Popular meters
This week, I received my Didget and forced my boyfriend to be the guinea pig. He played the DS game for all of three minutes, and asked if he could just use the meter and make me play the game (he left the bulky white meter at home, however, and took his snazzy sleek Ultra Mini with him instead). The DS game is pretty elaborate, but is a point-and-click adventure, so I imagine it has an end point. From what I can tell, I believe that Bayer envisioned this product being ported for a dozen or so different games to appeal to a range of kids, but the new DS systems no longer have the legacy slot for the meter. I guess that’s my opening.
I am working on the initial logic in Processing for my little GluPets, but also continuing research into glucometers and how they output data. Perhaps someone can help me hack one of these guys?
The Bayer Contour meter doesn’t seem to have a great deal of functionality beyond simple metering. I don’t see anything about the meter having USB connect-ability, for example.
However, the Contour USB version has not only a more robust display, but has a built-in USB plug so that one could then download their information onto the computer. The software has charting and other data vis capabilities, but obviously, not made for kids.
The OneTouch UltraMini is the meter my boyfriend uses, and the one I’ve seen most in public, probably because it’s super slim and comes in colors. The output is super simple, however, and mostly just gives you a number and time.
The UltraSmart is a larger meter with probably the most robust built-in visualisation I have seen from the more popular meters. It not only has on-board flagging capabilities with charts to plot out one’s numbers, but also comes with a software kit so that one can upload, visualize, and print their blood glucose data. This one is great, but still, not extremely exciting for your average kid, unless they are REALLY into graphs.
If I am to exploit any of these meters, I imagine the OneTouch UltraSmart has the best potential, as it already has a lot of software on board. However, I have no idea how to even begin doing this.
Volunteers?
andywallace 10:06 pm on April 11, 2011 Permalink |
I wouldn’t necessarily worry too much about getting the readings. You could make a very viable prototype just using simulated readings. Somebody else (Scott I think) suggested just using RFID tags to represent the different readings a user could have (high, low, medium) etc.
Having it use real readings would make it difficult to demonstrate anyway since you’d pretty much have to kill your boyfriend to show the creature when it’s really sad or unhappy.
Oylum 10:09 pm on April 11, 2011 Permalink |
Your research is getting detailed and you are finding new stuff each time, which is really great. But I think you should start prototyping your project from now on. Sometimes the assumptions fail so bad when you prototype it and it will definitely happen to you. You cannot make sure which direction to go, how to continue this project unless you have something working even if it’s not working perfectly. I suggest you do some implementation prototypes and blend it with look and feel for the next step.
GluPet Final « Making Toys 1:29 am on May 17, 2011 Permalink |
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