1) Re-Write your one sentence description.

“Skate Signal” is designed with freestyle skaters in mind as a training application and stylistic addition to their boards that responds to the boards movements.

2)list 2 “big findings” that came out from the evolution of your protoypes.

• learning to work with and program accelerometers.

• upon researching this, I have devised a system I will further develop to track skate board flip tricks electronically with minimalist hardware attached to the board.

3) list 3 differences with your work from that of prior art.

The prior art I have discovered as done two things. It has either mounted lights on the board and ignored what the free style skateboard is used for, or the creators focused on the tricks of skaters but have mapped them and placed the electronics in hopelessly poor places on the physical board while using an abundance of cumbersome electronics.

My work hides the electronics of the board keeping it useful to the freestyle skater while adding aesthetics and sporting applications. At this time, I have also kept my electronics to a minium, relying on one microcontroller, one accelerometer sensor, 9 leds, and one coin cell battery.

http://www.samratamin.com/Ardumote.html

I want feedback specifically on implementation and the perfect critic would be someone like Tony Hawk.

questions:

• How could the design be more seamlessly worked into freestyle skate culture?

• How could the electronics be placed within the design as to not inhibit the skater?

• How easy would this be to mass produce?

• What is more important the visual aesthetic or the practical functionality?

• How should I market this? Is it worth marketing?

• Are you hiring?

Also see:
Google “arduino robot cart”

Also check out:

I thought of your presentation when I noticed this today. They are new, thought you might think it is interesting….

They are electrodes that a user can wear for low-level “electric sensation”.

• Did any surprises come from this round of prototyping?

I was surprised by the unsolicited feedback that I received while prototyping in the D12 space. It was
helpful to see what projects resinated with my peers.

• What was the hardest thing from this round of prototypes?

The hardest thing was determining what hardware to purchase for the next round. I am unsure of all of
the things I’ll need to make my project work.

• What was the easiest thing from this round of prototypes for you?

The easiest part of prototyping this round was creating the 3d shapes. Although they were just mock-ups
I found that the tactile aspect of prototyping was fun.

The other big surprise came from the tubing we are using. Generally, DIY hula hoops use 1″ irrigation poly tubing, which is usually black and opaque. Since the goal is to find tubing that diffuses the light, we went with another type of tubing (reinforced vinyl tubing 1″ at 125 PSI) that has cross-hatched reinforcements on the inside and diffuses the light beautifully. However, upon testing, we found that it is not rigid enough. Next step is to reinforce with clear plastic tubing.

One less pleasant surprise was the discovery that because the RGB LED strips require 12V to run, we will have to power it with a different source besides the Arduino which acts as the controller. This will prove to be challenging because we are working with a very small space inside the hula hoop tube.

What was the hardest thing to make from this round of prototypes?
The hardest thing was getting the look and feel of the tube itself right. Because we’re using different materials than the standard hula hoop tube in order to allow the light to shine through, it’s a challenge coming up with a combination of materials which still give the rigidity and ease of use of a traditional hoop. We’re going to test with having a harder clear plastic tube inside the larger braided tube, forming a channel in-between for the LED strip.

What was the easiest thing from this round of prototypes for you?
The easiest thing was getting the clock mechanism or servomotor running, because servomotors by default are aware of the angle that they’re positioned at. This makes it fairly simple to get the information about clock hand angle and pass it to the lighting.

—-What was the hardest thing about making these prototypes?

Again, the research. I have explored numerous techniques to achieve this goal, including collaborating with a mathematician.
Over all, I need to research compass sensors and test one.

I am still exploring smart phone applications involving this project.

—-What was the easiest thing about this round of prototypes for you?
Find the motivation to work on this is easy to come by. I’m interested in creating this project and using it. I see an immediate return in creating this and that pushes me to work at it.

My two favorite concepts are the minimalist baseball game and the cold war installation game. They are both projects that I could see myself creating; projects that I think I actually believe I have the expertise to do well.

My least favorite concepts are the Needy Buddy and the fridge scale. They are both semi-jokish concepts that I don’t know if I could create very well.

My 2 favorite concepts are the Electromyographic interface and the Play Code idea. The former, because I’m excited to explore the idea of a physical connection manifesting itself on a digital interface, and the latter because I’m interested in teaching younger generations coding principles with games and seeing how that can effect the absorption of knowledge for further skill sets.

My 2 least favorite concepts are the Cappi-chuino and the Grown-Up Piggy bank. The former because arduino shields already exist, and though I think this would be fun, it’s not necessarily that original, I mostly just like the way Cappi-chuino sounds when you say it. The Grown-Up Piggy bank doesn’t necessarily interest me because I’ve already attempted working with it and APIs for banking information aren’t very accessible.

The Anita Bryant deal would be interesting — but I’ve no angle on how to approach it regards interactivity and what I’ve learned at skool so far.

Im probably thinking 1 and 2. The idea of the wallpaper would have to be driven by by the graphic that is projected itself. Moving graphics around via the user’s body isn’t that new. So this will have to be reworked.

The structure of the house/set design has always fascnated me — and the “Oliver Twist” house/idea has received the best feedback. Its narrative is the most difficult: where does this journey around the house take you? why would the user want to experience/interact w character development? It would also be very hard to build….perhaps it would be scaled.

This exercise was difficult in its immensity. I’ve thought about thesis and was pretty sure what I wanted to do. “Twist”