Evander Batson
xinhe feng
FluffyLeecy
frankiezek
gaboratparsons
giang063
gracegotlost
lauriewaxman
Siwen Li
Xiaofeng Lin
Yury Gitman
mar28th
Max(TONG WEN)
Soohyun
sabotai
Susan Lin
Updates
Here is an update of what i’ve been doing.
Planting Seeds
Setting up Space
Setting up Water Flow
Above the system is pumping water, I even did a height test, and was able to pump water to the top of the skylight featured above.
Updates from April, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Chris Piuggi
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thisisvictorkim
“Video Sampler” performance Prior Art *edit*
So my idea is inspired by my own attempts at recreating Lasseg Gjertsen’s pseudo drum machine videos. While editing my own video I kept thinking to myself how much easier it would be if I just had a video sampler/drum machine instead of cutting up a video and plotting music on a timeline (Final Cut) that is not optimized for sequencing a beat.
so beginning with what my performance is not, here is a VJ (video jockey) set from VJ Fader. he is controlling visuals to accompany a DJ/artists performance.
it is more akin to the MPC performances by Araab Muzik and Jeremy Ellis
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scottpeterman
Four different attempts at the cymbal (and by extension bass drum and trombone)
So while I’m in waiting mode on the tilt sensors, new pressure sensors, and glove fabrication, I made a decision: I want to do a marching band. Just brass, bass drum, snare drum and cymbal. Funny, effective, and I have the base tech for all of them.
Towards that end, I began to experiment with some things I had in my toolkit with the intent of working out a good proximity systems.
Last week in class I began to play with the gyroscope towards the end of making a bass drum. I got it working but the feedback from Thom and my musician friend Ed was that it really should be based on proximity of the two hands, not just the speed of the hand. To top it off, my gyroscope now seems to be broken.
I also had the Sharp short range proximity sensor and the MaxSonics LV-EZ ultrasonic range finder. GREAT tutorial on both here:
Bildr proximity tutorialUnfortunately these both had a problem – they are useless at short range! The LV-EZ just holds at a value of 11 within two centimeters, and the Sharp switches at the value of 500 and counts down again to hold at a value ranging from 0-150 based on the reflectivity of the surface that is held against it.
For a moment tried to do it with just a photoresistor, but it is just not accurate enough. Below is some example code I was using with Sharp sensor to do a cymbal with velocity varying on length of hit that doesn’t work due to the short range issue…
int sensor1; int sensor2; void setup(){ Serial.begin(9600); } void loop(){ int sensor=analogRead(A0); Serial.println(sensor); if(sensor>400&&sensor1<400&&sensor1>200&&sensor2<400&&sensor2>200){ int velocity=map(sensor2,400,200,60,127); MIDI_TX(144,57,velocity); delay(100); MIDI_TX(128,57,velocity); Serial.println(velocity); } delay(50); sensor2=sensor1; sensor1=sensor; } void MIDI_TX(unsigned char MESSAGE, unsigned char PITCH, unsigned char VELOCITY) { Serial.print(MESSAGE); Serial.print(PITCH); Serial.print(VELOCITY); }-
Chris Piuggi
Looks like your moving pretty well along on this project. Here is a great sample i found for balancing out IR sensors and getting great distances out of them. Anyone could really use this, it give you great system for calculating distance based off of the voltage.
http://luckylarry.co.uk/arduino-projects/arduino-using-a-sharp-ir-sensor-for-distance-calculation/
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Thom Hines
Easy CMS just got easier! (Buy now!)
After a lot of prototypes and experiments, I managed to hack my code and TinyMCE to the point where I can now edit in the most WYSIWYG environment ever made for web content management. It still has a lot of work left to do, but the biggest hurdle I saw going into this new version of the project was the text editor interface, and I had some major breakthroughs over the weekend.
From here, I have to get the admin interface more concretely nailed down, incorporate some sort of image uploader and media manager, and finally work on a system of installing the app so that most of the work on integrating the CMS into specific pages is handled automatically on the server.
I’ll be posting a staging ground for other people to test soon, and if anybody has a static or simple site that they would like to manage with this, let me know and I’ll be sure to pass my source along to you in the next 1-2 weeks.
Log in here:
http://thomhines.com/projects/cms/easycmsPlay with it here:
http://thomhines.com/projects/cms/texteditor.php-
scottpeterman
Can’t wait to get my hands on it.
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Thom Hines
You’ll be among the first! I should have the whole package contained by next week. Thanks for your support, Scott!
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Alvaro Soto
More than suggestions,, i have like questions because I think this is very interesting and perhaps something totally new and successful, I can name several people that I know that would rather on work on a platform like this than complicated databases like WordPress.
I dont even think that the target for this kind of applications are “moms” or ppl with very phew knowledge of technology and the Internet. to me, this follows trends like twitter and maybe Facebook where content is fast and direct. I can see writers, and group projects using this type of platforms-
Thom Hines
Thanks, Alvaro. I’ll definitely ask you more about any people willing to try it out next week. Moms and writers are both excellent people to focus on, and one person yesterday suggested students. It’s something I hadn’t really thought about, but picking smaller segments of the online population might help me find ways of focusing this project in ways I hadn’t thought of, and it really makes me think of a dozen other flavors this CMS can take on.
Fast and direct are indeed key, and if you see any other ways of removing barriers, let me know! Twitter is a really good model in a lot of ways. Thanks!
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Victor Kim
Can you make an artist’s portfolio template such as a more customizable, but still easy to use version of Dripbook?
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Thom Hines
As I said to Alvaro above, I am now picturing a lot of different implementations, and a portfolio system seems like it would be perfect. We know too many people who need a portfolio not to try to tackle that problem. Thanks!
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Chris Piuggi
recently came across this again ~~ awesome CSS interface for your reference.
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Thom Hines
Nice! I saw that link the other day when you shared it for Boot Camp. It would be interesting to be able to change columns and structure on the fly… I’ll have to figure out how to work that in. Thanks, man.
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Chris Piuggi is discussing. 
Thom Hines, 
Yury Gitman
Your comments please. Ten mins late.
I’m running 10 mins late. Spend the first 10 mins of class commenting on 1-2 other last project posts. See you soon.
Yury
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Bree
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.
Oylum, and 
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andywallace
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.
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Oylum
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.
hilalkoyuncu
Moving on with physical prototype
Here are a “few” images of my prototype. My code is working 80%. I am hoping to do a few adjustments to the code and playtest it during class. His name is “hipster toy” but you have probably never heard of it.
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scottpeterman, and 
breegeek are discussing. -
breegeek
definitely looks hipster tastic. You could have him wearing bulky headphones and use those to house speakers…
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scottpeterman
Hey this looks great! Love the little blue jeans, very cool.
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Behnaz Babazadeh
Love the stache, its definitely hip with the hipsters. His expression is a bit strange but maybe thats what your going for … maybe less black around the eyes and instead put a eyeglasses frame on him, the thick black ones 🙂
Alvaro Soto
A lot is going on//Modulos Update
After Prototyping both circuits and look and feel for Modulos (finally it has a name), I started re-thinking what the project was about, finding the soul of my main idea and what differentiates my project from cubelets, Braun electron or Olars. I always been very interested in my role as a product designer in a program where interaction in screen based applications is the main area of research. For my thesis id like to work on techniques and development of materials and manufacture processes for product development. Thinking on technology as a way to enhance aesthetics, performance etc.
Modulus to me is the starting poing of this research where fabrication is as important as the technology. Id like to document the process starting from wood scraps and the use of laser cutter technology. so to explain in an elevator pitch what Modolus is:
Modulos is a modular optical color mixer that uses electronics (inputs and actuators) embedded in wooden blocks.
Modulos is designed to show the product design process of an object with computing electronics from start to end as a way to experiment and research on material properties, physical interactions and production methods.
All the circuits and code are working
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breegeek
Wow, it’s an ambitious project and it’s already so far along!
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Oylum
The documentation is really good. We can definitely see your design process here. You have the circuit and code working which is nice, but things will change when you take the parts out and put them on their own containers. I think you should prototype the implementation on paper cubes, just to see what happens when you take apart that circuit. You can replace the paper cubes with the actual wood ones whenever they are ready and whenever you’re sure your circuits are working perfectly.
I really like this project and admire the way it develops.
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scottpeterman
I really like the name alvaro and looks like you’re making some great prototypes. Already, just from your photos, you can really see that the blocks are going to have a sense of heft, of actual, “block”-y weight. I wouldn’t worry too much about differentiating yourself from the prior art you cite, your project is unique in its very handmade/piece-of-craft nature, though those are great inspiration (and I want to play with all of them)
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andywallace
Not to reiterate what everybody else said, but this project is really interesting and looks like it’s shaping up to be something really cool and sleek.
One thing, though, is that your elevator pitch is kind of confusing, at least for me. It has a lot going on, and I wasn’t clear if the project was the final object or the process and its documentation. Just something to think about when explaining what the project is.
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Thom Hines
This has always been one of my favorite projects in the class, especially since we have been focusing so much on toys this semester. Bridging the analog and digital gap is tricky, especially in a novel way, and the real winners in the area manage to make you forget that you are dealing with either.
It’s hard to get a very specific sense of your implementation from just the sketches alone, although you have done plenty of work on them and perhaps they are perfect to help you guide your thoughts. It is great to see you trying out various forms in your drawings, and you should push it, but I hope you don’t lose track of your target audience. Simplicity in design can be a major strength when the underlying principles may be harder to grasp.
That said, I totally think you are right about the materials being a key part of your project. These things are completely tactile, and so even if a user had no idea what these blocks could do, they should be a pleasure to touch and hold on their own.
As for role and differentiating yourself from the precendents you showed, I would think about how you could make it more intuitive to work with, where there is essentially no ‘wrong’ way to do it. Find ways of introducing relationships between ALL the blocks, so that any two blocks can make something happen. If this is for kids, it should be fun right out the gate.
Also, I ran across this a while back, and I just thought about it in relation to your project. http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=365
Good luck, man!
thisisvictorkim
“IOIO (pronounced: yo-yo) is a product which lets you connect electronic circuits to an Android device and control them from an Android application.”
andywallace
Gyroscopes! Infrared LEDS! Sounds! Balls! YOUR WILDEST DREAMS!
I dealt with a few things this weekend, so I’ll just start at the top.
Wireless Gyroscope
It looked like this, but with more tape.
lpercifield, and 1 other are discussing. -
Yury
Andy,
You are doing great work. Lots of distance covered on research, prototyping, experimentation. -
Alvaro Soto
Andy, Ill post again when I have information about the foam coat that I told you in class, you can make some perforations at the end of the process, keep both half spheres separate and join them at the end with styrofoam glue.
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lpercifield
When I created a hollow ball last semester by casting a form in silicon. It worked pretty well but took a little time to cure. For the power switch you might look into a hall effect sensor that will turn the thing on and off with a magnet.
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Alvaro Soto
This is the artist Chris talked about
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andywallace
Some quick responses from presenting:
-people seem to like the the sound changed ball.
-Victor suggests using a cube for it, which think is a very good idea.-Balls that affect the sound the other balls make in general seem popular.
-If I’m going to have the sounds switch, I’ll need to make other sound synths, which could be tough. I like the chime sounds I’m using now, and I’m not a sound person, so I worked pretty hard at them, but a few variants shouldn’t be too bad. An 8-bit collection could be fun, same goes for a set of brass sounds.
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Alvaro
Andy these are the two resins you could use to coat the styrofoam:
http://www.aquaresin.com/
orhttp://www.westsystem.com/ss/
andywallace
Problems with serial and OpenFrameworks
Hey guys,
I’m trying to get my xbee to talk with openfFrameworks using the serial port, but it keeps freezing up my computer.
I’m using the serial example that comes with openFrameworks and just changing the baud rate to 157,600 since that’s what seems to be working for my gyroscope. I get good data for a few seconds and then everything locks up an I have to restart.
Anybody else experienced something like this or know what I might be doing wrong?
hilalkoyuncu
Prior art/ reframing the concept
Prior Art:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5psNItY-f4
Concept:
I decided to reframe my concept.
My game is going to be aimed toward adults and the diseases that the toy will display will be ones that I will create based on contemporary afflictions of technology. An example of diseases would be “facebook fever”. I am still researching though, hopefully will come up with interesting conditions.
I will most probably barrow the game mechanics of “the operation”.
I built most circuits and coded the interactions (sound and visual feedback) and there are some glitches that I would like to work on.
Hopefully I will have a working first prototype in the next session.
Thom Hines
Easy Peasy CMS
I’ve developed my CMS a bit further than last time, as it now works with images and can store user settings (such as password, etc.) in a data file on the server. Since my CMS is intended to operate without a database, it’s essential that all of the information can be stored and updated on the server, but only in file format.
See it here.
user: thomhines
pass: pass
Todo
- Some sort of media manageer so that images, PDFs, etc. can be linked to easily from within the browser window.
- A multi-user permission systems that will allow for different users to have access to only content, styling, page structure, etc.
- A way to store drafts and/or versions
- Smart, inline editing that will allow the content editor to feel like he/she is actually editing the page.
- Smart phone optimization
- Standardize theming system to allow for quick changes in style
- Collaborative editing?
- Automatic install process
- Site manager
In addition to all this, I need to get it onto a few sites and test it thoroughly. In order to make sure I can get enough testing, I’ve decided to break the development down into several sub-versions, which I will make available as I go along. I’ve also set up the file structure so that the core files are stored separately from the settings and content, so that upgrading should be as simple as replacing the core file folder and the new features should be integrated right away.
Needs
The more research I have done, the more I can see the advantages of a system like this in certain, somewhat specific instances. First of all, MySQL and all the relational databases that drive all the common CMSs are generally slow(ish), and when operating under heavy traffic loads or on a server with sparse resources, can slow to a crawl or even crash. I ran across this an article earlier today (http://carpeaqua.com/2011/04/05/recipe-for-baked-wordpress/) that talks about how to ensure your hosted version of WordPress can survive a large influx of traffic. The advice isn’t difficult, but it is above many people’s heads, and even if it wasn’t, people clearly aren’t following it. The takeaway of the article: If you can’t or don’t want to do this, don’t bother setting up your own WordPress install.
Furthermore, there is a movement of people who are completely against the use of MySQL in almost any capacity. Called the NoSQL movement, they think that for sites, large or small, there are better solutions, including flat file CMSs like the ones listed below:
Prior Art
Also, I found a couple of patents that are somewhat related, but not much in the way of dynamically changing flat files on a web server.
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=sk42AAAAEBAJ&dq=content+management+system (1981)
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=dySXAAAAEBAJ&dq=content+management+system
http://www.google.com/patents?id=1-CDAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false (2001)
catherine
scottpeterman
Prior Art and a new name???
ART:
Kraakdoos – Michel Waisvisz and Geert Hamelberg – 1960s
Folgerphone – Nolan Hatcher and Craig Nutt – 1979
Gittler Guitar – Allane Gittler – 1970s and 80s
played by Andy Summers of the Police on “Syncronicity II”
Gravikord – Robert Grawl – 1986
SynthAxe – Bill Aiken – 1986
Ztar – Starr Labs – 1980s-Present
Kaisatsuko – Yuichi Onoue – 2003
Moodswinger – Yuri Landman – 2006
played by Alex Hemphill of the Liars on “Leather Prowler”
Yamaha EZ-TP MIDI Trumpet – Currently available ($350)
Yamaha WX-5 MIDI Woodwind – Currently available ($350)
PATENTS:
1942Electrical Clarinet
1959 Device for measuring speech
1965 – VOLUME CONTROL APPARATUS FOR A SINGLE-TONE .ELECTRONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT
1966 Fluid Pressure Actuated Sensor controlled instrument
1969 Electrical Woodwind Synthesizer
1969 Breath Control sensor for single-tone musical instrument
1971 Electric Reed Mouthpiece
1973 Electronic wind instrument
1975 Electrically Operated Music
1976 Trumpet using variable wind pressure post valves then feeding into synthesizer
1976 A method for capturing sound actually housed inside the mouth
1977 Breath pressure actuated electronic instrument
1978 Pressure transducer for musical instruments
1979 Voice controlled instrument
1979 Control system for an electronic music synthesizer
1981 Wind sensing mouthpiece for electronic instruments
1982 Musical apparatus
1984 Hand-held musical instrument and systems including a man-machine interface
1985 Musical instrument
1987 Musical Instrument (flute)
1988 Synthesized Whistle
1988 Entertainment and creative expression device for easily playing along to background music
1989 Detection of Musical Gestures
1990 Musical wear – finger switched by Hideo Suzuki for Yamaha
1990Air flow response controlled musical instrument
1990 Electronic musical instrument with pitch alteration function
1991 Electronic Saxophone
1991Musical keyboard for buttonless woodwind synthesizer
1991 Electronic musical instrument with a tone parameter control function
1991 Electronic musical instrument with improved generation of wind instruments
1992 Electronic musical instrument with selection of standard sound pitch of a natural instrument
1992 Pitch data output apparatus for electronic musical instrument having movable members
1993 Breath controller for musical instruments
1995 Electronic musical instrument with tone generation control
1995 Electronic musical instrument having key after-sensors and stroke sensors to determine differences between key depressions
1996 Musical instrument having voice function
1997 Hands-free input device for operating a computer having mouthpiece with plurality of cells
1997 Wind instruments with electronic tubing length control
1998 Hybrid electronic and acoustic musical instrument
1999 Electronic wind instrument capable of diversified performance expression
1999 Woodwind-styled electronic musical instrument
2002 Musical instruments that generate notes according to sounds and manually selected scales
2002 Musical wind instrument and method for controlling such an instrument
2003 Voice-controlled electronic instrument
2003 Wind controller for music synthesizer
2005 Musical tone generating apparatus and method for generating musical tone on the basis of detection of pitch of input vibration signal
2006 Hybrid wind instrument selectively producing acoustic tones
2008Tone generator control apparatus and program for electronic wind instrument
2009 Electric wind instrument and key detection structure thereof
2010 Hybrid wind musical instrument and electric system incorporated therein
2010 Instrument
2010 Flute controller driven dynamic synthesis system
2010 Wind musical instrument with pitch changing mechanism and supporting system
TITLE CHANGE?
I think the term “Ghost Music” is too vague and helped to contribute to Yuri’s feeling that I needed to restate my central thesis again. What about “The Transparent Brass Band”? Then you get the nice consonance of “Transparent Trumpet,” “Transparent Trombone” and “Transparent Tuba.”
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Yury Gitman
http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKAIR1
Watch video about the Airheads Drums. This is something that has performative aspect, and played like an “air” instrument.
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lpercifield
Nice work man! super well researched!
minho
catherine
Knitting Techniques
4 Videos of Basic Knitting Techniques
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thisisvictorkim
Musical Cigarettes
This was inspired by the youtube hit “Amateur” by Lasser Gjertsen. It is my first “prototype” (rough video edit) of the notion of mundane, everday habits as musical instruments.
Making Toys 
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