AI
Sensor Scavenger Hunt
Find twenty sensors hiding in your home, write down what each one senses and what it decides, then hunt for the one that keeps getting it wrong and design a fix.
Easy · 45 minutes
Introduction
Your home is full of things that are quietly paying attention. Most of them are so ordinary that nobody thinks of them as technology at all.
In forty-five minutes you can find twenty of them. Then comes the better half: finding the one that regularly gets it wrong, because a failure is where you can actually see how the decision was built.
The Why
Every automatic thing in your home runs the same three-step loop: it senses something, it decides something, and it does something. Input, decision, output. Once you can name those three parts, the difference between a machine following a fixed rule and a machine recognizing a learned pattern stops being mysterious. The failures matter most of all, because a sensor that never fails tells you nothing about how it works, while one that switches the lights off on somebody sitting still tells you exactly what it was really measuring.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- 1
Start with the obvious ones to build momentum: a smoke alarm, a thermostat, a phone screen that dims, a fridge, a washing machine that stops when the lid opens.
- 2
For each one, write three things down: what it senses, what it decides, and what it does. If you cannot fill in all three, you have not worked that one out yet.
- 3
Now hunt the hidden ones. Anything that turns itself on, turns itself off, stops by itself, or changes without being touched is running the loop.
- 4
Get to twenty. When you run out indoors, try the car, the street, and the shops: automatic doors, streetlights that come on at dusk, taps in public bathrooms.
- 5
Sort your twenty into two piles: the ones following a fixed rule, like a thermostat comparing one number against another, and the ones that seem to recognize a pattern, like a phone finding a face.
- 6
Find a failure. A bathroom light that goes out while somebody is still in there, an automatic door that ignores a small child, a phone that unlocks for a sibling. Write down what that sensor was really measuring, which is almost never what you assumed it was.
- 7
Invent one sensor your home should have and does not. Draw it, and fill in all three parts of the loop. Then write one sentence on how it could go wrong, because every single one of the twenty you found can.
Sensor Log
One row per sensor, twenty rows in total. If you cannot fill in all three middle columns, you have not worked that sensor out yet.
| # | What it is | What it senses | What it decides | What it does | Rule or pattern? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Row 1, # | Row 1, What it is | Row 1, What it senses | Row 1, What it decides | Row 1, What it does | Row 1, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 2, # | Row 2, What it is | Row 2, What it senses | Row 2, What it decides | Row 2, What it does | Row 2, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 3, # | Row 3, What it is | Row 3, What it senses | Row 3, What it decides | Row 3, What it does | Row 3, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 4, # | Row 4, What it is | Row 4, What it senses | Row 4, What it decides | Row 4, What it does | Row 4, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 5, # | Row 5, What it is | Row 5, What it senses | Row 5, What it decides | Row 5, What it does | Row 5, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 6, # | Row 6, What it is | Row 6, What it senses | Row 6, What it decides | Row 6, What it does | Row 6, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 7, # | Row 7, What it is | Row 7, What it senses | Row 7, What it decides | Row 7, What it does | Row 7, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 8, # | Row 8, What it is | Row 8, What it senses | Row 8, What it decides | Row 8, What it does | Row 8, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 9, # | Row 9, What it is | Row 9, What it senses | Row 9, What it decides | Row 9, What it does | Row 9, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 10, # | Row 10, What it is | Row 10, What it senses | Row 10, What it decides | Row 10, What it does | Row 10, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 11, # | Row 11, What it is | Row 11, What it senses | Row 11, What it decides | Row 11, What it does | Row 11, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 12, # | Row 12, What it is | Row 12, What it senses | Row 12, What it decides | Row 12, What it does | Row 12, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 13, # | Row 13, What it is | Row 13, What it senses | Row 13, What it decides | Row 13, What it does | Row 13, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 14, # | Row 14, What it is | Row 14, What it senses | Row 14, What it decides | Row 14, What it does | Row 14, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 15, # | Row 15, What it is | Row 15, What it senses | Row 15, What it decides | Row 15, What it does | Row 15, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 16, # | Row 16, What it is | Row 16, What it senses | Row 16, What it decides | Row 16, What it does | Row 16, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 17, # | Row 17, What it is | Row 17, What it senses | Row 17, What it decides | Row 17, What it does | Row 17, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 18, # | Row 18, What it is | Row 18, What it senses | Row 18, What it decides | Row 18, What it does | Row 18, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 19, # | Row 19, What it is | Row 19, What it senses | Row 19, What it decides | Row 19, What it does | Row 19, Rule or pattern? |
| Row 20, # | Row 20, What it is | Row 20, What it senses | Row 20, What it decides | Row 20, What it does | Row 20, Rule or pattern? |
Circle any row where you have actually watched it get things wrong. Those are the rows you come back to for the last two steps.