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Nick

""Observation Assignment:""

My first observation assignment deals with the buzzers used by visitors to signal to/speak with the occupants of an apartment. This simple technology is new to me, as I'm living in an city apartment for the first time in my quarter-century long life, but I've encountered similar forms of these tech and always found them novel and fun. The theorist in me wants to lump this into a fluid technological category I'll deem "technologies of presence," which I'll say includes any tech device used to announce physical proximity, like doorbells, sirens, or flashlights.

The setting for the use of the apt buzzer includes the stoop or front of the apt where the visitor is located, the space in which the wires and connector are located within the wall of the apt, and the location of the buzzer interface within the apt itself. The act requires button pushing, speaking, and listening on behalf of the communicating parties. When the conversation is over, the visitor either leaves or is allowed access into the apt complex by the resident.

There are various flaws with and improvements that could be mde with this tech, especially in its more primitive forms like what we have at my apt. For instance, the act of communication can be vexing when both parties are attempting to speak at the same time and end up cancelling each other out. Also, a suprising number of people cannot align their speech with the button; too often people press down to late or let up to early and their speech is garbled ala ordering at drivethrough window. It takes both patience and timing on behalf of both parties to communicate efficiently.

Also, I got real frustrated when packages were attempted to be delivered to my apartment and I was gone. The device lacks any means of preventing the conversation from being completely one way, and it would be great if it could somehow store info about my whereabouts, what to do with the package, or perhaps call/text/alert my cellphone so I could talk to the package handler.

Furthermore, an interface that incorporated video conferencing type technology would not only solve the communication issues mentioned above, but prevent the need for vocal verification in the first place b/c you could see who was triggering your buzzer. Setting this up wouldn't be hard to do. I unscrewed our buzzer and discovered its guts were based on the same principles we are learning here in phys comp.

I'm sure these solutions have already been implemented in some locations, but on doing so on a mass scale and upgrading existing primitive buzzer devices at a feasible cost would be something to look into.

-jnh

""First Meeting Synopsis:""

We began our first meeting by sharing our digital technology observations, and discussing the issues raised by the observation process lead the group's general route of inquiry into the frustrations and annoyances we experience during routine, day-to-day existence. One thing we all shared in common was the "simple" task of leaving our apartments. The conversation turned to how frustrating leaving behind an important item can be, especially when that item is your apartment key. Kyveli mentioned creating a device that would prevent one from leaving behind one's keys when leaving, and, after tossing around and dismissing other ideas, we decided that creating such a device would be beneficial in that the building process would allow the potential for working with and getting experienced in a variety of sensors, inputs and outputs, not to mention helping the more forgetful of us save money wasted on locksmiths.

Observations:

Zooming out from our idea, the obvious action(s) here is the process of physically opening a door (turn knob, pull/push, step forward) and exiting an internal space into another space, interior or exterior. This process augments the physical space (the medium) of the proximal area (the room(s) and stairwells within the apartment itself) by creating a fissure in the proximity's physical dividers (the walls), thus allowing for navigation between previously seperated and sectioned off spaces.

I suppose that in order to implement our idea we will have to work with some sort of proximity sensor located in the doorway that detects a signal emmitted from a device attached to the key ring. In order to prevent the sensor from going off whenever the keys are nearby, we will probably need another sensor that detects the state of the door. Somehow we will arrange the sensors so that opening the door will trigger the proximity sensor to search for the signal emitted from the key ring.

If no signal, then an array of seizure inducing lights and motion paralzying sounds will emit with a 6 foot radius of the doorway's proximity sensor so to prevent the apartment's inhabitant from exiting sans keys. Once the door is shut or the keys are presented to the door's sensor, the barrage of sensory violence will cease. This either precludes the inhabitant from leaving their apartment until the keys are located or allows the inhabitant to exit savoring the security of knowing that, upon return, they have the means to re-enter.

Rather than watch people enter and exit rooms all day, I decided to carry out my observations through more inductive means: namely my own experience in locking myself out of spaces where only moments before I had free reign, and talking to friends and dear ones about their experiences in shutting themselves out of necessary spaces. The general feedback on our idea was positive, as most people would prefer not to be locked out of their apartment or house, and nearly all seemed excited by the simplicity and obviousness of the device, which leads me to suspect that it will be both practical and well-recieved.

I plan to keep in mind my own experiences of being locked out and those shared with me as a guide during the design and creation process. As well, I am aware of how much conjecture surrounds the creation of our device at this point, and expect idea shifts and design changes as we collectively saunter towards the final product.

Overall, I look forward to this project.

-jnh

""Entry 3""

Dearest Journal,

Bold moves forward this week. Personally, I completed my lab assignment Saturday morning without a hitch. Though I didn't get to play with the code too much, I am looking forward to using my arduino to control events in Processing in the upcoming projects. From now own I'll document my labs with cameraphone pictures in order to better communicate my experience and address my problems.

Meanwhile, our intrepid crew trekked into unknown physcomp territories, braving harsh mental terrains and alien design concepts. Though we nearly lost Marc in Chinatown on what was planned to be a routine trip to 269 electronics, we've recomposed and are once again on the move. Our big breakthrough this week was the discovery of the Texas Instruments RFID keyring tag and reader. It was uncovered while slashing through the endless rhizomic layers of the world wide web. Funny, it's as if almost as if someone has had the exact same ideas as we are having now! I can't verify this, as placing a locator on one's keys seems such an arcane and esoteric endeavor that I can't imagine someone else beating us to the punch. Anyways, can't let my paranoia take over. The group must stick together if we are going to make it through this. I won't let this turn like the Chupacabra excavation. I promise myself at least that.

So we are going to draw up some schematics, and bring what we can into class on Wednesday. If the RFID arrives in time we'll bring that in as well.

St. Christopher be with us,

JNH

This week for group 6 was long and strenuous and unfruitful until the very last moment. We struggled with the TI reader and sought out much external help, but could never really get things to work completely. Doria gave us a Parallax reader, and we managed to set up a basic protogype of the project that suffices for what we need to present for class. Our progress can also be tracked here: http://itp.nyu.edu/~gs41/fall2006/pcomp/index.php/Main/Group6

Arduino: serial to Processing:

Here's verification of the serial to processing lab.

http://www.itp.nyu.edu/~jnh251/ICM/Assignment6/Index.htm

H-bridge and Motor Lab

Here's a movie of the Motor lab which I completed with Allistar.

http://omorphy.com/ITP/pcom/media/HBRIDGE.mov

Final Project Idea Ever since I first saw the movie Altered States, in which research scientist William Hurt manages to revert back to a primitive human/simian state via psychadelics and a sensory deprivation chamber, I've been enamored with the idea of sensory deprivation chambers. Thinking of this movie while considering my p-comp final, I decided I wanted to do something that would accentuate auditory and tactile stimulations through removing the sense of vision and better bridge the connection between hearing and the body. Ideally, I would one day create sound installations that envision the body through sound, that is, an individual would gain a new orientation of the corpus and better understanding of their personal proprioeceptive senses through participating in an installation that traced/mapped bodily movement and location sonically within a space.

Allistar, Chul and I have decided to work together for the final, and I threw out some of the above ideas and we've wittled them down to creating something slightly more manageable, though ambitions nonetheless. We want to creat accessible enclosure, darkened within, that contains a chair in which to sit and an contoured handspace filled with sand, water, or some other small, dense and malleable objects . As the participant moves their hands among the sand etc a sound wave will be generated/augmented in accordance with the hand/sand movement. Beneath the sand will be FSR sensors that will detect the shifting weight of the sand etc. The point is to create a relaxing environment in which anyone will be able to create a unique sonic experience through simple movements.

Or so i hope.

I would love to be able to present this for the fall show, but we'll have to see how things turn out.

MIDI LAB

Allistar, Chul, and I got together to do the MIDI lab as a primer of sorts for our final project. Using an Interlink FSR to send analog data into an Arduino, and ran the midi out from the breadboard into a MidiMan, and then ran the MidiMan USB out into Max/MSP. This was good because we plan to use MIDI data into Max/MSP for our final project, though the data won't be in note form so we don't have to worry about keys, harmony, etc, and the sound will just be augmented by numerical values.

Here's our setup, sans computer.

"1"

"2"

"3"

"4"