Power dive a new beginnings

In the final power dive before Chi 2012 submission, One paper down and three more to go.  Plus architecture workshop proposal and neurodiversity Alt.chi submission ( which is later ).

Just restarted the cloud - I think there was a power failure or something. So some data gone - but there is few people around to notice still irritating.

Talked to Gerd Kortuem ( www.kortuem.com ) the new pervasive professor - not an Yvonne replacement ( that will be someone else ) was supposed to work in parallel .Nice bloke and I think we got on well.

 He told me they have a system at Lancaster which might let me return the ambient displays experiment again for more data.  I think we have enough of an overlap to do something. He is interested in  visualisations, hospitals and work flow ( in hospitals ) which is handy.


Invited to a multi-touch do at Oxford ( by Eva I suspect)  and invited to review a journal paper ( by Jeff I suspect ).

The punch bag kids seem to be going well.

for the record amazon associates still doesn't work

So back to paper #2.

Cloud PIR sensor failure

Looks like the cloud PIR sensor will not work on the cloud balls. But it will detect people motion ( I have a nice use for this ) .

Back to the grind

Finally back in the lab - I haven't escaped M255 ( introduction to Java) exercises  but just postponed it ( deadline for TMA is 6th Jan). 




Got back to lab and the sensor network was down - I've managed to fix it, I think but needs some recalibration. I'm now working on sorting out the cloud display. Then I can get data for the paper. 


Also spent today looking for drivers for the Diamond Touch for Khaled Bachour and we found them ( kind of ) . The new bulb is in so I've managed to run it with the Mac OK. 


I wonder if I have time to do the ecology of devices before Yvonne takes the cool tables with her to UCL ? 


PANIC 

Stairs vs Lifts

If you want to know who else is doing lift vs staircase stuff.

Sunghee Park

End of cloud

found some damage on the cloud so we thought it was best to take it down.

Took all morning to get the bits off.

Data outage

I came in this morning to find that the server had crashed ( out of memory ) over the weekend. I've restarted the server.

We now have the feed back on the paper ( I must finish reading ).

the sensor net is back on line

Yah! Proper research here we come!

The day of the cloud approaches

OK on friday was a good day. New H-Bridges turned up from America and I left while the great guys from Electronics came over to replace all the h-bridges and multiplexers. Looks like they have the internal power supply working. I was talking to RIchie today and he seems confident that he has got more motors working, which is good. 

I'm pleased not because its necessary but because it might mean we can run the experiment for longer. 

Hopefully R. will concentrate on getting the experiment observed. 

Notes in the end we went for a direct mapping from absolute number to height. The taller the the more people are using it. The idear was to have something that looks like its moving all day ( you will always see a change). This way you always see the number of people in the building the eb and flow of the day. Could be good. 

big cloud weirdness of the day

Well this is high on my list of strange. 
I when I compile the code on the macMini to down load to the arduinio motors s,t and k start going down and don't stop ( until you pull the plug). When I down load the same code from my laptop it runs fine even when I change to talking to the board from the macMini. 


The mac mini will only run Ardunio 17 my latop is on 15. I'm down loading all the fixes to the mac mini in hope this sorts things out. 


Looks like motor 'O' is off line and naturally 'E' is to feeble. 


I still havn't run the cloud on full yet ( except accidently ) bit nervous about blowing the board. The network is now down so I'm a bit stuck. 

Sensor net back on line

All the arduinos are now talking to the server!

Pressure pad on unit 2 (central stairs ) might have worn down. We need re-calibration.

State of the sensor network

1. Sensor 202 ( entrance ) - network off line. I think the machine its self is OK. Contact networking again.
2. Sensor 201 ( central stair case ) - one line and working but I think pressure pad is down replace.
3. Sensor 203 (far staircase) -network ok. won't work from external power supply, Need to check pads. Fix put in 10K resistor to RX ping to ground. - Might get USB power supply to.

I think I can get 2 up and running by end of week. Possibly 3.

Floor disaster

Richie worked for about 8 hours over the weekend trying to get the cyber carpet installed. Unfortunately the result was far to thick. Paul came in and declared it was unworkable.

So Richie, Paul ( and others I'm not sure ) took all the cyber-tiles up leaving the pressure pads.

Everyone has had some idears about what to do to fix it but not a good moment.

We are expecting the new motors today. If they turn up we can run one into the ground to test.

CloudFall

Richie has been running the cloud with the new acceleration code I wrote yesterday. Its been going fine all morning but when they got back from Lunch one sphere started bobbing. I looks like the gear has gone on that one.

Richie and Nadia looking for frayed wires ( one found).

Cloud Disaster

New controller arrived to drive the cloud R had it up and running this morning.

Looks like the weight of the balls cause them to strip the gears. Very Very Low moment.

Attrium meeting.

Floor stuff

To-do

take carpet tile to CHI.

Order carpet tiles.

Clouds

White stairs. Red lifts.

Higher up more , lower down less.

each little motor changes slightly random

Ideal - individual movement of lights.

short cut - frame with balls hanging down.

Sheep to email drawing of idea to Richie

Sussana to make some animations of carpet patterns + cloud patterns.

some carpet tiles with LEDs in nice.

http://picocool.com/architecture/lama-concepts-cell--led-carpet-1/

Transparent computing

A voice emanating from the stairs. I once did a program for Lucy Kimble that took her speaking digits and had it counting down from 1000000 in a station. If you heard voices in the stairs perhaps you might turn to investigate?

I once wanted to use speech synthesis and recognition to make verbal bandwidth, one computer would talk to another, sending bytes by speaking them and the other listening converting back to binary. The idea was to have a very slow network connection between to networks were you could hear the flow of information, so you could listen to the internet. Might be able to get reasonable bandwidth by having a number of speaking tubes.

Another perfect visualisation method

http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/marbles/machine1.html

check out the video.

I like the image that every time someone walked up the stairs you get this ball running down a track all the way from the 2nd floor to the bottom. If you take the lift you get another ball to another bin. Perhaps you would get a physical balance at the bottom just to reinforce the point.

I could see a really big tube/sculpture (?) hanging suspended from wires in a spiral in the atrium - make a really big statement grab lots of attention. The noise would be attractive to.

Images of atrium

To many images to include. 

Prada mirror guy + flowers

Found David Kelly on TED talks. He claims to be the guy behind the prada mirrors in changing rooms. Also claims to be responsible for some of the useless exhibits in the science museum extension(boo his).

The bit of the talk I liked is the plastic flowers that wilt when you leave. I like the idea of a physical display that wilts flowers the more people who use the lifts. 

Fun ambient visualistion site link

http://infosthetics.com/archives/ambient/http://web.arch.usyd.edu.au/~andrew/publications/pervasive07_persuasive_display.pdf