Group 5:
- Kate B
- Joseph
- Angela
PROTOTYPE PROPOSAL
We observed activity at the dog run in Washington Square Park. After presenting in class last week, we came up with several ideas for the prototype including an RFID locator, a maze, sound transfer, and entry gate sound patterns. But Michael's comparison of the dog run to a church inspired us to come up with "Holy Lights".
Owners/walkers and their dogs regularly visit the park to exercise their dogs and socialize with each other. They congregate to share common interests just like church-goers on Sundays.
Holy Lights proposes to set up a lamp above the dog run, whose brightness and radiating warmth is correlated to the amount of people present. A video camera would count the people in the space.
Visitors would eventually connect their presence in numbers to the brightness of the light, hopefully reinforcing their awareness of each other and participation as part of a larger community.
Below is an image of the model built to represent the park model. Contrast was needed for the video to pickup on the presence of people/pets, so we made figures out of white foamboard and the background elements out of black foamboard. Additional lighting was necessary to improve video tracking (used a clip lamp).
This next image shows Processing detecting 3 figures in the park (notice the printed 3's in the bottom left - output from the program).
Project Elements:
- Video camera to detect people (iSight/miniDV camera for model demo). We used the Processing blob detection package from http://www.v3ga.net/ to count the number of objects/figures in the dogrun. This connected to a PIC microcontroller via serial cable.
- Jumbo super bright LED to represent "Holy Light" park lamp
Issues Encountered:
- Problems with serial connection, including USB to serial adapters (tried both Keyspan + IOGear?)
- Getting serial to read in data from video sensing to LED brightness via Processing
- Applications used: PicBasic? Pro, Processing and ZTerm?. Crashes occurred with Processing and ZTerm?
Feb 6
Additional Observation Notes
Yonatan Kelib & Teresa Porter shot some footage of the Washington Square dog run on a Saturday morning for their documentary project. Here are some notes:
Interview with Tamara, dog owner, says dogs are a great way to socialize. They grow up from puppies and take them here to exercise. A community forms with those who have similar schedules; they meet up for 6am run. New York's a hard place to meet people, but the dog park is great way to meet, go to coffee, and setup doggie playdates.
During another interview, two women said dogs provide unconditional love.
Robin Kovary Run for small dogs Owners agree that dogs can be a medium to meet other people - conversation is through the dog. There is definitely a sense of community in the park, some more so than others. There are more people during the week than weekend, but you almost always see someone you know. No one knows owners' names, but they know the dogs' names. A couple they interviewed had met at the park - he was studying there, her dog went over to him and they hit it off.
They close video with Tamara again, "Dogs are part of the family, they're like kids."
Feb 5
Prospective Subjects for Prototype Proposal:
1. RFID Locator:
2. Maze:
3. Sound Transfer
4. Holy Lights
5. Gate Patterns
Jan 31
Exciting moments during out dog-park shoot:
Short audio recording of ambient sounds
Notes: We observed behavior both when the park was occupied and empty (due to the rain). We got video footage, lots of photographs, and recorded a little bit of audio. What caught our attention were subtle interactions between people, not-so-subtle interactions between the dogs (i.e. see An Intimate Moment above), signage, entry gates, and the makeshift Lost & Found on a mangled section of fence near the entrance.
Additional Observation Notes:
Dog owners and walkers use the Washington Square Dog Park as an open space for their dogs to exercise, interact with other dogs, people, and sometimes other inhabitants of the park like the pigeons. We also observed the behavior of the people present at these parks - some talked with each other, talked on their cell phones, smoked cigarettes, actively played (chasing, throwing toys) with their dogs, or stood/sat idly by.
There are a number of rules posted around the fence of the dog park, with no consistency across the signage. Some are made of a more durable plastic material, while others are just printed on regular paper and placed in plastic protective sheets. It's interesting to note that the dog run is "financed solely by dog run user donations. We do not receive one penny from the city or parks department." This is indicated on the main sign for the large dog run in small print and references www.washsqdogrun.org, but there's nothing posted to the website.
During our discussion in class last Wed, we heard about other people's experiences with other dog runs - how it could be a spot to meet new people, establish friendships, and a family activity (walk your creatures i.e. pets and kids).
After another observation when the weather was a bit better, there were more people with their dogs (both large and small) in the larger park, and the owners were engaging their dogs more in playful activity by chasing them, running alongside, and using different toys. So the weather definitely has an effect on both the usage of the space and behavior of the owners and their dogs.
Jan 30
Our plan to observe the Washington Square Dog Park on Sunday Jan 29th was stymied by rain. We will observe on Tuesday. If it's clear we'll shoot outside; otherwise, we'll have to improvise another site.