Archives for category: Projects

Molecules in Motion – update

April 12, 2012 //
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All of the projects that I mentioned a couple posts ago are proceeding along well (the end of the semester is always a rough time because so many things are due, but I’m excited to see how all of the final products will end up). But I thought I might write a little bit more about how Molecules in Motion is doing.

A couple of weeks ago, our class headed to the New York Hall of Science to do some prototype-testing on middle school students. We were nervous at first, because come on, let’s be honest…kids can be honest. In some cases, brutally honest (trust me, I have a sister who is in middle-school, so I know this firsthand!).

As it turned out, the students were really nice and extremely helpful. They were amazing at articulating what it was that they liked about the game, and where they thought that it could use a little work (they suggested adding music that speeds up as body activity increases, more challenging elements, and a fun narrative). And rather than being brutal, they seemed to be trying hard to be nice to us, which was sweet.

One of the great parts of the whole experience for our group was seeing how much fun the students had when they played the game and actually let themselves get into it. They tried it in groups of twos and threes, but later, we could see the whole bunch of them grouped up together, talking excitedly about what they had liked, and we definitely heard our activity get mentioned (score!).

We took lots of photos and video but in the interests of the students I’m not posting any of it online. Instead I’ll leave a couple pictures of the different splash screens that we were considering. We ended up going with the more colorful one, but at this point in the process that could always change.

 

Next steps: implement some of the changes that we were advised on (specifically adding supplemental materials, making the game more challenging, and beefing up on the science that’s conveyed). Also need to start implementing the Kinect code. We have to do it in these next couple of weeks because soon we’ll be back at NySci, testing our final products.

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Categories Designing for Playful Learning, ITP, Projects

Solar Panels, Trickle Charging, and Next Steps

April 1, 2012 //
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So in terms of our solar panel project, we’ve made some significant progress. Here are some of the outdoor conditions in which we tested our panel.

 

And here’s what we’ve learned:

1. There is some current going through solar panels that are placed in shaded conditions.

2. This may not be enough current to charge the battery (standard lead acid motorcycle battery) used in current camera traps.

 

3. But it may be enough to trickle charge batteries for other types of cameras. Or even cell phones, like an Android.

So now our next step is to figure out how much current and voltage an actual Android would draw when it’s being used.

 

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Categories ITP, Physical Computing, Projects, Wildlife Tracking

Projects Update

March 23, 2012 //
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There’s a lot of stuff going on over the next few weeks. There are a couple of different projects in the work, and since all of them are still in the prototype-y stage (and I don’t have very good pictures to show), I figured that I would just outline everything in one wonderful projects post. So here are the things I’m working on right now, and the respective classes that I am working on them for.

  • Solar Powered Camera Trap for Tools in Wildlife Observation. I’m collaborating with two other people to help design a camera trap that wildlife biologists in Ecuador can use to capture photos of monkeys. They already have some camera traps over there, but they face certain challenges. One of these challenges is a short battery life, which forces the biologists to break open the encasements regularly in order to replace the battery. Given the humidity of the rainforest and the inconvenience of that task, it would be incredibly helpful for them to have a power system that lasts a little longer. Our group’s idea is to use solar panels, even in the shade of the canopy level, to gain a trickle charge that can extend the battery life for at least another week. We are still researching and developing this.
  • Reflection Booth  for Recurring Concepts in Art.  I’m working with Zena Koo and we are designing an immersive environment in which participants will be invited to confront concepts around power, control, engagement, agency, and of course, reflection. I don’t want to give too much away at this point, but suffice to say that the project involves many mirrors. We’re currently beginning the fabrication part of this project.
  • Molecules in Motion  for Designing for Playful Learning. My group and I are creating a game for middle-school students that is designed to be both fun and informative….but actually, not just the way that all educational companies swear that they are. We’re making a game where students will be able control changes in state with their motion. Imagine a Kinect and some very large screens and you’re beginning to get the picture. Another interesting aspect of this project is that I’m working with all Steinhardt kids rather than other ITP people, which has helped give me a bit of perspective and exposed me to a different work-style and flow.

Another project I’ve got in the works is my portfolio, which I’m not yet linking to because though it’s online, it isn’t presentable quite yet. I’ve spent a lot of time on some of these projects and I’m excited to have an organized place to display all of them. As soon as that is up and running, I’ll link to it here.

IN CONCLUSION: good stuff coming up. Keep your eyes open.

 

Categories Designing for Playful Learning, Projects, Recurring Concepts in Art, Wildlife Tracking

Look At Me Now

December 18, 2011 //
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Go check out the page for Look At Me Now.

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Categories ICM, Physical Computing, Projects

Paper Art

December 16, 2011 //
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For my final project in Pop-up Books, I wanted to do something different. So I abandoned my love of the written narrative in favor of something a little more abstract, and a little…bigger.

 

Mehan is pictured holding my paper sculpture. You can see that when stretched, the sculpture is almost the same height as he is.

Here it is from another view:

This is what it looks like in its passive (and less-glamorous) state:

All I really did was take a simple pattern and repeat it several times. Then I took another smaller version of that same pattern and placed it inside of the larger one. I attached some string (though I would have preferred to use fishing wire) and the above photos show the result.

 

Personally, my favorite photo is the one below. It looks as the sculpture is lounging on the table, so relaxed that it’s spilling out over the edge. I half expect it to languidly stretch out a paper arm and lazily ask if I have a cigarette I can spare. (To which I will respond no because I don’t smoke, and also because that seems even more dangerous for paper than for humans.)

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Categories Pop-up Books, Projects

PComp Final: Progress

December 8, 2011 //
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Here is what has been done so far for my PComp project (recently re-titled “Look At Me Now”).

First, there was a green screen shoot.

The talent performed great physical feats:

(Worry not, the crutches in the shot are mine, not his!)

The footage was collected and edited*:

 

And now two sets of code have been written. One is in processing:

And the other is in Max**:

 

Now, I just need to connect parameters coming in from a Kinect to one of the two sets of code above so that the videos are triggered by motion. Then theoretically I should be able to hook up my computer to a projector and have (gasp) a working project!

T-4 days until it’s all due.

 

*Not a final edit.

**With lots of help from Ryan V. and Mark K.!

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Categories Physical Computing, Projects, Uncategorized

ICM assignment: Hidden Woman

November 9, 2011 //
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It’s been awhile since I’ve posted an ICM assignment. Here’s my latest one:

This is a text mosaic of an image by Nigerian-based artist David Osagie. I took the pixels of the original image, saved the color of each, and wrote over every 4 pixels with a phrase (which is impossible to read) that  says “O te aka o di njo, emesie o ga-adi mma.”  Int he Nigerian language Igbo, this essentially means “Things will get better in time.”

Version 2 (because it looks a little different in javascript form):

[Code]

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Categories ICM, Projects

Stupid Pet Trick (Part the Second)

October 13, 2011 //
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The construction part of our little handometer was definitely the more challenging part, but ultimately it proved pretty satisfying. There were two parts that we focused on. First, the stuffing (and FSR-attachment) of the glove (materials pictured below):

And secondly, the construction of the actual device, the boxy part of it that would give the strength readings and also give our hand a nice steady support. We focused first on the board that would give the reading. We found some nice slabs of scrap wood that could function as the base and sides of the structure and then found another piece to be the top. On that last piece, we used the laser cutter to write in the three different levels: “Ouch”, “Firm!” and “Wimp”.

Those three ping-pong looking balls functioned as our diffusers. They  were hot-glued to the wood and covered  the holes we drilled for our LEDs. With the balls on top of them, the light from the LEDs would be more nicely diffused, and would give us the light-up effect that we were going for.

We stuck our little Arduino and breadboard into the box that we had created, making sure that all of the wires fit through (it took a bit of soldering to make sure that all of the wires were well-connected, just FYI)….

…and were pretty happy when we discovered that the wiring still worked:

(It’s impossible to show all of the troubleshooting that went on, but we ended up needing super-bright LEDs that would fill up the entire plastic ball, so we said sayonara to the ones that I showed in the first post).

Confident that the circuitry would still function correctly within our woodwork, we got another slab of wood and laser-cut the phrase “Nice to Meet You” onto it. This was the board that the hand would be stuck to…

like so.

So by the end of that day, we had the basic outline of our final product, minus all the bells and whistles:

 

Niiiice. So the next day was all about filling in the details. Like the color on the words….

 

And the filling in of the hand (we named him Ferdinhand, silent “h” of course), so that it (he?) would feel realistic…

Buying a larger FSR, drilling a hole for it through the board, and then connecting the FSR…

and finally, drilling all of the boards together.

 

And all of that work came together into one final product:

Nice to meet you, indeed.

Check out our final video to see little Ferdinhand working successfully from start to finish (or actually, finish to start). Credit to Alessandra for making it.

And for the curious, here’s a shot of the code. Click to enlarge.

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Categories Physical Computing, Projects

Getting A Grip (Stupid Pet Trick part 1)

October 8, 2011 //
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You’ll have to excuse the pun in the entry title, but I really couldn’t help it, it was just too easy. You’ll see why in a minute.

The Stupid Pet Trick is a physical computing assignment that every student has to complete. It is essentially a simple device that responds to a physical action and shows that we understand the basics of digital and analog inputs and outputs. I teamed up with Alessandra to create a handshake meter–a device that measures and tells you how strong your handshake is. As someone who has had to shake a lot of hands, I can tell you that this device should be well-appreciated…in the past, it has taken my hand a good five minutes to recover from the pain of a bone-crushing shaker or the creepiness that a limp fish handshake brings. Ugh…I get shivers just thinking about it.

Our project would require a force sensor inside of the glove that could read in different input values as force and output that into three respective LEDs (so that if a someone gave a weak squeeze/shake, one LED would light up, and firm squeeze would light up the second one, and a crazy super hard shake would cause the third to light up). So step one was figuring out the circuitry of the project:

As you can tell, we began by wiring simply, with just one LED. We really wanted to make sure that we could get our FSR to only light that first LED from the input values that we wanted. Once that worked, we stuck in more LEDs and mapped out more values.

 

These spindly little guys were the lights that we were initially planning on using (along with the FSR that we initially wanted). As the project expanded, you probably won’t be too surprised to learn that we ended up having to change those plans.

But our surprise of the first day of working was how coding and wiring turned out to be relatively simple. Stay tuned for the next post, which documents the part of the project that was really more difficult to get a grip on:  the actual construction and presentation of our handy little device.

 

 

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Categories Physical Computing, Projects