Archives for category: ITP

Are Cell Phones Replacing Reality?

February 5, 2013 //
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For my class “Always On, Always Connected,” we were asked to respond to the PBS video, “Are Cell Phones Replacing Reality?”

I mentioned briefly in class last week that I happen to work with some teenagers, and that my observance of their near-incessant cell phone use was one (of many) factors that contributed to my desire to take the class. Well, after watching the PBS video “Are Cell Phones Replacing Reality?”, I decided to return to my initial inspiration. So I asked the young people I work with to elaborate on their opinions of the role that cell phones play in their lives.

Never think that you know how people will respond to something.   It turns out that in the three months that have passed since the last time we talked about the topic, they had all independently developed violently distasteful feelings towards their cell phones. All of them felt that cell phones were a necessary inconvenience, and thus they were more annoyed with their phones than anything else. In fact, one of them had, as of two weeks ago, “accidentally” broken his phone so as to be free from it.

Interestingly enough, the thing that they seemed to dislike the most about cell phones wasn’t their ubiquity, or the five million trillion functions that they serve, or the state of constant half-presence that they seem to encourage. What they rebelled against was the very idea of being plugged in all the time. They were against the tedium of constantly being expected to answer phone calls and text messages.  

The story ends happily–most of them were able to overcome their consternation once I introduced them to the wonders of Airplane Mode. But I found it very telling that for them, the worst part of having a cell phone was the very feature that is inherent to all cell phones.

Categories Always Connected, ITP

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

Media Controller (i.e. Lessons in failure)

November 19, 2011 //
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  1. Bruna, Annelie, and I wanted to create something fun and engaging. We eventually settled on a hula hoop, with an accelerometer attached to it, that would hook up to a Processing sketch. The whole theme was the circus: once you started hula hooping, circus music would start to play and the Processing sketch would show a magical image of sparks that followed the movement of the hoop. Supposedly.
  2. Halfway through the circuitry and programming, Bruna, Annelie, and I realized that for our project to function properly, it needed to be wireless. We figured that out with help from Lisa, ITP’s resident hula hoop champion:

 

And the problems that we faced:

First, trying to set up the wireless communication using Zigbees turned out to be WAY more complicated than we initially expected. Though we managed to get the Xbees talking to each other, we could not get them to send the right data to each other from the accelerometer to the Arduino.

Secondly, Our accelerometer that we ordered didn’t arrive until the week that our project was due. Had we shipped it faster, we could have had a full two weeks to do substantive work on our project. We also didn’t think to just borrow an accelerometer from someone for those two weeks, which in retrospect seems mind-numbingly obvious. Sigh.

We changed our idea too many times. We spent a TON of time brainstorming ideas and even after we settled on one, we ended up changing our minds a couple more times. This was a mistake. It’s great to brainstorm, but if we had known from the beginning that we’d be using the hula hoop, we could have ordered a different sensor altogether (maybe used the much simpler FSRs instead!).

And finally, in all caps because this was the single most limiting factor, TIME. We didn’t give ourselves enough of it. Between the idea changing and the late shipping, we really crippled ourselves and underestimated how long everything would take. Worked against us.

However, I still enjoyed working with Bruna and Annelie and I learned a lot in the process, too.

I wish I had documented a bit more during the actual process (add that to the list of things I should have done), but there are some photos of the accelerometer, hula hoop, and XBee wiring below.



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Categories ITP, Physical Computing

First Year Redemption

October 8, 2011 //
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Here at ITP, we have a little thing called TNOs (Thursday Nights Out). Every week someone hosts it, and every week it is awesome. Except for this past week, when it was even more awesome than usual, because it was hosted by Roopa, Ali, and I. Want proof? Check out the video we made. You will either laugh appreciatively or have no idea what is going on. Either way, just go with it.

 

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Categories Fun Stuff, ITP