Real-Time

All the laser-cut plans have been cut and assembled, and my classmate wired up the LEDs for the light-box. Rocker switches were bought for the light-box to make it aesthetically pleasing to use and the results, especially for the light-box… were astonishing!

‘Processing’ was used to draw up the data visually in all cases. The bar chart and spiral representations were manipulated with Adobe Illustrator. We would have liked ...more »

I left my classmate (Stephen Dunn) to attach one of the 20 pedometers to the heart rate monitor he was putting together. We were not able to obtain data from a group of volunteers in the end, due to time, but Stephen recorded the data of his activity over 24hours (A day per volunteer would have been spent, as there is only one Arduino). The Arduino needed ...more »

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It is now the point in the module when we need to individually, or group up, and formulise a final project proposal.

In summary, me and a classmate (Stephen Dunn), are going to hook up six volunteers with a heart rate monitor and pedometer for 24 hours each. The volunteers will not know why they are wearing the device or what the data will be used for.

The two devices will ...more »

We (Stephen Dunn, included) created concept designs and mock ups of what we would build. From those designs we were able to judge what the outcome should look like. Then we painstakingly soldered together all the LEDs into a wire-frame; a few LEDs blew along the way, which was annoying because they had to be detached and replaced. With that built, we placed it onto a laser-cut plinth of Devon (Are names are engraved onto the platform).

Originally, my classmate had ...more »

Our guest lecturer gave us a talk on ECOIDS and how they are being used across Devon at the moment to capture data such as: Stretch (wind), humidity, light, water flow, etc. Each ECOIDS wirelessly relays the information back to a hub where the data is catalogued. The information can then been read in XML format through an RSS feed.

ECOIDS consist with a programmable embed circuit board which is attaced with a Xbee to wirelessly send the data to a collection hub. They are powered by solar energy and can be placed carefully in any natural environment. It provides a way for artists, scientists and engineers with a real time model of the environment to develop visualistaions, sonifications (music) and interactive projects ...more »

End of term last year and over Christmas we were set a project to think about love detection. We were tasked to think how we could gather enough information to detect love.

At first I tried to think in simple terms, what are the physical elements that can be measured when someone falls in love? Then I thought how could those be recorded? These elements would include heart rate, perspiration, speech, face recognition, body language, etc.

I created a powerpoint presentation, where I describe each idea… ...more »

Max 6 is software for computers to allow the creation of almost mind-map looking circuits. You have a range of tools at your disposal to be able to create a function. This could be a blinking light or virtual keyboard programmed to play a tune. The great thing about the software is you can attached devices to the computer to input or output information. So for example, you can attach a MIDI keyboard to record music or a webcam to manipulate the video it captures.

Our brief was to capture some form of information and represent it differently using the Max 6 software ...more »

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It was demonstrated, by the lecturer, that we can grab raw data from a RSS feed and import it into Flash. From there, we can use the data to manipulate shapes and lines. So our task for the next three weeks was to ...more »