Happy Earth Month!
Join us as we celebrate Earth Month with our first global Pocket Scion experiment. On April 15th, Pocket Scion owners worldwide will run the same 15-minute plant biology experiment and submit their data for collective analysis. Sign up below and we'll send you more information in early April!
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We'll reach out soon with more info.
What is the Pocket Scion?
The Pocket Scion is a small device that translates electrical changes in plants and mushrooms into music.
Why is this important?
We built the Pocket Scion as a citizen science and art tool. It's as affordable and transparent as possible to allow everyone to explore the fascinating world of 'plant and mushroom music'. Our goal has always been to catalyze large-scale art and science projects. We're celebrating Earth Month with our first group project.
What's the project?
Using a Pocket Scion and some simple household items, we'll be testing whether the Pocket Scion can detect changes in plant biology. An easy-to-use computer program will be distributed to all participants that will guide them through a 15 minute experiment involving simple interventions (touching the plant, bending a leaf) which have been shown to create electrical changes in plants in the scientific literature.
Researchers at the University of Kentucky demonstrated in 2022 that impedance-based surface measurements (like those we use in the Pocket Scion) can reliably detect responses across multiple species without specialised lab equipment, and can do so in ordinary field conditions.*
On April 15, Pocket Scion owners worldwide will run a similar protocol on a pothos plant (Epipremnum aureum) during a 24-hour window. The result will be the largest distributed impedance dataset ever collected on a single plant species in a single day.
Our goal in this first group experiment is to gather enough data to answer several questions about plant responses — but also to show our greater community that these group projects are possible. And to see how well our little machine does at capturing this information!
What you'll need for the experiment
- A pothos plant (any varietal)
- A Pocket Scion running the latest firmware. For instructions on how to update your firmware click here.
- A laptop that can run on battery
- The latest version of the Pocket Scion controller installed on your laptop
- A pair of gloves (nitrile is best, but dishwashing gloves are fine)
- A pair of scissors
- A sense of adventure!
- 15 minutes of your time
If you still don't have a Pocket Scion, we ship worldwide.
What you'll get
- Your name in the acknowledgements of any resulting publication
- A credited contribution to a real, original scientific dataset (citable via Zenodo DOI)
- Your own resistance trace visualised and returned to you after submission
- Early access to the aggregated results before public release on Earth Day
- Membership in a global cohort of people who ran the same experiment on the same day
- The experience of doing actual research with a plant in your home!
Sign Up Now
We'll reach out soon with more info.
*Cooper, R.L., Thomas, M.A. & McLetchie, D.N. Impedance Measures for Detecting Electrical Responses during Acute Injury and Exposure of Compounds to Roots of Plants. Methods Protoc. 5, 56 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/mps5040056