactless coronavirus tests.
- How Lego Is Helping with PPE. The Lego company is using its machinery in order to produce plastic visors for Danish healthcare workers to use as PPE. Through their factory’s resources, which formerly created plastic bricks for children’s toys, they can create over 13,000 plastic visors every day.
- Mirror Mirror On the Wall. Engineers around the world are tweaking drones, robots and smart tools to help prevent the spread of the virus. One example is a smart mirror that can detect the presence of a person as soon as they wave at it, and then it walks them through the multi-step hand-washing process recommended by the WHO in a 35-second animated video.
- What To Do When you Can’t Be in a Lab? This article focuses on the innovative ways professors of science and art lab courses are altering their curricula to accommodate remote learning. From culinary courses like ice carving to geobiology labs in vertebrate morphology, professors have used various technologies such as simulations and Zoom in order to provide instruction in these hands-on courses.
A WORLD OF CREATIVITY: Some activities you can do at home from around the globe.
Guide to Virtual Performances. In lieu of concerts and live performances, here’s Billboard’s regularly updated list of links to various virtual performances from artists of all genres throughout the months of April and May. These performances include iHeartMedia Los Angeles’ “Virtual Prom”, Twitch’s “virtual music festival”, and multiple performances provided by the Grammy Museum. To find previously streamed performances, scroll down the list as many performances that have already passed are still available online.
Deep Dive. Check out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s virtual dives, which can be accessed via any computer, smartphone, or virtual reality headset. Viewers can explore dives of national marine sanctuaries including the Florida Keys, Monterey Bay, and Gray’s Reef.
Science from the Left Coast. Check out these science activities for kids from the California Science Center, which involve creative DIYs from household items and daily videos on science topics geared toward kids and written in both English and Spanish. Many of these videos are live-streamed, and activities from previous weeks are available as well.