Final words

So the course is now finished… I must say that this was truly an experience and so much fun at the same time. It was nice to get a break from all the books and lectures and finally work with something concrete where you actually build something. As usual I felt that I learn a lot more when working practically.

All the guest lectures (Zary, Alex, Physical Interaction Lab etc.) were very interesting and inspiring. Especially Alex’s work was great to see.

Seeing the other groups projects and presentations were also very interesting and fun.

So thank you Cristi for having this course, I will definitely recommend it to other students.

//Tomas Persson

Final Work Report

The entire last week was dedicated to project work. Since we also had another project to present on the Friday, we spent every day working till at least seven or eight in the evening. Even though we had much to do during the last week I or anyone else in the group never felt anxious about not having the Facecube ready for the final presentation. All fundamental parts of the Cube worked as it was supposed to, but we had some liability problems with the electronics and the SunSpot. For example, all of a sudden we couldn’t have six LEDs connected to one SunSpot. At first the SunSpot could support six LEDs at the same time but then it just couldn’t. In that case we managed to get four LEDs working, where each was pointing a light on one side of the cube. For the two remaining sides we used the built-in LEDs on the SunSpot, which we directed with some “fiber optics” that we made ourselves out of aluminum foil and small plastic pieces that we glued together. 

Although we had some problems with the SunSpots we never felt that we weren’t going to make it on time, like I said earlier. Because even if the Facecube wasn’t reliable, we had had it working at several occasions so we knew that all the functions was working. So at the same time as we were trying to make it more reliable we spent a lot of time making the functions funnier and better (changing the text on the website, adding some feedback to the cube with flashing lights…) and making the cube better looking (making icons for example).

The final presentation went very well. Robert tried to be funny as usual, and this time he actually was a little… No, I’m just kidding he did a great job. I think that we finally managed to completely explain how the Facecube would work. Earlier we had a hard time making people actually understand what our intentions was and how it was going to work. Since we now had all our intended functions working (except the picture/tag-thing) and an actual physical object it was easier to show and explain what it was doing.

When looking back at our work I feel that there never was any problems or tension in the group. As soon as we decided on what to do we all knew what had to be done and that made it easy to split the group in parts with each having a special responsibility in the making of the Facecube. All sections of our “company” ultimately delivered which resulted in the final concept we all imagined at the start.

Project Report Tuesday 3rd of March

The project is going pretty good right now. We have faced some obstacles but managed to overcome them all.

The construction part have till late last week almost only consisted of purchasing materials for construction. The button construction was something that we had a hard time finding parts for, but we finally did!

We have now built two hardware concepts (without wiring and electronics) and will tomorrow begin putting the "hardware" and "software" together. Meaning that we will connect the wires and place the SunSpots and LEDs in the cubes. Out of experience we all know that this can be a critical and frustrating part of any project, since putting the electronics and soldering wires together always tend to cause problems. Shit stops working all of a sudden and stuff like that. Anyways, we have to get it done so we're hoping it all will go well!

Concept Construction Report

This was meant to be posted earlier, sorry for the delay in time.

We have now started working on the Facecube. We have formed three sections in our group. Those sections are web programming (Johannes), SunSpot programming and electronics (Alex and Tomasz) and finally the most important part of our “company” the concept construction section (Me and Robert).

Since the software department already has reported about how their work is going I will tell you a little bit about the development of the physical concept.

The idea is that we’re going to have ha plastic outer shell with buttons, that you can take on and off for charging of the battery and wiring with cables. On the inside there will be like a wooden skeleton with the SunSpot in the middle. For the plastic shell we bought two cubic photo frames (since we want to demonstrate the friends making function we will need two Facecubes), and out of this we thought that we could just cut out the buttons using carpet knifes. This was impossible; we had to use an electric saw instead. Since the outer shell is the only thing you are going to see we want to make it beautiful. That is also one very important aspect of the Facecube; people wouldn’t want to carry around a cube if it isn’t elegant.

For the wooden skeleton we use small sticks that we glue together. The basic part of the wooden skeleton is a cubical frame. From this cubical frame we then glue sticks that will place the SunSpot in the middle of the cube. We have also bought parts for building a spring system for the buttons. To get an input from the button we are going to use two surfaces covered with aluminum foil and when these two surfaces touch an electric circuit will be created which will give us an input in the SunSpot.

The difficulties that we are facing are that the spaces we have to work with are so small. The distance from the plastic shell to the Sunspot is only one to three centimeters, and in that space we will not only have to fit the button construction but the LED system too that will light the sides with different colors (hopefully, we start with only one color but ultimately we want several). The LEDs will have to be placed closest to the plastic shell to avoid shadows from other objects; therefore we will make the buttons deep. Meaning that the outer part of the button (the part you press) will have wooden sticks placed on each corner and these sticks will then be connected to the top surface of the electric part of the button. These wooden sticks will create a space between the outer shell and the inner core where we can place the LEDs and avoid shadowing from the cables and so on. A problem with that might be making the LEDs light spread enough to light the whole side of the cube.

Project evolution

Okay, as you all probably know we named our project the Facecube. I will now quickly take you through the thoughts and discussions that led us to the FC.

After the weekend we sat down and discussed how we could make the FC something you want to carry around and tried to figure out what you really would want to do with a portable cube. The whole “Social communication support” felt a bit meaningless. Would people actually want to use the cube like that? We pretty much all agreed on that there should be some kind of docking station on bar tables, where you can dock your cube and display pictures projected on the table. The table would identify the cube by RFID and then project the pictures stored in the cube. That was one main function that we all agreed on, but we couldn’t decide how the cube was going to be used when the user was just carrying it around. We talked about some sort of predefined color system for communication with other cube users but we still wanted every user to be able to make their own cube personal by defining their own color system and experiment with the looks of the cube. Another idea was to make it possible to report where you are or what you’re doing to your friends via some web application, like Facebook or msn.

Eventually, after talking to the dude from Physical Interaction Lab (sorry, I don’t remember his name), we realized that the most exciting function for the cube would be the ability to communicate with the web. The site we decided to use is Facebook. There you can update your status and in that way give out your location or just update how you’re feeling at the moment. The cube suddenly became a kind of portable micro blogging tool. Another function that we came up with after deciding to make a connection with Facebook was friends making with just putting to cubes together. The idea is that if you meet a new friend when you’re out you can easily become friends on Facebook and stay in touch. A Facecube user will be able to update their status on Facebook by simply pressing down one of the sides on their own cube. The user will decide what activity, mood, location or anything actually each side of the cube will represent by defining the sides on their Facebook-page. Then, when pressing down one side their status on Facebook will be updated with the activity they have chosen. The user also will be able to store one picture on each side of the cube that will be displayed when using a docking station.

So our three main functions for the Facecube are:
· Micro blogging
· Friends making
· Pictures

Project exploration assignment

For the project exploration assignment I have chosen the RoutePlanner (from the session “Student design competition”, CHI 2006). It’s a “portable personal training and motivational aide, which displays real-time statistical and locational data”. I don’t know if I fully have understood the product but as I understand it is something that tells you have long you have ran, biked or whatever you do and then even saves the different routes.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any pictures and did not find much to read about it either but if the device does what I think it does, then I think it’s amazing. I believe it would make training so much more fun and it would be easier to vary your training by choosing different terrain and distances. Spontaneous tours with your bicycle would be easier to do since you would know where you are all the time. Simply a great tool for any runner, cyclist, walker and so on that I think would help a lot. I would definitely buy one.

Friday the 13th of February

Today we had a lecture about some functions on the SunSpot and then some former students came and show us their creations and gave us an insight about how they work. Their creations were really good and they are obviously skilled and talented.

Today was the day when we came up with our new project idea. The inspiration was our own Love Cube, but a bit modified. Instead of just glowing we thought that is could be some sort of communication support between people at clubs or bars maybe. Some kind of ice-breaker that made it easier to go up to a total stranger and talk just because you can see on the cube that you have something in common. The vision for the product was wide, too wide so during the weekend we had to narrow it down and maybe make it simpler so we actually can build a concept out of the idea.

Monday the 9th of February

We started the day with a visit to Alex Olwal for a short lecture and to see his work. I must say that the whole visit felt truly inspiring. The prototypes, concepts and products that he presented (both his own and others) were amazing. I especially liked the projection screen made out of compressed vaporized water. The projection screen was created by a machine that compressed and pushed out vaporized water through a narrow opening at the bottom. The result was a waterfall-looking projection screen.

After lunch we had a guest lecture by Zary Segal from Maryland University. He also spoke about his work, something he called the W (double you), and then gave us some creative assignments. The W is some kind of alter ego on the web, beyond the avatar. It is more a realistic representation of yourself on the web. Zary told us that one of their first approaches with the W was for fashion. The vision was to make it possible to try out clothes on the Internet, that is you let you W try out clothes and you will see if a sweater fits you or not on your screen. I have to say that I don’t believe in this. I tried one of those realistic “trying on dolls“, although much simpler than Zary’s W, and it did not work at all. The doll had generalized the human body to three different shapes and had some parameters for height, weight and skin color. I never came close to a realistic representation of me. I think the shape and looks of every individuals body is too complex to try to generalize in such a way, which you have to do even if you spend a year trying to make a realistic representation of yourself. Even less I think people have the ability to make that representation on their own using a web application. But people are actually using it so I guess “The Fashion W” works pretty good anyways.

At the end of the lecture each group were given an emotion. The assignment was then to explain this emotion in different ways. First just with words, then with an object. Then we were given a location and we would pick out situation at this location that produces this emotion. Eventually we had to come up with a product that supports the emotion in that situation. Excitement was our emotion and the location was the airport. The situation we chose was when you’re at the airport to pick up your girlfriend and waiting for her in the terminal. The support in that situation is to get even more excited, make the feeling stronger. So the product we came up with is called “The Love Cube”. It simply has a glowing light in it and the closer your girlfriend gets the stronger the light glows.
It was a very good and funny assignment that forced you to be creative. I loved it and the result was great!

Prototype work

We have built a prototype of one of the cars. Basically we have just programmed the microcontroller to light a LED that represents the engine of the car (since the engine probably would be an on/off-system) and a motor that represents the steering. Then we have built a car body out of LEGO to make it more concrete.
I don't feel that this prototype actually helped us a lot. Since we are going to focus on developing the elements of the game maybe we should have built a prototype of the dynamic arena. Still, the car is the most fundamental part of the game and all the other stuff are really just extras so knowing that we are able to programme a working car made us feel better anyways.

We are still not happy with our project and are still open to other ideas.

Premiere

Hi!
I am Tomas and me and my group have begun building a car game. Our first thought was that it was going to be a game where you crash into each other and use lights to controll your car or maybe interfere with your opponents controlling. We knew that the concept is quite old, but we still thought we could make something original out of it. The point was that we were going to develop the interaction and the elements of the game. We were thinking of having a dynamic arena where the cars would battle and then lights would come up from underneath that you had to avoid. Then maybe some power-ups would be projected on the floor that you could take and use.

As you see the ideas are many but the plan is not crystal clear, we haven't decided on how the game should be yet, and we are not even sure we want to continue with the car game. However there is still time to start with a new project so if we find anything better we might just go with that instead.