c o l l a b s

November 04, 2005

This may have been the answer

Heather from Mluck's Assistive Tech class showed me this pump today. The aquarium pump. It's so quiet and pumps air quite well. They were trying to fill up a tube-like wearable piece and it seemed to do its job quite nicely. We should look into these to finish up the plushy. Any thoughts on this by the way?

Posted by min at 12:41 AM | Comments (0)

October 28, 2005

Final feedback from Mluck Schneider's pcomp class

Overall, we got some really good, important feedback from the class regarding our "plushy."

Someone questioned as to why the inflating portion was placed on the outter part of the plushy if the idea is to feel it inflating and deflating as the user is breathing into it. Well, considering the heat problem that we had, I suppose it was a better idea that we placed the fan the way we did.

Michael suggested that we shouldn't have used those computer fans, but instead the blowers from RADIOSHACK! Why didn't we think of this!!!

I agree with Mike completely and want to really make this a final final cushion where I could even hold it to sleep. I think we should consider using better fan and a better way to get the air flowing inside the cushion and also take Tom's suggestion of placing the breadboard with the circuit outside the doll.

The class took turns carrying the doll and they really liked it. They couldn't believe that all that hardware and circuits could it inside and told us that they liked the feeling of cuddling it.

During presentation

The plushy gets opened up for show.

Posted by min at 04:30 AM | Comments (0)

October 27, 2005

Tom Igoe's Suggestions

Went to Tom's office hours today so he could take a look at our circuit.

Here's what he had to say.
Wiring looks solid for what it is.

He recommended a few changes for moving beyond the prototype mode. One is to actually have a circuit board printed. Printed circuits are way more stable than breadboards for the more obvious reasons (wires can't move around), however, they also provide built in heat sinking systems just by the way they are manufactured. He noticed how our ground connection for the AC adaptor kept popping out, and this would be a contributor to extra heat.

Secondly he recommended another board (which the name escapes me right now), that is better at driving motors than ours. It has a PIC combined with a heat sink, an H bridge, and some other stuff, all in one chip. This would take care of our fan's needs and isolate our current pic to dealing with the logic only.

As far as our current prototype, this is what he recommended:

He said that the Fan that we have is drawing a lot of amperage, so it alone would heat up the system pretty intensely. He suggested a larger attachment to our heat sink, and drilling holes into our case to allow for air flow (heat sinks need air flow to work), or even better take the whole circuit outside of the dolly for now, while we are running it so it can ventilate (I guess the board needs to breath too!? – heh heh heh). Also this would allow for more stability in the board as well (keeping it on the outside), as this would keep the wires from shifting around and accidentally popping out.

Posted by at 02:13 PM | Comments (1)

Pcomp Feedback from Wednesday Presentation

Overall the response was pretty positive for our breathing creature. I felt that Mike and I were successful in getting across/presenting our key issues and points, the troubles we encountered/lessons learned and the whole process in a clear and concise manner. Tom Igoe was rather encouraging, which was a nice validation after all of our hard work and difficulties encountered.

He brought up a few good points that I had never actually considered.
One he commented on the fact that the system was actually rather responsive, and that rather than the breathing motion, which we were struggling with most of the duration of the project (due to its subtleness), he noted that the vibrations from the fan, created a sensation of change that helped to aid in the feedback loop. Also, I'm really happy with our final decision to add the blinking LED eye, as another cue.

Secondly he confirmed our suspicions about the fan and the amperage needs/ kickback into the circuitry was adding to the strange behavior and overheating we were encountering. He did however differ with Carley's opinion that jumping 12 volts and 5 volts off of the same circuit was a risky proposition, and in her solution of using an H bridge (he seems to have other solutions in mind). I'm going to ask him for help in how we can do this properly.

Many classmates questioned our choice in our fabrics. They brought up issues of ventilation and airflow as major contributors to the overheating problem. These were good points. I explained that with our current project, being that its current iteration was a lap cushion that one would cradle/hold, the importance of feel was a priority to the interaction and experience, so we were willing to take that risk, knowing the problems this would create. Now having seen the difficulties involved with these material, in another iteration, I think the fabric consideration and airflow should be given more thought and priority.

Mike and I both expressed interest in finishing off the creature so that we can actually get some more user feedback. For me the most rewarding moment was to see someone else outside of our group hold the dolly and breath into it.

In the end, we did not actually create a wearable. Which was a good point that was brought up by another classmate, since I had forgotten to mention that and glossed over that key point. This gave me an opportunity to bring up Tom's question that he posed to me earlier last week, regarding the issue of necessary features to the experience -- was it essential to our project that it be portable or was it essential that it be enveloping? In the end, I think we decided that neither was essential. I think we were able to reduce things down to a simple idea of connection -- strengthening ones relationship between one's breaths. Which in the end, I think we decided as a group that this could be possible through an embodiment of it in a creature/pet/child -like entity.

Kind of poetic and apropos when I think how much we as adults can forget how important it is to have something/someone to care for and hold. I couldn't help but think of this even more when I went with Mike Tuesday night so he could pick up his new kitten. And in the same vein, I think its equally interesting, how much as adults we forget to care for ourselves and our bodies the most. Perhaps if we think about our breath like a pet, maybe we can begin to care for it a little bit more.

I learned a lot in this project, and in the end I am actually thankful for the problems and frustrations we encountered. I do believe that the most important thing for other people is the finished product, but for ourselves, as students, it is the process. So I think the challenge is trying to find a good balance between the two —this is what I am constantly looking for in projects. One that fulfills to some good degree both of these criteria – enough headache and strife to allow for us to grow, but not so many problems that we cannot overcome them and be able to communicate effectively to others our ideas. I think we hit on both those points rather well as a team with this one.

Thanks to everyone for really pulling together through some difficult moments to work this one out. It’s been a great learning experience and pretty fun working with you all. Time for a night out at the bars.

Posted by at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)

Tom Igoe

Tom, good naturedly, tried our huggable, breathable guy out. He said that he could feel the breath changing. We had to yank out the plushie before it's circuitry got too hot. He thinks we really have something, it was very encouraging. Personally, he got me excited all over again about the project. What I really want to see is someone use this thing, which means it would have to be more durable and less overheating.

Right now I just need a break but I am interested in making the thing work or going in a new direction with it. Maybe after a good long pcomp break, in ITP terms that is maybe 3 days :)

It was great working with you guys, really rewarding.

Posted by at 12:46 AM | Comments (1)

Early Plan Drawn on Bag

Posted by at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

Final touches

After experimenting with the solenoid, pumps... We tried out different fans. Todd thank you! :) All the fans take 12Vs and need some sorta of space to draw the air.
We got a good reaction with the fan and the plastic covered on top of it but once we brought the fabric on top of it, it was really hard to see the inflation. So, we decided to use the big fan. The problem we faced was with the kickback of this bigger fan.

Experimenting with the material.

We used this plastic sealer from Alyssa to make air bags. Thank you Alyssa!

Circuit

The preamp circuit made by Todd M

Detail of the mic.

Dolly going through some serious surgery.

Final breadboard to go inside the cushion.

Final cushion and Todd's real proud.

Posted by min at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)

October 25, 2005

Bigger Fans

Does anyone know the CFM specs of the fans we have? We should check, and if that bigger fan (if it fits in the plushie) has a higher CFM specs, lets put it in. Below is a link to some high-power fans. Cheap ones are big and kinda loud. Smaller ones are more expensive, but also use a heat sink of copper wire that we could run around the interior of the plushie to make it warm and nice to hold...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?submit=PROPERTY&SubCategory=62&manufactory=0&propertycodevalue=580:8611&bop=and

From Min.
Todd, we got the fans on canal. they did have bigger ones. I have the one from Tom Igoe. Do you want to try that out tomorrow? I'll be on the floor early tomorrow and we're doing the user testing on Jennifer at 2pm. Let me know.

Posted by at 01:03 AM | Comments (0)

Pockets, Pouches, Problems, Mic Placement solved, Project boxes finished

Spent a good 6 hours in the shop putting all of our circuitry in packages and working on the plushie. Alice is a sewing fool. 99 cent stores are the bomb for project boxes We solved the mic placement issue with a nice little cloth flower (much respect, Alice).

We got it all together and running but the weight and/or tension on top of the page proved to be too much for the little computer fan we're using the way I see it, we have two options --- find a more powerful fan, which I think is defintely possible, or making instead of a pocket, more of a three dimensional pouch that is slack when the membrane is uninflated. Below I've tried to illustrate the problem

Posted by at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2005

Progress update

After much struggle with the solenoid (makes too much noise), enema balloon (too thick of a material) and the servo (not strong enough to get the air flowing), we've come to a decision to use computer fans to get our cushion "breathing."

Our cushion is coming into shape, we've got our breath feedback (after Todd M's relentless attempts at trying out over 5 different mics) with the fan!

First testing the mic and the fan, using transistors. The transistor has the Base (going into the pic), collector (the ground for the fan) and the emitter(sharing common ground with the pic). It took us a few tries before we got the fan going. Thank you Jeff Gray! :)

The enema balloon did not work out.

Hard at work.

Final circuit, running 12volts on the left of the board and 5volts on the right of the board. We ended up using Todd's mic that had the built-in preamp on the board.

Details of the circuit.

Ready to go inside the cushion.

Posted by min at 01:45 AM | Comments (0)

Bees and Lotus

Posted by at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)

mic placement/differentiation

I think a nice little flower made of cloth on top the little guy's head woud be perfect for mic placmennt, noise cancellation, and attractiveness for someone to place her nose close to the mic. I've attached a pic of two bees in a lotus flower. The lotus has a lot of symbolic value for serenity, divinity, and coninuity too. We could even use a little plastic bee to hold the mic. The petals would act as acoustic buffers from ambient noise, and if they were vaguely parabolic, could concentrate breath into the mic. I am willing to build these things, but I'd like to talk to you about aesthetics, Alice so we're on the same page. I'm VERY happy we got the system up and working today. You guys are great!

Alice, if you have 10 minutes or so tomorrow to help me with some sketches, I'd love it. I could bring lunch if you like. Plus, I hear you're working on an audio project, maybe I can offer some advaice...

Posted by at 01:16 AM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2005

Latest Breathing Code

Below is the latest breathing code. We start out with even breathing, 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out and then alter the pattern relative to the microphone inputs coming in. There is a lot of code commented out. At first I was going for a more complex pattern recognition but it wasn't clear if there was any correlation between the data I was sampling and the breathing mechanism. The variables of too much data and time delay cause the input/output pipe to get muddy. For that reason, for now, i've simplified the code.

If we look at this as an installation, then by the fact that is is alternating inflation/deflation ratios it is making people aware of their own breath. It doesn't necessarily matter if it isn't matching them breath for breath, it's almost as if it is getting the gestalt of their breath and feeding it back to them. Doing more accurate readings and reactions is much more difficult and potentially not necessary for this iteration.

When we do get our final microphone, we should reconsider the code one more time.

adcVar1 VAR WORD
previousValue var word

maxVal var byte
previousValues VAR WORD[10]
counter var byte
X VAR BYTE
nextInhalePause var word
nextExhalePause VAR WORD

booInhale var bit
booExhale var bit

counter = 0
nextInhalePause = 5000
nextExhalePause = 5000

previousValue = 0

loop:

ADCIN 1, adcVar1

if previousValue < adcVar1 then
nextInhalePause = nextInhalePause + 1000
nextExhalePause = nextExhalePause - 1000
else
nextInhalePause = nextInhalePause - 1000
nextExhalePause = nextExhalePause + 1000
endif

if nextInhalePause < 1000 then
nextInhalePause = 1000
endif

if nextExhalePause < 1000 then
nextExhalePause = 1000
endif

if nextInhalePause > 6000 then
nextInhalePause = 5000
endif

if nextExhalePause > 6000 then
nextExhalePause = 5000
endif

serout2 portc.6, 16468, ["Inhale ", DEC nextInhalePause, 10]
serout2 portc.6, 16468, ["Exhale ", DEC nextExhalePause, 10]
serout2 portc.6, 16468, ["Raw Value ", DEC adcVar1, 10]

'if adcVar1 > 10 THEN
high portd.0
pause nextInhalePause
low portd.0
pause nextExhalePause

'if counter = 10 then

'// here we decide how to alter the breath
booInhale = 0
booExhale = 0
' fOR X = 1 TO 10
' '// if the number are going down we are not exhaling
' if previousValues[x] < previousValues[x-1] then
' booExhale = 0
' endif
'
' if previousValues[x] > previousValues[x-1] then
' booInhale = 0
' endif
'
' if booInhale = 1 then
' nextInhalePause = nextInhalePause + 100
' endif
'
' if booExhale = 1 then
' nextExhalePause = nextExhalePause + 100
' endif




' NEXT

' counter = 0

'else
counter = counter + 1
'endif



'previousValues[Counter] = adcVar1
previousValue = adcVar1

'

goto loop
end

Posted by at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2005

Interviews and feedback

This morning was all about interviews:

First with Tom Igoe regarding general advice on our project and getting over our current ‘wall’.

I told him about the 4 ideas we wanted to address: Sensory experience, Communication through a non-verbal manner, self-reflection/awareness, modularity/simplicity. He gave some very useful feedback questions to think about:

1. Modularity/Simplicity is not something that is necessarily a core element of our idea. He said that whatever idea we have, modularity and simplicity can be built into the execution of this idea, once we have an idea; in itself it is not an idea.

2. The idea of relaxation and the idea of open-endedness are not mutually exclusive experiences. If an installation/art experience is something we are seeking to provide, we still need to have clarity in expressing what experience we want to lead the user in. He provided a specific question for us to address – what do I as a participant do? When he thinks of installations (in the case of interactivity) the worst ones that come to his mind are those where the participant walks into a space and is totally confused about what their role is/ how they will interact with the piece. In many gallery installations (not all) the experience is a passive one – the observation of a process. Specifically the requirements of this project is for the user to not be a passive observer.

3. The issue of enveloping versus portability. He asked us to clarify which issue is more important to us, to help us decide out best output.

4. If we move forward with this project as is (knowing all of the problems that it has), this can be a useful and valuable way to go. He talked about the ‘spectacular failure’ concept that Dan O’Sullivan likes to use. And he spoke of this without any negative judgment. He said that we may chose to proceed with all of the known problems of this project, with the intent on seeing what problems we can get around with our solutions. And if we chose to do so, to present to the class disclosing these issues. We must then ask ourselves, what problems will we attempt to solve and what things are we not going to solve? What is the most important things for us? Is it the breathing motion? If this is so then we must do whatever it takes to get this motion – even if it means having a huge motor that is really loud and plugged into the wall. Letting the others know that there is technology ‘out there’ like the scroll compressor that could possibly solve this issue. He reminded me that this is ‘functional prototype’ so even though the form is somewhat important (enough to support and not undermine our ideas), the form is not the focus.

5. He suggested I talk to other students who have worked with similar projects, such as Teresa and Gloria Sed – they used really light-weight materials with small fans. I borrowed a small 12 volt fan from Tom, and then I also interviewed Gloria.

Gloria Sed:
http://www.itp.nyu.edu/~ges3/phys_comp/pcomp_journal.html#final

Gloria basically used a hair dryer with very light weight plastic sheeting for her project. The kind of plastic that one can buy at a hardware store as protective covering in painting projects. She told me that Ralph Borland had recommended the material to her. She also mentioned projects by Borland and Teresa Almeda as references for inflatable projects. In both cases they used small fans, and Gloria mentioned that fans would probably be easier for us. We did a search for Almeda’s project and since the ITP pages have been down since this summer’s hacking incidence, we came across a picture of it at We Make Money Not Art, in their inflatables archive.

Chris Gates, a Pneumatics Engineer:

I was fortunate enough to have a long interview with a pneumatics engineer today (by chance) when I called his company for inquiries regarding a specific product (twist compressors, which cost about $20-25 per unit).

He asked me some very pointed questions regarding our choice for a pneumatic system and both his questions and his wealth of knowledge/experience with pneumatics left me with many thoughts and pages and pages of notes.

Let me try to pull out the key points that I have in my notes here:

1. He spoke about the difference between air volume versus air pressure. Essentially for our ideal application we are looking to change the air volume without changing the air pressure. To do this, we really would need a material for our bladder to offer very, very little resistance. The less resistance our material gives, the best. Something like the material we have been using is not good, because the nature of the material (hard plastic) offers so much resistance that it would take a lot of pressure to change the volume. This was the same problem we were having with the balloon (the latex being too thick). He talked a little about how hospital beds work (using low pressure systems)-- even at 1 psi, the bed would be rock hard (which is not good for people because of bed sores). For us he estimated that we wouldn't even want 0.5 psi of air pressure.

2. He questioned our selection of a pneumatic system. He thinks that (unless our application absolutely necessitates a pneumatic system), a mechanical one is much easier to control, more direct, and reliable. Motors with a cam is what he thought of.

3. With pneumatics he cautioned that moving air is ‘a noisy proposition. Smaller means faster and quieter. Larger means more noise and more power, therefore bigger size. A way around this is to create a bladder that is already pre-filled with ballist of some sort that actually fills up 75% of the volume of the bladder so we in effect only need to fill up 25% of the volume with air.

4. He also mentioned a technology that is in existence that does the type of thing we are trying to replicate (syncing inflate and deflation cycles to biofeedback systems) SDC (Sequential Compression Devices) used for circulation boots that are synced up to heartbeats. AirCast is a company in New Jersey that develops such applications.
Along the similar lines he mentioned inflatable CPR dolls. In SDC systems, he said that the timing is controlled by the valves and not the compressor.

Posted by at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

Final CODES for BREATH DEMO

Processing

PIC

Posted by min at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2005

Prototyping our Ideas

We talked to Jae In, 2nd year at ITP, who had made the breathing dog in the Toy Design class last year. She used a solenoid to pump in air into the soft toy and lent us hers to use for our project. It has two components to it. It has a pump that gives out air and another separate part that releases the air.
We tested it but found out that it makes quite a big of noise. We decided to prototype using a servo instead for now.

We do need to find the appropriate kind of air bladder, with the correct texture, and also letting the air travel in and out quickly.

So far, we have the "cushion" in shape and the mic is working with proecessing just to give an idea for our class.

The solenoid

We had a meeting with Despina, instructor for Personal Expression and Wearable Technologies class at ITP and the founder of Studio 5050. She gave us some great feedback and suggestions.

• Breathing, something very intimate and therefore, translates well into wearables.

• The shape of wearables is essential, so must have a very good concept.

• A pattern that is human like is very relaxing and soothing.

• She liked the idea of this breathing feedback loop for oneself.

• Questioned us as to how we see this being used. Do we want this to be playful? Therefore attracting attention? (This then would move away from our idea of intimacy) Or do we want to conceal? We'd have to think of its social usage.Because what one puts on is an evaluation of that wearer.

• Is this going to be a bag or a doll?

• When using foam, we shouldn't worry about heat. Wrap all components with electrical tape and use velcro, stitch glue, fabric glue when nessesary to help the flow of air.

• Material should be out of ultrasuede, something that is spot clean so that it is easier to keep clean. Garment district 35th-39th and 7/8th Avs.

Overall, great feedback from an expert. She really liked our idea and wanted to keep in touch to see our final product.

Posted by min at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)

Mic/PreAmp Assembly, Bladder Thought

Todd Here...

The little mic/preamp I ordered arrived. I've tested it at home with the multi-meter and it's working great. I also bought a kit for on to give to Todd H in appreciation for all his help.

Thinking of bladders I think we should use one thata is full in its "natural state" Like one of the ones used for, gasp, enemas. Check this link

http://www.optimalhealthnetwork.com/group.asp?grp=10

Posted by at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2005

Mike B

It's a problem of too much data. We are currently sampling the
microphone at 5 milliseconds (in the PIC code) so i'm getting a lot of
noise. The first thing we need to figure out is what is the optimum
sampling rate for noise. How little data can we get away with
collecting and still feel like we aren't missing a breath.

The processing problem becomes simpler if I have less data flooding
in. In processing, I have to figure out how much data to collect
before I act on it (inflate/deflate the circle), at what point do I
have enough data and what data is noise. Should I grab ten numbers
and average them and see if they are going up? etc? There's just too
much data coming in but I think it would be easier if we do more
pre-processing with the PIC. Right now it's overwhelming us with data
points.

When we move away from processing and just have the pic it will also
be important to get the number of sample points right there because we
will not have processing to post process.

I'll check my mail at 2ish on my break.

thanks!

Posted by min at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

Tracy's Group

Tracy's group is also using a mic to pick up sound from its surroundings. She's actually using it to put inside her chair that she is making.

She said that she was able to get about 2Vs out of the condenser mic from Radio Shack. She also used the preamp and told me that we should be able to get data using serial out.

Here are some pics of her board and the schematic.
We'll talk more later when we meet at 8.30, after the meeting with Despina, instructor for Personal Expression and Wearable Technologies class at ITP and the founder of Studio 5050.

Posted by min at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)

Much Progress

We got so much done today. The long hours on the ITP floor paid off!
We were using several condenser mics, not getting any values when trying to do serial out. Todd M even went to the extent of using an oscilloscope.

But Todd H came to the rescue and gave us the perfect mic! An OLD apple beige mic. We got figures!!!

TO DO :

Get the processing code figured out
Build the servo part to control the cushion in the doll/bag.
We need a name for this doll/ bag. (Can we go with yours Todd M?)

Our final board with the preamp chip.

The perfect mic from Todd H! Thank you so much!

Testing out our values in the whisper room.

Doll coming into shape

Posted by min at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2005

Breath Code

The breathing thing is pretty hard to get right. I'm going to call it at night. The problems have to do with frequency and sampling rates. How much data, or how little data should I be collecting before I make a decision about breath going up or down. Let's talk tomorrow. We might need an expert's advice.

Also, VERY important, the PIC code is currnetly sampling at 5 miliseconds and outputting 9600 bps, [DEC adcVar1, 10]

// Example by Tom Igoe

import processing.serial.*;

int lf = 10; // Linefeed in ASCII
int fromSerial;
String myString = null;
Serial myPort; // The serial port
int eWidth;
int eHeight;
int maxWidth;
int minWidth;

int currentSlot = 0;

boolean booGoingDown;
boolean booGoingUp;
int maxSlot = 10;
int currentVal;
int[] slotNumber = new int[maxSlot];

void setup() {
// List all the available serial ports
//println(Serial.list());
myPort = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[2], 9600);
myPort.clear();
myString = myPort.readStringUntil(lf);
myString = null;

size(512,200);
framerate(30);

eWidth = 80;
eHeight = 40;
maxWidth = 160;
minWidth = 40;

background(0,30,0);

}

void draw() {

while (myPort.available() > 0) {
myString = myPort.readStringUntil(lf);
if (myString != null) {
if (myString.length() > 1)
{
int fromSerial = Integer.parseInt(trim(myString));

if (currentSlot == slotNumber.length-1)
{ currentSlot = 0; }
else
{ currentSlot++; }
slotNumber[currentSlot] = fromSerial;

// Now sample when we fill up the array

if (currentSlot == slotNumber.length-1)


{

// If the whole array is going up, you are exhaling
currentVal = fromSerial;
booGoingDown = true;
booGoingUp = true;



for (int x = 0; x

if (slotNumber[x] < slotNumber[x+1])
{booGoingDown = false;}

if (slotNumber[x] > slotNumber[x+1])
{ booGoingDown = false; }


if ((booGoingDown) && (eWidth > minWidth)) {

eWidth = eWidth - 10;
eHeight = eHeight - 5;


}
else if ((booGoingUp) && (eWidth < maxWidth)) {
eWidth = eWidth + 10;
eHeight = eHeight + 5;

}



ellipse(width/2, height/2, eWidth, eHeight);

}

}

}

}

//fill(0,100,0);
//ellipse(width/2, height/2, eWidth*2, eHeight*2);

}
// }
}

Posted by at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

PreAmps

These image show the process I went through to boost the tiny amounts (mV) of electricity that come out of condenser microphone to voltages usuable by the PIC chip. Basically we had to put together a preamplifier, but without much success. My theory here is that the preamp we built was too weak. I tested two mics, one that I ripped out of a cellphone and a lavalier mic from the ER. I played recorded breathing through earbud style headphones close to the mics (perhaps half an inch). The oscilliscope showed that at maximum these mics were outputting about 2 mV. Boo. These mics work on an electrostactic principle, and as such generate muss less voltage than dynamic (elecromagnetic) mics. Condenser mics can be considered cleaner in most applications however. I went through hell checking that preamp and our inputs on the pic chip with voltage coming out of a clipped headphone lead and my iPod. Luckily, to our rescue came Mr Todd Holubek with a weird Apple Talk condenser mic from the early ninteies tht runs on oh-so-convenient 5V DC "Phantom Power" A later version will incorporate an integrated condenser mic/preamp I am building.

Some links to wiring preamps.

reprise
audioAmps
warplink
electronica

Thank you Todd H

Posted by min at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)

Pocket Idea

hey group...
this may be the late-night sharpie inhallations talking... but I just got a spark of inspiration. Check it out and see what you think.

I was looking at the drawings that I did -- and re-working them -- my impulse was to make the thing rounder and more cute.

The more I looked at the shape that I wanted, the more familiar it seemed to me...
then I decided that the form I was making was a cross between a Lima Bean and Daruma (The legendary founder of Cha'an Buddhism in China, later known more famously as Zen Buddhism in Japan). The story is famous in Japan that Daruma (also known as Bohdidarhma) meditated for so long that his arms and legs atrophied off.
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/daruma.shtml

In Japan he is a folk character, and there are dolls that essentially are these round forms with a big head and no arms and legs and these huge wide set eye sockets. The dolls are actually kinda creepy... my family had one in the house when I was a toddler and it used to make me cry.

Anyway... the Japanese believe that a Daruma doll fulfills ones wishes. You usually get a doll and take out one of the eyes when you make a wish and when the wish/goal/dream has been fulfilled you place in the other eye.

But as I was thinking about breath, I was thinking about our device/tool being something that helps with awareness of breath (meditation of course comes to mind)... and the idea that we are creating a 'Buddy' or 'Bohdi' (a bohdisatvah is literally a guide or teacher -- one who has the capacity to reach enlightenment, but delays it in order to help others -- like a good friend who waits for you to go to dinner) to bring people back 'In Touch' with their 'Body' and Breath...

OK ...these are all bad puns.... but I think it may work in well with the cutesy toy/creature concept we are making. I like the notion of using fokelore and history to create a whole background story to our creature to give it personality. I can envision a really cute website with hand-drawn children's illustration-looking stories that talk about the character. I also like the notion of a slight edge of dark humour laced in all of this. Todd mentioned his morbid impulse of breath reminding him of death... and I can't help but think of allusions to this in a story where meditation created a case of defacto amputation!

Also ... I was playing around with design solutions... One of the problems Min and I noticed with the small scale nature of a wearable is that on a body scale level-- the sensations are almost too subtle to notice through clothing, when we are interfacing to a whole body level.

If we are making a wearable (which is clothing scale instead of furniture or architecture scale, it seems the interaction may need to be scaled down as well to match the personal and semi-private experience of a wearable (clothing is so close to the body -- rather intimate, a piece of clothing usually deals with a part of the body instead of the whole body).

One solution I was thinking about was to sew a belly (pocket) in the creature (give it a belly with contrasting fabric and make it a pocket). If we place the 'breathing part in here, then the user can feel their breath when they place their hand in the pocket/belly of the creature)... thus the experience becomes a very subtle and almost private one. This idea like the creature and the user are sharing a secret between friends.

I know we taked about a large amplification before, but it seems almost out of place now, when our interface is so small. A smaller, quieter amplification seems more appropriate with a purse size device. Like the difference in the way you would talk across a room, versus whispering in someone's ear.

I like the solution of a pocket for four reasons:

1. It isolates the part that need to be 'breathing' to a smaller area on the overall creature, thus giving it visual focus/definition/contrast, as well as allowing for us to use a smaller infating balloon.

2. The rest of the creature can then be filled will foam (where the rest of the mechanics can be stored), so that there is a squishy part and a expanding/ballooning part-- providing further contrast in textures... ( I wasn't happy with the hodge-podge of textures with balloon mixed in with foam and then possibly hardware -- too much going on so touch wise there is loss in clarity of feel).

3. The action of feeling your breath expansion on your bare hand/palm creates a more direct sensation that will be necessary since we are now working on such a small scale of inflation/mass.

4. Pockets just seem to make people happy too (especially when it gets colder).

Ok that's it from me... need to go to bed!

cheers.
alice

Posted by min at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

Our progress

Breath being translated into a feedback system where one would feel his own breath. This was our original idea, similarly from the movie, Totoro. The little girl wakes up to find out that she is on the giant cat and feels herself moving with the cat's breathing. This was our original idea and we were thinking about building a chair system. So we met on Saturday with our ideas, with built models.

From the Japanese animation, "Totoro"

On Saturday, our group had a 4 hour plus group meeting. It was definately worth it and we got a lot done and came to common decisions about the project. A little shift in direction but still the same concept.

We decided that the chair project is rather unrealistic to accomplish in the time period of 2 weeks. So, after brainstorming what our interests were of the project, we decided to make a smaller version of the "inflatable chair." Essentially, the same idea, with a feedback of one's breathing. Being more aware of one's breathing and exaggerating this subtle daily activity.

Here is the process that we went through. Difficult process but, we're all excited about the decisions that we came to.

The mutlimedia lab is awesome! :)

So we imagine a "stuffed-toy-like" bag, that would strap on someone. We are going to be using these thin condensor microphones Todd suggested. The mic would be part of the design for this bag. We're thinking about also making a fluffy hat to place these microphones, so that it would be closer to the user's nose.

Inputs = breath (amplitude of the breath would control the inflation of this doll) (the frequency of the breath would control the speed of this inflation)
Outputs = inflation of the bag

We have divided our tasks as follows.

Mike : Processing prototype and programming the PIC
Min : Programming the PIC, fabrication, documentation
Alice : Fabrication, Processing prototype
Todd : Mic/ sound works, programming PIC

By Wednesday, (Alice and Mike's pcomp class with Tom Igoe) we plan to have the processing prototype to work, using the function sonia sound library The prototype would be using LiveInput for sound analysis

This shows FFT spectrum and volume level for the active sound-input on your mahcine.
For PC: use the 'Sounds & Audio Devices' menu in the control panel to choose your input; Mic, wave, etc.
For Mac: the current microphone device will be used as input.

By: Amit Pitaru, July 16th 2005

Also, we will have the doll prototyped and hopefully get the solenoid hooked up to pump air into it. Here are some possible designs for the doll. The doll/ bag would have to be unisex, so that both men and women would feel comfortable using it. To come...

Posted by min at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2005

Email to Tom

Greetings Tom:

This is Alice from your Wednesday afternoon class. A couple of things I'd like to run by you regarding our project.
After a meeting this weekend, we have decided upon a slight shift in our final output product form. Instead of a breathing room/installation, or a breathing chair, we have decided as a group on a breathing wearable (something that is a cross between a plush toy and a messenger bag). Despina has also agreed to meet with us tuesday evening to give us feedback on our design.

Members of our group were concerned that a chair would be too much building to execute in two weeks.
The idea is still the same -- a feedback loop that is expressed through breathing motion in material.

We are currently having a few technical problems.

We ordered a special microphone that is a very, very small condensor mike. We want to output voltage from the microphone to the PIC. After some initial failed attempts, we now know that this requires a preamplifier. Do you have any on hand that we may borrow to use? Our current pre-amp is in transit from Utah and we do not want to lose any time waiting for the shipping.

Also, Todd Holubek introduced us to Jae In this weekend (a former student of yours who made the breathing puppy toy for the Matel compitition). She was kind enough to lend us their unit to play with -- a combo of a motor and solinoid (which she said she had borrowed from you). We tried looking up the part numbers on Google to get the specs, and Mike checked the company website, however we could not find any schematics (since this is a borrowed part), we wanted to check in with you to see if you had any of the specs/schematics handy, so that we would not fry the unit by blind guesses.

Any help from you leads to point us in the right direction would be most helpful.

Thanks for your time.

Posted by at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

Solenoids

http://www.medicaldesign.com/articles/ID/4206

Posted by min at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)

hugJackets

Link (http://www.5050ltd.com/hugJackets.html)

It's different from what we are doing but has a strong connection. We're changing and translating a medium while the hugJacket amplifies a medium. You are physically hugging while we could say we are "virtually" hugging through breath, or maybe not even hugging but making contact. Either way i'm sure Despina has a lot to tell us about wearables and the like. I'm going to mail her for resources or maybe she'll even talk to us sometime. Here is the mantra from her website:

"my clothes are animated, they have a soul: mine"

The website

Oh and it's not the same Despina that posts to the mailing list. Here is Despina Padadopoulos' bio
-------------------
Update

I sent Despina an email

Hi Despina--

My name is Mike, i'm a first year here @ ITP. A bunch of us are
building a wearable (well maybe more like a huggable) for Tom Igoe's
pcomp class and you would be a great resource, especially since I
think our project has a conceptual connection to your hugJacket. Here
is a link to our project blog:

http://itp.nyu.edu/~gml229/groupblog/

thought it doesn't have the latest up to date developments.

There are a number of implementation ideas we are bouncing around but
the gist of it is we want to convert/amplify/connect the medium of
breath through touch and temperature. A person's breath data would be
transferred to an inflatable backpack like wearable which would expand
and contract. Temperature outputs on the wearable would output hot or
cold relative to the breath data. This could be worn by an individual
to help them become aware of, and maybe even alter their breath (most
people don't realize how tense they are) or eventually this could be
used networked, so someone far away could feel connected to a loved
one.

Do you have time to talk to us for 15 minutes? We'd love to bounce
our ideas off you to get more feedback at the detail level.

thanks!

-mike (mbukhin@gmail.com)

Posted by at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)

Posted by at 01:12 AM | Comments (1)

Mic Assembly/Antenna

Well I went home and I started ripping up an old cellphone I had lying around. I scored some little speakers, and a vibrator motor, but I also got a great microphone to use. It was very enjoyable to tear apart the phone and also find a great adjustable bug antenna/mic boom assembly which I adapted from the antenna of the phone. I was thinking of antennae, and if we have two, we cold definitely introduce communication between couples of people. It would be nice to lie next to some one with this fuzzy blob and get ther breath feedback and vice versa? It seems like a sweet idea in an age of fear and isolation. Comfort.

So regarding the mics, I'm going to test it in the lab tomorrow. If everthing checks out, these would be esay to make a lot of. Plus we would be reducing e-waste my scavenging dead phones. Don't worry, they would be easy to make really cute and inobtrusive. The mic is very small.

That"s if for me for tonight. It"s Todd Time. See you tomorrow. Can you bring me some Ligonberry Soda?

Posted by at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2005

Mocassins!

http://save-the-manimals.com

Posted by at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

October 14, 2005

The Jerk-o-Meter

http://groupmedia.media.mit.edu/jk.php

Posted by at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

Feedback from Pcomp Class

Yesterday (Oct 12), Mike and I presented our class with our group research and idea for the device/tool project. We talked a little bit about our research with the breath patterns, our interest in creating a feedback loop, and our final solution options (either an installation or a peice of furniture). Tom asked each of the groups to ask the rest of the class for solutions to their main challenge/problem area. Mike brought up our needs to collect breath data from participants in a non-obtrusive manner.

Tom first questioned us about the kind of context we would be setting up for the user/participant. He was very concerned that there needs to be a good reason for a person to enter the space (if we were doing an installation). I agreed with his points and remember that just a few days back this was my exact thought -- that drawing a person in was going to be our main challenge with going forth with the installation idea.

When I brought up the chair idea, Tom and a few others thought gave very positive feedback. A couple of other projects that are happening/have happened already were mentioned by the other students. Josh mentioned a project in Australia where cell phone conversations were being monitored for voice levels so that users could be notified if they were being jerks (a jerk-o-meter); Toshi brought up the concept of a 'heavy breathing' telephone system.

Another group in our class is doing a chair project as well(reactive to ambient noise), so I am interested in how our two groups' ideas will diverge or converge.

As far as the collection of breath was concerned, most people agreed that audio (the manner in which we had been collecting data already) was probably a fine way to go; maybe even in our case the best way to go - given our requirement for low intrusion. Adam brought up the point that a chair's form could be made to play up acoustics. Piezos are probably the sensors that will will end up using; the other group working with breath (Gilad, Elliot, Christian) are also thinking about using piezos.

Tom brought up a few good points and tips for all of our projects in general. He mentioned using two tools to help us along with organization, a State Machine Diagram and the second which name escapes me right now resembles something like a flow chart. He also encouraged us to look for opportunities in our projects where we could get freebies; meaning getting more than one use out of an interaction or capitalizing on the user's natural actions to create interaction with the system.

As far as timelines go, by next week we should have a prototype on the way.

Posted by at 03:04 AM | Comments (0)

October 13, 2005

Email from Alice: Breathing Chair

Quick update. Sent out two enquiries on products.
1) is for materials used to make inflatable furniture (air mattresses, etc).
The company is called Plas-Tech and they do not have a working website yet. I emailed them through a listing on ThomasNet.com.
2) is a company that makes scroll air compressors which are used amongst many things in medical devices for their small size, low cost, and low noise and vibration levels. Their website is http://www.airsquared.com/.

Below are emails attatched with their contacts, addresses etc. As soon as I get any response from them, I'll let you guys know.

cheers.
Alice

The following request was sent to:
Plas-Tech Sealing Technologies, LLC

******************************
****************************************

Regarding your listing on ThomasNet.com.

Subject: Request for catelog

Message: Greetings, I am a graduate student in industrial design/interactive design. I am currently researching and working on a prototype for inflatable furniture. I am interested in your products. I am especially interested in a system that is low in noise level when inflating and has the potential to be adjusted in air levels. Please kindly send me one of your catelogs at your earliest convenience. My address is: 14 Washington Place, Apt #10E New York, NY 10003 Sincerely, Alice Tseng-Planas

**********************************************************************

Preferred method of contact:
E-mail

**********************************************************************

Contact Information:

First Name: Alice
Last Name: Tseng-Planas
Company: Interactive Telecomunications Program at NYU
Zip/Postal Code: 10003
E-mail: atp237@nyu.edu

Sincerely,
The ThomasNet.com Team

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alice Tseng-Planas < alice.planas@nyu.edu>
Date: Oct 13, 2005 11:34 AM
Subject: Fwd: product information request
To: alisuchan@gmail.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alice Tseng-Planas
To: robert@airsquared.com
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:19:06 -0700
Subject: product information request
Greetings Robert,

I am interested in learning more about your product (the Air Squared
scroll compressor). I am a graduate student at NYU's Interactive
Telecommunications Program currently working on a prototype/ research
project concerning embedding a breathing feedback system into furniture.
I came across your website and product while researching on the
internet for small, quiet air compressors. What we are looking for
ideally is a relatively inexpensive product so that we can inflate
numerous areas of a piece of furniture at variable rates. We also want
a product that generates as little noise as possible.

How much does your scroll compressor cost? What is the minimum order
volume?
And does you company offer reduced rates/samples for student prototype
projects?

Thank you for your time,
Alice Tseng-Planas

Posted by at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

October 12, 2005

Breathable Chair

http://www.stanford.edu/~fengis/breathing01.html

The movie

Posted by at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)

Just placed an order for those wind detecting sensors.

I just put an order of those Piezo Film Vibra Tab Mass, 3 of them. So we can play with them next week.

After our group meeting today, I've realized one thing...

We've gotta crank out the production ideas! We'll have a look at all the sensors available to us and see what is the most effective one.

By saturday, we're all going to build a little model of what we envision this final "feedback" to be.

Can anyone write a little summary of what we talked about today?
Keep thinking~ ;)

Posted by min at 02:12 AM | Comments (0)

October 11, 2005

Ideas for medium

So our group all agreed on the idea that we need a sort of a "feedback" system that will let us visualize our breathing.

Like what Michael Schneider had told us in class, breathing is an activity that we take for granted. Half of the time, you really don't realize it. So to take something that is this small and to turn it out into a big "feedback" system really appealed to us all.

We were throwing out some ideas that we can have a space made up of some sort of fabric that would blow up or come in depending on how much you were breathing.

Here's a sketch.

We will look further into the materials that are available to us.

Posted by min at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)

Thank you Anile!

Anile was very kind to give us 20minutes of his breathing. Thank you! :)
I will give you this file tomorrow Todd.

More developement tomorrow, 7pm ITP, Tisch.

Posted by min at 12:47 AM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2005

Our RESOURCES

Pcomp peeps, we can build on these links as we find more interesting ones...

Any suggestions on the layout of the blog? Categories? Let me know! :)

::: Readings :::

Temple Grandin

Breathing Project suggested by Josh! :)

Abnormal Respiratory Control Found in Infants Who Later Died of SIDS

Tests for Limitations, Causes and Positive Indicators
of Optimal Breathing?

Intelligent Pressure Sensor Signal-Conditioning For Correlating Respiratory Signals to Emotion

Psycho-technology -Its Present & Future

Ex ITPers with similar ideas

::: Sensors we can look into :::

Merlin Stretch Sensor 15 cm

Gas sensors

Piezo Film Vibra Tab Mass Price: $1.49_ Sensor that detects the amount of wind

::: Materials :::

Herman Miller's Revolve System

Posted by min at 06:53 PM | Comments (1)

October 08, 2005

Breathing filmed

Went to Alice's appmt to film Todd breathing.

We did it in 3 different settings. One standing, one sitting and one lying. Each for a length of about 5 minutes. It was funny how we could only hear Todd breathing in the room and we were very aware of our own breathing during the recording.

We used the marantz to record, using the lavier mic taped on Todd's face. We also used some lowel lights to get better lighting.
We put a grid on his body so that we could see the movement of the chest and the stomach as he breathed in.

Here are some pics of the setting. Let me know what you guys think about the video file. I will try to sync with the audio tomorrow.

Todd sitting and breathing

Todd standing and breathing

Todd lying and breathing (with sound)

Posted by min at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2005

Scale Model and Prototype (Installation)

I liked what we have been talking about in regards to the installation.

I think the first step I would like to propose is to build a scale model/ prototype. This will teach us a lot about the technical issues as well as many of the aesthetic choices we shall need to make before we start spending big bucks on a larger piece (which requires a bit of material and $). I'd be happy to work on the scale model portion (I have a bit of experience with this)... Maybe Min would like to help out too?

As for the prototyping part, maybe all the code and mechanics can be flushed out quickly with the board and a processing model to start (following Mike's suggestion). This way we can work in parallel and save time.

Then we can put the two together and start critiquing what we have and making adjustments.

Also, another portion that we must consider is the design of the interface between body and room. We need an elegant solution that is easily intuitive for the person to use the flex sensor (if that is what we are using). I'm imagining some type of chair and a belly belt that the user straps themselves into (that contains the sensor)?

Any thoughts on this would be great.

I will go ahead and place an order for one of these today from Merlin.

Min and Todd if you have time this Sunday, lets build a simple circuit just to play around with the sensor so we can get a feel for it. I have to return it back to Tom next week.

Posted by at 02:00 PM | Comments (2)

Meditation Breath 2

Last night we (Mike and Alice) had a very interesting conversation with Anile who has been practicing meditation for most of his life. Anile is from the Himalayas and what also stuck me as interesting was the elevations that he has lived in, as well as some of the beliefs/philosophies that he associates with breath. He mentioned that in his practice, there is a belief that the less breaths you take the longer you live. Like the notion that when breathing you are using up your life energy (my interpretation). He said that meditation was a practice that allowed for one to slow down and have control over breath.

We asked Anile if he would be willing to be recorded while doing meditation. He said he wouldn't mind.

Yesterday afternoon, I also came across this article on meditation breath.

Posted by at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)

Breath Visualization Strategy

One of the problems we first encountered was how to represent data in our observations. We were interested in taking breathing patterns -- which are processes so subjective, internal and subtle and giving it a representation that would be clear, concise and immediate.

Visual representation is often a good way to condense information.

We decided to record sounds of ourselves breathing under different conditions. We took the sound files and ran them through an editing program (Audacity), to produce sound waves, as a means to compare the different patterns.

These were useful to our initial observations, so we can begin to see in a very quick and immediate manner how much breath patterns can vary (from person to person, and from activity to activity).

An early technical problem that we encountered was that we could not look at the differences charted over a significant stretch of time, and not in great detail (only what space was allowable on the computer screen). None of the common sound-editing programs were capable of graphical output at resolutions high enough to be conducive for our desires.

Todd did some research online and came across a program developed by Ornithologists at Cornell called Raven.
The lite version costs25 dollars and the output possibilities range from jpeg, TIFF, to EPS, etc.

Using this program, we are interested in using the plotter at the Advance Media Lab in order to get a document with enough detail to study.

Posted by at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)

October 06, 2005

Breath Chamber Ideas

1. An Installation (everyone in the group was interested in this)
2. Playing with scale (Todd's idea) -- the idea of taking breath (such a small and subtle action) and taking it to an architectural level.
3. Something that is compressive and expansive (Min's idea)-- like lungs compressing and expanding -- we like the idea of the physical and muscular
4. Alice likes latex -- a material that has give and pull -- something that is elastic
5. Todd and Min like the idea of changing the space that you are in
6. Mike likes the notion of memory and history -- charting a trace
7. Alice likes the notion of a personal space -- a chamber -- a room for one
8. Alice likes rewarding the user with the experience, by encouraging breathing.
9. Mike also likes the notion of something that is modular and personal that can be built up collectively in an Architectural scale through aggregation

Posted by at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)

Feedback Loop

Yesterday in class Tom demonstrated how we could manipulate a screen based application with a physical device on a breadboard. He basically built a simple joystick for us. Coming from the world of software I thought this was pretty cool, the fact that there is this whole new realm of feedback that can physically be created. Up to now I have written screen based software exclusively, so my feedback loops and i/o were restricted to keyboards and javascript pop up boxes. I'm pretty excited about the possibility of incorporating the rich functionality of the screen with a basic physical device.

We could potentially somehow use a screen based feedback loop to help people interact or get more in touch with their breathing for enlightenment, health or art purposes. Or all 3, or something else. If we build something purely physical it would have to be very elegant because it would have to be simple with our time constraints. The screen opens up a lot of doors for us, but at the same time it limits the physicality if you have to be in front of a screen to use our device. If we are interested in incorporating the screen we could consider a hybrid device which collects/interprets data but also allows for data transfer/interface transfer to a screen based mechanism for further insight.

just some thoughts

:)

Posted by at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)

Merlin Stretch Sensor 15 cm from Tom Igoe

Alice's instructor, Tom Igoe was very generous in lending us one of his Merlin Stretch Sensors. We have to check this out and play around a little... ^^

The Merlin Stretch Sensor uses the latest 'Smart' material technology to give a uniquely flexible sensor, that can literally take measurements bent around corners or be woven into fabric.

Flexible sensor, bends around corners!
Small form factor - 2mm Cord
Economical
What is it?

The Stretch Sensor is a flexible cylindrical cord with spade electrical fixings at each end. The sensor behaves like a variable resistor, the more you stretch it the higher the resistance.

How does it work?

As the length of the Stretch Sensor alters so does it's resistance. For each centimeter of length change there is a resistance change of approximatly 400 Ohms/cm.

Datasheets and resources

Simple bridge circuit and static test data
Reading stretch sensor with Basic Stamp 2

Posted by min at 02:28 AM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2005

Visuals

Alice - working under stress

Min - Meditating

Mike - Running

Posted by min at 07:37 PM | Comments (0)

Our Emails

hello group.

I reread Tom's assignment and I think it would be good if everyone takes another look at the assignment writings. The assignment asks us to choose an activity that produces changes in a medium, not between mediums (I apologize -- this was a misinterpretation on my part).

Also, it is rather specific about choosing one action to observe. Rather than choosing one action, we have chosen many actions that are united by a medium that is affected by these actions (breath is the medium that changes as a result of the actions of work, meditation, running, sleeping, riding on the airplane, etc).

In a way we are still in alignment with the project (all of the actions we have chosen are effecting changes to the medium of breath), however, there is a subtle but significant difference in the focus.

The observation seems to focus on the action rather than the medium, of which we seemed to have focused on.

Again, I think interpretation can be sketchy (as mine have proven), so a few good reads from all of you would be greatly appreciated. Please respond with your thoughts on this -- if you think we're on the right track.

On a seperate note, I recorded my breath this afternoon and to Min and Mike make sure you set the levels high enough so that the sound waves are visible. Initially I was concerned with not picking up background noise so I set the levels very low... but when I brought the files into audacity, the sound waves are almost too subtle to be visible. Any thoughts on this Todd?

cheers.
Alice

------------------------------------------

As to Alice's earlier point about the nature of the assignment. I
think what we are doing is perfectly valid though it is more out there
because we are analyzing something that we all take for granted,
breath. It's so close and yet so far. If we succeed with something
(whatever it is?) it will be that much more powerful because it could
become part of, and be incorporated into the process of breath which
is so near and constant. I think the actual project may be harder for
us because in our analysis we have to somehow take another look at
breath and in our implementation we have to make something as near as
breath, it has to be very elegant so as to not be intrusive.

Tom's assignment is pushing us towards only one action (i.e. choose
running or sleeping) but because we have chosen breath, it seems fine
to pick multiple actions because the topic is so unknown. At the same
time if we are positive we can do something about just sleeping or
just running, then I say go for it because we have that much more data
on one particular action and we would have stronger results to move
forward on. You know reading this back I think that may not be such a
bad idea. If we all concentrated on one action we would all be coming
at the project from the same direction...

anyone else? we have time to reorganize.

--------------------------------------------------
Hey Groupies (Like that?)-

I was just following up on the e-mails that have been
flowing from you all, and I'm glad there is some
positive energy flowing along as well. Upon taking a
glance at the assignment, I'm starting to think we may
have gone a little too abstract, but perhaps I'm just
feeling uninspired. Anyway, I'd like to hear some of
the things that have you all feeling excited about the
project and how you see the process going forward. If
we're sticking to this breathing thing, I'm having
trouble imagining something (tool or device) that we
could prototype to improve the activity. The
assignment is as follows:

Now that you've observed one tool or device that
manipulates the medium you observed, create another
one. Either modify an existing device so that it
affords changes to the medium that it didn't
previously, or make a whole new tool to manipulate the
medium in new ways.

I'd really like to hear what you guys are thinking
about.

As for the sound recordings go, if you're going to be
recording outside, make sure you get a wind screen for
the mic. I have a lot of experience working with
audio files, and would be happy to take on the part of
analyzing these and enhancing/editing as well. It
would be fun to sit down with you and work together.
When using the marantz, make sure that the limiter
selector is on Limit and that mic attenuation is off
(this machine has really noisy attenuation pads). If
you have any questions about this, just send me a mail
to my nyu address, or this one, or both....

Hope you're having a good weekend...

Cmdr. Todd signing off from Chapel Hill, NC.

--------------------------------------

I haven't done my running yet, was feeling a little under the weather
yesterday but I plan on doing it in a few hours. I don't have a wind
screen and I probably can't run with one anyway :) hopefully it won't
be too windy.

Along Todd's line, we can go with breathing but there may be other
perspectives we could explore in the process of breathing. Off the
top of my head:

- discover a way of improving sound recording (Todd's domain)
- facilitate self documentation and self discovery. this is how you
breathe, this is how you could improve it, this is how you would feel
better. this could be a piece of analysis software or a physical
apparatus
- connect people together via their breath? passing on breath as
breath, or breath as the sound of breathing...

Does anyone else have other things that it might be good to consider
as we do our observation. That might be useful. Some unifying
potential directions

----------------------------------------------

I'm interested in how we can improve ones awareness of their breathing. Maybe this is how we can tie in the somewhat / seeming disperate actions associated with breathing. After doing the recording of my own breathing, I was really struck by how much I don't.

All things being said, I think Oxygen is a pretty useful substance for the body and I think it would be great if I could get more of it.

As far as the observation goes, I think other than recordings, there needs to be more depth to our observations. This was one thing I think we all agreed about the last project that all of our groups could have improved upon.

Again, I think, that if we focus just a little bit more, we could get this sort of depth.
I'd like to follow the advice of Tom, for repeating a specific process/action again and again, video tape it, watch it, break it down to discrete parts.

Another thing I would like to do is, following Todd's suggestion, to but some 'controls' in our study of a very subjective process, while still holding onto some of the subjectiveness of the patterns.

I really liked Ed's/Todd's original idea of drawing grids on his body and watching how the act of breathing changed the shape of the body. I'm thinking that we can do a great storyboard of sorts -- a motion study a la Moibridge by using a video tape footage broken down and exported as a series of stills, printed really large on the large formmat printer in the advanced media lab.

A friend of mine did this before as a method for helping her with stop motion animation, and it was a wonderful way to study very subtle changes.

Here's an idea, see what you think/can follow my line of thought:

What would be interesting to me, is if we took the patterns that we gathered (visual representations of the audio files) from my breath (working stress), Mike's running breath and Min's meditation breath, and used it as an template for an actor to follow (like musical notes) under video. This same actor, (not the original breather) would need to replicate all three of the breathing patterns by following the breath notes, and be video taped while gridded up. Then we could slow down the video and analyse it frame by frame. This way we have one same test body, and three different breathing patterns to analyse.

In this instance breathing is the action, the change in medium is one actor's body-mass.

If we approach breathing as the action and the body as the medium, then the other activities (running, meditating, working, stress vs. rest) may be supplimental to our research, as different factors that effect an influence on the action of breathing, imparting changes in the body medium.

In the end though, I believe it would be a wise practice to isolate our tool to very descrete scenarios.

Just my two cents. Feel free to take it apart.

from the PIC lab...
alice

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Hey here's a quick update.

I know we haven't decided on anything yet (we're still doing this on Tuesday morning).
In the meantime, I've been communicating with Tom Igoe. He verified that this week all we are responsible for is giving him a group and a topic. I also emailed him a loose description of some of the ideas we have been talking about RE breath, and he will respond with some feedback and suggestions -- so hopefully this will help us clarify our observation goals. I told him that we have not committed to anything yet, and will do so on Tuesday, so if he can get back to us with his thoughts before then, that would be helpful.

In the meantime, here's some research that I found online related to breath.

I posted the below on the blog too, but here it is, in case you are not checking the blog.

Interesting. Did a little bit of reading on the Internet and it turns out that breathing patterns are of great interest to those in the medical field. There are possible correlations between breathing patterns and conditions such as sleep apnea and sudden infant death syndrome.
See: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/1995pres/951120.html

Also, claims have been made that breathing patterns are learned (sometimes mislearned) and thus can be corrected.

Here was a test that I found: http://www.breathing.com/tests.htm#testtop

And an article about using sensors to detect breathing:
http://www.techonline.com/community/ed_resource/feature_article/5317

-atp

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Alice-

Great e-mail, thanks...it seems like you've been
putting a lot of thought into this. I've done a
little surfing around the idea of breath feed-back and
found this blurb on a page from CSU Chico. I really
like your idea of musical feedback...perhaps we could
incorporate haptic feedback as well. Of you're
unfamiliar with the term, just google "haptics".

A NEW/OLD MODALITY: BREATHING OUR WAY TO THE
MILLENNIUM
A new form of relaxation/meditation feedback device
will become available shortly which may well become a
major force in the psychotechnological market. I hope
the reader will not object if I detail some of my
personal work in this field. I am currently developing
and experimentin with a little known (in the US)
modality employing feedback of the breath. The user
puts on a breath sensor consisting of an elasticated
belt around the belly. One wears headphones and
goggles, just as with light and sound devices. When
the user expands or contracts the diaphragm and belly
by breathing in or out, a sound like breathing is put
through the headphones and the goggles light up.
Breath feedback devices have been used clinically in
Europe for a number of years. There is quite a lot of
European research indicating that feedback of
breathing rapidly produces theta dominant brainwave
states - ideal for rescripting, absorbing positive
suggestions etc. Breath feedback seems to be very
potent in activating some very ancient neurological
pathways leading to states of great calm and
centering. It's no accident that so many meditational
tecliniques focus on the breath. Giving breath
feedback seems to provide the benefits of meditation
in an easily accessible form, so I expect breath
feedback devices to figure in the future of psych-tech
to a large extent. Meditators who find light and sound
too "busy" may enjoy breath feedback because it's much
calmer. These devices have the great advantage of not
producing epileptic seizures in seizure-prone
individuals, so are inherently safer than light and
sound. The breath feedback device is usable on its
own, with light and sound, with a cassette program or
with many other modalities. As to availability of
breath feedback devices, so far there is an expensive
US-made professional device available (around $6000),
a French device which is nor yet available in the US,
and my own device the Theta-mate, which will be
available in a couple of months for a price in the
region of $500. I expect breath feedback devices to be
increasingly used as a substitute for or complement
to, light and sound devices, and breath feedback will
surely be combined with various other modalities in
the future.

If you're interested, the page can be found here.
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~andrewc/psychotech.html
What time is out meeting exactly?

Talk to you soon.

Todd

----------------------------------------------

Hey,

We got the green light from Tom RE breath as a subject. See below.
He also recommended these stretch sensors as a way to monitor muscle
movement.
http://www.merlinsystemscorp.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/64

see you all at 10AM on Tuesday... hope you enjoyed your weekend.
Alice

--------------------------------------------------

Yes. I'm totally a nut for haptics, so I'd be onboard for this.
Todd (or anyone?) -- what would be the best way (highest resolution image) to output an audio pattern from a program like Audacity into an image program like illustrator or Photoshop? Is there any way for this to happen?

Now that Min, Mike and I have our recordings... I'd like to output them side-by-side so we can study the patterns on Tuesday.

cheers.
alice

----------------------------------------------------

Yeah- a screenshot is proabably the easiest way to do a quick and dirty graphic representation. The only
problem is crappy resolution (72 dpi) , but for our purposes that's probably OK. If we need something better
for the final presentation I think the Score Editor in Logic Pro can create images of up to 600dpi.

I'm totally cool with you posting mails on the blog....

Maybe I'll see you in the lab this evening.

Todd

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Pcomp Peeps-

I finally found a way to export EPS file of waveforms, and guess what else...spectrograms. Believe or not NONE
of the DAWs (like Logic, DP, etc) can do this. I finally found this program developed by the ornithological
research program at Cornell that is generally used to analyze bird calls...whatever. It worked. Just a few
comments about the recordings and the graphics. Mike- Your recording is problematic. If possible I'd like to
retry it at some point. There is so much background noise (streets noise, friction noise, feet, etc.) all over the
frequency spectrum that it's difficult to isolate just your breath...I'll keep working on it though. It's still
possible to determine a rhythm, though. Min and Alice --- since you recorded in much more controlled
environments, there weren't really any issues with quality, but level was some times really really low. As far as
the graphics go, they show amplitude plotted against time. You'll notice I made them all 5 minutes long. The
units used in the vertical (amplitude) are meaningless, which means that the measurements are relative. I
noramilsed all of the recording to make the breaths as prominent as possible. Basically what I was thinking was
that these waves will be good to identify frequency and duration of breaths, but not intensity. We could
definitely compare them agains each other.

Attached you'll find the EPS files as a .sitx archive. They can be scaled to just about any size. We can discuss
Sectrograms if this would seem like a worthwhile graphic to have.

I guess I'll publish this to the blog eithe rtonight before sleepy time or tomorrow.

Hope all is well.

Todd

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thanks for doing all that work Todd.

I am planning on going running tomorrow morning (i think?) so I could
record if you have any suggestions? I clipped the microphone to my
lapel a few inches from my mouth/nose but my feet are very prominent.
i'd be happy to tape the microphone to my mouth/nose area if you think
it would help? i'd need to find a strong adhesive because the sweat
might make it come off.. do you think that's worth it? any other
suggestions? if i can get us cleaner data I want to. maybe i could
run in a more controlled environment, like the sound proof booth? in
place... hah. let me know what you think, i could bring my running
gear to school.

Posted by min at 01:25 AM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2005

Breathing in the state of meditation and sleeping

I recorded my breathing while meditating and sleeping. I meditate before I go to sleep for about 10 minutes or so.

I went to sleep with the lavier mic taped across my face and woke up with it off... But I think I got a good chunk of recording off of it.

I've been told that I have breathing problems when I sleep. My mother would come into my room, realizing that I am not breathing for a few seconds and have to wake me up to get me breathing again. According to her, it seems that the more tired I am, the worse my breathing pattern is. Sometimes, I wake up, realizing that my body is really tense and breathing irregularly.

This is one of the reasons why I decided to go to a meditation center in Burma over the Summer. Vipassa Meditation is a form of meditation where, initially, we focus on our breathing. We don't try to force things, but instead, we observe how the mind controls us. The first observation that we make is our breathing and the mind is only focused on the breathing.

Posted by min at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)

Running Log

I'm in the sound lab right now transfering my minidisc data in real time to pro tools. Because my recording was done outside, I have a lot of unavoidable ambient noise. There are cars and street noise, wind as well as the constant pounding of my feet on the ground. The first ten minutes or so are quiet but I did run harder than usual so my breathing does get heavier.

I do know that I am supposed to breathe in through my nose, fill my lungs up as much as possible and then breathe out through my mouth. In practice I almost always breathe in and out through my mouth. In the recording I can hear myself trying to correct my breathing and then going back to the mouth-only breathing.

I also talk to myself :) This is very strange to listen to.

Posted by at 12:13 PM | Comments (2)

breathing patterns some research

Interesting. Did a little bit of reading on the Internet and it turns out that breathing patterns are a field of interests to those in the medical field. There are possible correlations between breathing patterns and conditions such as sleep apnea and sudden infant death syndrome.

See:
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/1995pres/951120.html

Also, claims have been made that breathing patterns are learned (sometimes mislearned) and thus can be corrected.

Here was a test that I found:

http://www.breathing.com/tests.htm#testtop

And an article about using sensors to detect breathing:
http://www.techonline.com/community/ed_resource/feature_article/5317

Posted by at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

October 02, 2005

lack of breath under stress/concentration

Yesterday I recorded myself breathing during my Pcomp session in the PIC lab. When listening to my breaths on the headphones I noticed how shallow and irregular the cycles were. Mostly really shallow breathing, followed by a holding, and finally a big exhale.

It was interesting to see the patterns visually displayed as an audio file. I imported the recordings into Audacity, and took a look at the peaks(when each breath was taken) as opposed to the flat lines when breath was being held.

What I became conscious of was how, as I worked on a section that was difficult and my concentration really needed full focus (and when I was struggling with a difficult task) I would hold my breath as a way to steady myself... this would elevate my feeling of stress and once I was able to finish the task a huge exhale was let out. Hmmm... this can't be good for the brain.

Also, I noticed that when I was beginning to tire (probably when I really needed a break), both my posture and my breath holding would be affected.

As far as using the Marantz - it was great.
I would recommend using fresh batteries (my ran out during mid recording) and also note that when you want to begin using the AC adaptor, you must physically take out the batteries for the Marantz to switch to the AC from battery mode. This tripped me up for a while.

The other note is that when the levels are set really low during recording (which is good to kill off background noise), upon import into Audacity, the peaks become rather too subtle to see easily.

Is there a way to magnify this in the timeline?

I did the quick hack method of recording another set on higher levels, so that the visualization becomes more dramatic.

The instructions on the audio help pages by Tali are great. The only hitch I had was with the batteries and the AC adaptor.

Posted by at 01:04 AM | Comments (0)

October 01, 2005

Breath

Observation of our breathing activity when

running _ mike
working _ alice
traveling _ todd
meditating _ min

Posted by min at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)