This website is both a syllabus site for the class, as well as a collection of notes assembled in Fall 2009 by six students who worked with us to define the problems well, and gather information on possible solutions. The material in Projects and project ideas, Links, Images, and Tasks is thanks to Christina Bergey, Kenneth Chiou, Anand Dacier, Morgen Fleisig, Paul Rothman, and Carolina Vallejo.

In order to realize the goals of this class, we plan to introduce students access to current tracking tools: radio collars, ruggedized cameras, microphones, and other current tracking technologies. We will also introduce common sensor and communication technologies used in physical interaction design practice. Students will use the latter to either modify or extend existing gear or to develop new devices.

This website is both a syllabus site for the class, as well as a collection of notes assembled in Fall 2009 by six students who worked with us to define the problems well, and gather information on possible solutions. The material in Projects and project ideas, Links, Images, Tasks is thanks to Kenneth Chiou, Christina, Anand, Morgen Fleisig,Paul Rothman, Carolina Vallejo.

In order to realize the goals of this class, we plan to introduce students access to current tracking tools: radio collars, ruggedized cameras, microphones, and other current tracking technologies. We will also introduce common sensor and communication technologies used in physical interaction design practice. Students will use the latter to either modify or extend existing gear or to develop new devices.

Howler Monkeys in Belize:

Sorry, for whatever reason I can edit this page, but not the images page I just created. Here's a video of a Howler Monkey I saw in Belize:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oohx5_zErOg

Wildlife Observation Tools (aka Interaction in the wild)

firstMeeting?

Wildlife Observation Tools (aka Interaction in the wild)

Wildlife tracking presents a number of technological challenges. What kinds of sensors and communications devices are available? How do you hide the equipment in nesting places, feeding places, and other regularly visited spots? Can you attach tracking radios to the animals themselves without causing them hardship? How do you ruggedize the equipment? How do you gather data from the equipment you've placed regularly and reliably?

These challenges are related to common interaction design problems with humans, so understanding and mastering them is valuable experience for interaction designers. For anthropologists, zoological, and veterinary researchers, understanding the technologies behind their tracking equipment, and the approach that technology designers take in developing and deploying these tools can benefit their research.

The goal of this class is to give students an introduction to the technological challenges of tracking and observation of wildlife. Specifically, students will be presented with the challenges faced by Professor Anthony Di Fiore's research group in tracking spider monkeys in Ecuador. Students will discuss the challenges associated with spider monkey research, survey the state of the art in animal tracking with a focus on appropriate tools for this research project, and work in groups to develop interactive prototypes to address one or more of these challenges.

Our hope is that this class will serve both to introduce students to the subject, and also develop some workable prototypes that could be developed further in future semesters, either through other research projects related to this particular work, or on their own.

In order to realize the goals of this class, we will need to give students access to current tracking tools: radio collars, ruggedized cameras, microphones, and other current tracking technologies. We will also introduce common sensor and communication technologies used in physical interaction design practice. Students will use the latter to either modify or extend existing gear or to develop new devices.

Course structure:

I put this together based on the rough structure of similar applications classes at ITP, just to give us a place to start. Feel free to comment, change, add, delete, etc:

• Introduce the research
• Intro to research methods and practices (for ITP students)
• Overview of sensing technologies
• Overview of other communication and sensing tools
• visit monkeys?
• Intensive project brainstorming (2 weeks)
• Intro to interaction design techniques (for non-ITP students)
• Programming/phys comp workshop (for non-ITP students)
• Initial prototype presentations (midterm)
• Project development (second half)
• Final prototype presentation (end)

1. we'd like to be able to "passively" collect data on monkey ranging patterns, travel paths, etc... there are commercial logging GPS collars, all of which I think are still fairly large... the limitations, I think, are weight and size... spider and woolly monkeys can probably carry up to about 300 grams comfortably... that would be less than 5% of body weight
2. we'd like to "passively" collect data on activity, vertical versus horizontal motion, and travel speed... I think we talked about accelerometers that might allow some of this
3. social radios... one of the things we're interested in is who hangs out with whom... this would be for various species of monkeys... how much time do animals spend "in proximity" or "in the same social party" I think we talked about how these might be useful for observers being able to "retrieve" data from the animals without having to dart and capture them a second time
4. remote health monitoring -- heart rate? body temp? respiration? body weight fluctuations?
5. we'd be very interested in being able to set up some kind of passive system that can register when an animal is in a particular area... right now, we use motion sensing cameras to track animal visits to salt licks, but they have to trigger the camera... would there be some way (e.g., using an implantable RFID tag and sensor) to pick up when an animal is in particular area without having them have to trigger some IR beam?
6. remote identification -- for some species, it is very hard to tell individuals apart... we'd love to be able to tag the animals in some way (e.g., RFID?) that we can then "read" to see who they are... the old fashioned way is to tattoo them or put on a collar, but that requires binoculars and a good view... would there be anything like a "bar code" or RFID reader that would work at a distance of 15-25 meters?
7. acoustic recording ON THE ANIMAL -- we're studying animal vocalizations, but obviously are unable to be right next to the animals when they call and are unable to record what they hear from close to their ears
8. video recording ON THE ANIMAL - how do they perceive the environment/substrates they face... what are they looking at/looking for when they forage or chose where to move in the canopy... CRITTER CAMS ;-)
9. nest hole monitoring... some species sleep in cavities in trees... it'd be nice to monitor when and how often they go in and out, how much time they spend in there, and esp. what they do inside... bird researchers use IR cams... it'd be interesting to adopt some of those for our purposes.

Here is the monkey tracking wiki

Topics include:

Exercises include:

• Client-server programming
• An HTTP/RESTian model exercise

• a discussion of security and its effects

Possible exercises include:

• addressing and routing: what a namespace is, three ways to generate a name (nesting, serial uniqueness, random pseudo- uniqueness), the difference between smart and dumb networks, why the phone network and the internet differ even though they use the same wires
• protocols: envelopes and contents, the stack and the reference lie, end-to-end principles, reliability vs. speed tradeoffs
• scale: more is different, scale breaks otherwise workable systems, makes redundancy and degeneracy critical, tends to push systems
• a discussion of security and its effects Possible exercises include:
• Basic socket communication, both software and embedded hardware versions
• Client-server programming
• A group protocol/messaging exercise
• An HTTP/RESTian model exercise

Interactive technologies seldom stand alone. They exist in networks, and they facilitate networked connections between people. Designing technologies for communications requires an understanding of networks. This course is a foundation in how networks work. Through weekly readings and class discussions and a series of short hands-on projects, students gain an understanding of network topologies, how the elements of a network are connected and addressed, what protocols hold them together, and what dynamics arise in networked environments. This class is intended to supplement the many network-centric classes at ITP. It is broad survey, both of contemporary thinking about networks, and of current technologies and methods used in creating them. Prerequisites: Students should have an understanding of basic programming (Intro to Computational Media or equivalent). Familiarity with physical computing (Intro to Physical Computing or equivalent) is helpful, but not essential. Some, though not all, production work in the class requires programming and possibly physical and electronic construction. There is a significant reading component to this class as well.

Possible topics include:

• topologies: how to think about them (nodes and links), how few workable ones there are, and how there's no topology so stupid it isn't in use some place.
• addressing and routing: what a namespace is, three ways to generate a name (nesting, serial uniqueness, random pseudo- uniqueness), the difference between smart and dumb networks, why the phone network and the internet differ even though they use the same wires * protocols: envelopes and contents, the stack and the reference lie, end-to-end principles, reliability vs. speed tradeoffs
• scale: more is different, scale breaks otherwise workable systems, makes redundancy and degeneracy critical, tends to push systems * a discussion of security and its effects Possible exercises include: * Basic socket communication, both software and embedded hardware versions * Client-server programming
• A group protocol/messaging exercise * An HTTP/RESTian model exercise