What to expect for the demo day

Final demo for tangible studio In the final day I would like to demonstrate 2 pieces of arts I am working on in this semester.


1. SENSEable Shoes
Collaborated with Yen-Chia

Intro
Mobile devices with powerful computational abilities are becoming quite popular in recent years, but the user interface of such devices is similar to the desktop-computing system, i.e. GUI plus touch sensing technology. These technologies are not user friendly for pervasive environment because the visual demand and hand requirement can diminish the user experience and impede attention. The goal of this project is to build a foot-computer interface: a newly hand-free and eye-free interactive technology designed for the growing pervasive computing environments. By embedding multiple sensors into consuming shoes, people are allowed to control ambient digital devices with their foot gestures as well as toe gestures.

To achieve this goal, there are a few steps we need to take.
1. We need to build the hardware – the multi-sensor shoe.
2. We need to understand people’s feet manners/behaviors like walking, running, jumping, going upstairs, going downstairs, etc. by employing data mining methods.
3. We build a useful GUI for visualize the data.
4. Real time user test.
5. Quick and cool application.

What we have done:
Hardware design. Checked.
Algorithm design. Partially done.
Data GUI. Partially done.
Realtime user test. No.
Application. A small part.

What to expect
The working hardware. Definitely.
2 to 3 cool demos. (We already have a simple game control demo)



2. Algo.rhythm

Intro
Algo.rhythm is a tangible computational drum kit with programmable behaviors. By arranging and physically connecting a number of drums-bots, each of them records beat patterns from outside world or its precursor, replays the patterns in selectable ways, and passes the rhythm to its neighbors along the drum-bot’s surface in 3D space. The construction of drum-bots and the delivery of the beat patterns provide users a unique opportunity to learn a set of computational concepts like sequential execution, loop, or fork through experiencing the beauty of composing music.

What I have done:
The first, second, third, forth…n but still buggy physical prototypes. In detail, 3 drum-bots with 5 sides input and 4 directional output which demo the basic concept of 3D dimensional drum pattern delivery.

What to expect
3 physical drum-bots.
A demo video.

Lab Meeting November 15th

Mark- was in boulder working on NSF proposal, John is visiting yay, was on a ph.d review panel for hci related thesis
Shawn- working on free universal construction kit with Golan
Karl- had a visitor, trying to flush out projects to work out next
Tobias- went to SF this weekend, working on suspenders
Ray- trying to finish raymatic for southern company, working on some data visualiztion methods for bodytrack
Charles- met with Karl and Shawn to talk about applications of EAP, working on video for music visualization
Gabe- made arrows, can recognize direction
Daiki- working on machine that follows a person type project for studio and wokring on projects for the CS classes
Huaishu- shot video for drum machine, built wireless shoes got good data! can classify 16 different activities
Eric- working more on getting business up and going, working on some projects at Disney, planning for futureCNC class
Deren- working on some origami table and hood, doing some PV cell and electrical stuff for puriflume project, met with people from CREATE about possible Haiti project, electronic/science kit for girls
Zack- building pneumatic actuators and switches for his 4D project, got an A- on his processing exam!, helping people CNC stuff
Yenchia- showed demo for shoes data, works well theoretically

John from Freecell visiting- really neat stuff- http://www.frcll.com/

cool breathing robot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4U0ZOkpjap0

Meeting Nov 9

Mark- went to creativity and cognition, interesting keynotes, submitted grant proposals for cublets and bio-origmai
yenchia- made drawolin video!

note: if you need an english check send it to a native speaker before you put it online!

Charles- went to MIT openhouse visited tangible media, responsive environments, fluid interfaces, and high-low tech, made video for SURG project from 2 years ago music visualization- where do you want it to go?

do you want people to make things products? how do you want to present things?

Gabe- new version of skruiifac with constraint inferenece

Eric- setting up 2nd robot in dfab, teaching class in the spring called "future cnc" about what the robot arm could potentially do, 7-bit design project made an LLC...first project involves 6 hospital walls covered in LEDs

Zack- building inexpensive pneumatic actuators, shopping for classes in the spring

Huaishu- made first white-board arduino for variable altimeter project, learned google sketchup made 3d model for drum machine, tried wood bending with steam, broke his kettle so tried to use steak from broken espresso machine, yen chia is going to use the shoes for his data mining course

Ray- raymatic is in the tartan!!, worked on treemaps

Shawn- went to vegas to cover a car show, played poker for a few days, met with lawyers to discuss how to go about notlabs, got some equipment, found a badass old microscope, doing slime mold research

Tobias- made bend sensor tester, ordered wrist band to test bend sensor, thinking of new projects such as a pillow or suspenders, going to sf this weekend

Daiki- planning for a new project since lat project seems like it won't be finished within semester time constraint

Karl- learning Rhino, visitor coming next week

Deren- planned out independent study with Jeremy Ficca, and organized rest of project, thinking about origami projects

Deren's Tangible Studio Project

Project Name: Rebbelib Reconstructed
Maker: Deren Guler

Abstract:

Rebbelib Reconstructed is a robotic grid based on an ancient stick chart used by Micronesian sailors to show sailing paths. I hope to develop algorithms that abstract tangible and intangible data into analogous shapes that depict complex relationships in a simple tangible object. I would like to be able to represent a range of concepts such as the passage of different traditions throughout time versus the emergence of new technology. Using shapes within a grid could serve as a novel data visualization technique for not only sailors, but for students, designers, and professionals in many other disciplines.




Description/Timeline:

The grid lines can change angle and curve and are controlled by servomotors. This projects aims to create a data visualization method to represent abstract information within the constraints of a grid. Grids are very common in maps. It has been found that they are a very effective way of illustrating concepts such as time, distance, height, and orientation. The shape of an object, i.e. the amount of corners it has, and how curved the sides are, can also be interpreted to convey different relationships.

I have built a prototype and a simulation of the project and done research on how to limit the augmentation of the grid. The prototype only used 6 motors and I have redesigned it to include 16 motors using an IC that allows for more PWM channels. I am working on integrating the library for this with the library for Pachube, which send remote sensor feeds to the Arduino. I would also like to make it wireless and use XBee, but this is not necessary.

This week I plan to finish modeling the base/frame of the structure and put together the final circuit. I hope to spend the next two weeks tweaking the design and testing different algorithms in the code to see what will work best. I am also going to design a user interface for changing the sensor readings. By the final presentation I want to have an 8 x 8 grid that can respond to a range of sensor inputs and display different data in an easily comprehensible method.

Tangible Studio Exhibition :: Tobias

For the tangible studio exhibition I expect to have the following
working:

Title: Helping people improve their ergonomics through active
feedback devices.

Many people work for long hours at a workstation. This leads to pain
and long-term injury due to poor posture and ergonomics.

The Active Health Series is a product line that helps people help
themselves by providing feedback to the users instead of just masking
the problem, as done by other solutions.

The product line consists of:

The Active Health Bracelet is for people working long hours at a
workstation who want to prevent or heal CTS. It provides light and
vibration feedback based on the position of the user's hands, unlike
other products on the market, which are passive. The bracelet helps
people learn when their hand position is not in a correct, healty
position and thereby avoids the pain which inevitably follows a
chronically bad hand position.

The Active Health Suspenders and Active Health Shirt are for people
who want to correct their bad posture. It provides active feedback
through vibration based on the users posture, unlike most other
products on the market.

The Active Health Break-O-Meter is for people working in front of
computers all day who want to improve their productivity and
health. The Active Health Break-O-Meter is a personal table device
that detects how long you have been sitting in the same position, and
notifies you when it is time to take a short break. While there are
software-based solutions, the break-o-meter is the only physical
device of this kind.

Milestones:

November 8 - 10 :: The Active Health Bracelet:
I will complete it in this week. This involves making better use of
the BlinkMs and optimizing the code. I do not plan to hide the
hardware unless you think that this is a good idea.

November 15 - 22 :: The Active Health Suspenders:
I will receive a pair of suspenders on Wednesday, and hopefully make a
quick prototype test before Friday Nov 11. If the test turns out well,
I will build the next version of the prototype from November 15th to
the 22nd.


Nov. 22 - Dec 1 :: The Active Health Shirt:
I bought a tight shirt, and I will try to attach my homemade flex
sensors to it. I hope to have this project finished November 30.

December 1 - 7 :: Poster, videos, unfinished stuff etc.

SENSEable Shoes (proposal)

Abstract

SENSEable Shoes can understand human behaviors and thus provide a tangible wearable interface for interaction. By getting the values from twelve pressure sensors under shoe-pads in shoes (left foot and right foot), the algorithm can identify distinct feet gestures and predict the status of human behaviors related to shoes (such as changing the center of gravity of feet soles to the right/left/front/back, standing with two legs or one legs, sitting straight, sitting and leaning back, sitting and moving feet, shaking legs, walking, running, going upstairs or downstairs, jumping).

Problem

This is a Physiological Data Modeling problem whose purpose is to classify the person's behavior patterns based on the sensor measurements. In order to customize according to different person’s behavior patterns, the software will use python 2.7 with SciPy, Numpy, and Matplotlib API to implement a machine learning algorithm.

Midterm Milestone

The algorithm predicts static statuses of human behaviors related to shoes (standing with two legs or one legs, sitting straight, sitting and leaning back, changing the center of gravity of feet soles to the right/left/front/back).

Final Milestone

The algorithm predicts dynamic statuses of human behaviors related to shoes (sitting and moving feet, shaking legs, walking, running, going upstairs or downstairs, jumping). A tangible user interface will be constructed to interact with the shoes. (Sorry I haven’t come up with an idea about the interface.)

References

Chen, M., & Huang, B. (2008). Intelligent shoes for abnormal gait detection. 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2019-2024. Ieee. doi:10.1109/ROBOT.2008.4543503

Tangible Studio Grading Criteria

Does it work? Is it demo-able?
Complexity
Contribution to a greater good
Innovation
Execution- Craft/ technique
Presentation/documentation

Lab Meeting November 2nd

Mark- finished grant proposal, worked on bend sensors, reviewed papers, going to creativity and confluence
Deren- origami stuff, made a polar version of the grid, read more papers about grids
Yenchia- took machine learning midterm, working on drawbot it can move around and vary stroke now
Ray- went to providence to attend visual analytic conference gave a body track demo,
Zack- building a pneumatic cylinder, has a processing test tomorrow, hanging out with nervous systems people
Tobias- worked on wristband, tested it on Gabe, trying to make the posture correction shirt, working on inexpensive sensors web page
Daiki- worked on 3d model but process might not be most efficient, meeting with some people from HCI, SI to see if they have insight on other possible visualization for web info retrieval
Gabe- worked on constraints, narrowed it down to 2 that will be useful, reviewed some CHI papers
Huaishu- visited Media Lab, talked about she sensors with Mark, trying to graph some useful data through them, made a prototype of a cheap touch sensor, trying to make the drum machine more reliable
Karl- working on new project ideas for laser interference


presentation by Dale Clifford to give us more outlets

pittsburgh mini makerfiare

LECTURES

university lecture series:


Nov. 10 - CENTER FOR THE ARTS IN SOCIETY / Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert, directors of the new Center for Artistic Activism / "Political Expressionism" and Other Fallacies of Political Art
Nov. 15 - HUMANITIES CENTER LECTURE / Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, DePauw University, and a leading authority on science fiction / Title TBA


school of design:

Nov. 01: JESSICA ROSENKRANTZ & JESSIE ROSENBERG, Nervous System
Nervous System is a studio working at the intersection of science, art and technology. This lecture is sponsored through a partnership between the School of Design, Studio for Creative Inquiry and the Digital Fab Lab.

Nov. 28: RICHARD SENNETT, Author of 'The Craftsman'
World renowned author Richard Sennett writes about cities, labor and culture. He teaches sociology at New York University and the London School of Economics. This lecture is sponsored through a partnership with the School of Architecture.

February: PANEL DISCUSSION, Local designers
A panel of local designers will discuss the topic 'How to Design the Future'. Details to follow.

March 27: CANDY CHANG, Artist/Designer, Global Ted Fellow, 2009
Candy Chang likes to make cities more comfortable for people. Her background in design, urban planning and street art have informed her projects which redefine public spaces to incite dialog and engage citizens with their city and each other.

April 11: VICTOR MARGOLIN, Professor, Design History, University of Illinois
Noted design historian Victor Margolin is the editor of Design Issues and was the first person in the United States to receive a PhD in design history. Author of the books 'The Politics of the Artificial' and 'The Idea of Design.

school of art:

CAROL CONDE & KARL BEVERIDGE - Thurs. Nov 3 / 5pm, Kresge Theatre

co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Art & Architecture, University of Pittsburgh
CAROL CONDE and KARL BEVERIDGE are a Toronto-based duo who have an amazing track record of socially concerned and politically committed art making, which usefully contributes to interpretations of Contextual Practice. The artists will present "Documentary Fictions", an overview of their photographic projects depicting environmental issues, health care, the economy, and cultural production. Since 1975, their work has presented stories about labor, resistance and its representation. Most often working in collaboration with members of the communities depicted in their photographs, Condé and Beveridge create narrative series via staged reconstructions employing detailed sets, collage and digital technology. Their work also references various art historical and cultural practices to create a critical commentary on the function and understanding of contemporary cultures. They have exhibited internationally in community spaces, art galleries, and museums: most recently in exhibitions at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland, a survey exhibition at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario, and the Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen, Holland. Condé and Beveridge have been active in several labor arts initiatives including the Mayworks Festival in Toronto and the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre in Hamilton, Ontario.

school of architecture:


Antonino Saggio

MONDAY 07 NOVEMBER
7:00 KRESGE THEATRE, CMU
Space, Time and Information. The IT Revolution in Architecture, a Paradigm Shift.

Richard Sennett

Alan H Rider Distinguished Lecture

MONDAY 28 NOVEMBER
6:00 CARNEGIE LIBRARY LECTURE HALL
New York University // London School of Economics

HCI: http://www.hcii.cmu.edu/news/seminar



Future Centered Design: Designing for Sustainable Business
Janaki Kumar
Senior Director, User Experience at SAP Labs
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 4:00pm
Newell Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)


Media, Meaning and Computation: Expressive Intelligence and the Future of Playable Media
Michael Mateas
Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 4:30pm
Gates-Hillman Center 4401 (Rashid Auditorium)

Interactive Learning: Combining Machine Learning Strategies with Humans in the Loop
Burr Settles
Postdoctoral Fellow, Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon University
Thursday, November 3, 2011 3:00pm
Newell Simon Hall 3305


Technology in Support of Graceful Aging
Ron Baecker
Technologies for Aging Gracefully lab (TAGlab), University of Toronto
Friday, November 4, 2011 3:30pm
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Maudlin Auditorium)

HCII Town Hall Meeting-NO SEMINAR
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 4:00pm


Feminism and HCI: Intersections and Opportunities
Shaowen Bardzell
Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction Design, School of Informatics and Computing, University of Indiana
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 4:00pm
Newell Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)


Technology that Motivates Creative Problem Solving
Elizabeth Gerber
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:00pm
Newell Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)


The Playground of the Internet: Where Social Science and Design are BFFs
Elizabeth F. Churchill
Principal Reserach Scientist, Yahoo! Research
Monday, December 5, 2011 4:30pm
Gates-Hillman Center 4401 (Rashid Auditorium)

Robotics Institute: http://www.ri.cmu.edu/event_calendar.html?event_type=seminars&menu_id=242

RI Seminar: Robust motion planning for walking robots and robotic birds
Russ Tedrake
Associate Professor, MIT
October 28, 2011, 3:30PM - 4:30 PM, NSH 1305

RI Seminar: Technology in Support of Graceful Aging
Ronald Baecker
Professor, University of Toronto
November 04, 2011, 3:30 - 4:00 PM, NSH 1305

RI Seminar: From Sorcery to Science: how Hollywood Physics impacts the Sciences
Eitan Grinspun
Associate Professor, Columbia
November 11, 2011,

Mike Gleicher
University of Wisconsin
November 18, 2011,

Larry Zitnick
Researcher, MSR
November 21, 2011, NSH 1507

Lydia Kavraki
Rice University
December 02, 2011,

Frank Dellart
December 02, 2011, 1:00pm, NSH 1507

Yong Jae Lee
PhD Student, UT Austin
December 07, 2011, 3:00pm, NSH 1507

Ian Davis
Rockstar Games New England
December 09, 2011,

Lab Meeting October 26th

- we want to know about more lectures! check out lectures post, add to it, maybe we should link up in subgroups of people that have similiar interests with design challenge or community events to??

Tobias: making glove bend sensor

Karl: starting to work on some new ideas, just got back from presenting at UIST, highlights: specklesense, touch using time domain reflectrometry, kinect 3d reconstruction:kinectfusion

Zack: made another intractable, gave presentation about thesis work/extensive project to pablo garcia's class. thinks it would be cool if we all gave a presentation about a project they are working on so we really learn more about each other

Huaishu: made a second drum machine, wrote a 2 page paper for TEI, made a user interface for bend sensor

Shawn: went to Art && Code, been reading up on making computers from slime mold, built microntroller for reprap, has been building 3D printer with madeline

Gabe: worked on constraint solver

Daiki: working on 3d object people counter visualizer project, trying to make it wifi

Deren: went to pgh mini makerfaire and art && code, reading about maps and grids and space

Mark: started construction on his new house, business is doing well but need to come up with cash flow problems, got a fancy altimeter, new ugrads who are interested

Yenchia- machine learning..., paper got accepted in CSCW! worked on drawing bot- made it wireless

lab meeting october 19th

Karl won an award! sidebyside press release came out. Are other people after awards, why is he the only one winning awards?


Shawn: got a digital microscope and has slime mold on both coasts, noticeable growth in just 5 minutes! made a 3 day time lapse movie, trying to figure out how it can be used for logic/computation visualization for some sort of kinetic interactive, does it eat? can you train it to grow in a pattern? how can it be used to combine robotics and biology? hacking an avr plane, pretty sweet stuff
Zack: got a wave shield and put it in his bend sensor glove project, reads up to 1 gb, works well with tilt sensor, will show us the glove soon
Deren: needs help with origami folding

Mark working on origami molecule project with the chemists
Nuno: went to toronto, niagra falls, finished first drum machine, the shoes sensor can sense direction of movement


General

display case: we got a small screen, what should we put on it? maybe ray can make the interactive picture frame installation?
tobias put up some the low cost bend sensors on inexpensivesensors.com

Lab Meeting October 12th

YenChia- worked on bike orchestra check it out under the work in progress tab
Eric- putting together propsal for class that uses Robot for CNC router in the spring with Karl, added some features to robot camera project
Ray-working on documentation, designing coding for search panning etc, hope to have a demo soon, lit review for phD research
Tobias- working on posture project with Nuno, got ok results, ordered material for bend sensors, programming visualization for this, going to work with undergrad COgSci student
Gabe- has started to think about how to model constraints and has been playing with jbox 2d, hopes to have demo for next week
Zack- working on making fixtures for robot in dFAB, working on some linear actuators and optimizing the system looking into hydraulics and pneumatics, going to try and combine linear and rotary encoders and play with k'nect
Deren- did stuff with VIA, went well, working on maps project/pachube
Daiki- using open CB to count people, trying to efficiently combine different kinds of information
Mark- did 5 reviews for TEI, finished a paper about Architectural Robotics, needs to make it longer
Karl- worked on presentation/video/website for new project, gave practice talk

New CoDe Lab Web site category

To resolve the question of how "complete" a project should be before it's allowed in the Projects category on the CoDe Lab Website, Nuno (Huaishu) intelligently suggested a "Work in Progress" category. SO - please prepare a paragraph and an image of your current Work In Progress and let's get it up there now.

Lab Meeting October 5th

Meeting Summary:

General: there is a korean CogSci student interested in being a part of the lab, she has wizard programming skills, do you think she could be involved in something you are doing??
Yenchia will add a log in to the website so we can all make changes easily
Send Deren project for Display case- wanna set up Plunk-O?


Gabe: got laser cutter working! needs a good 2D physics engine model to help sync actions in program
Mark: got altimeter worksing, needs to figure out how to make it into cheap, compace product and splic in audio signal
Tobias: 3D printed casing for module that shows time you spend at your desk, working on finishing fbook signal project
Zack- working with actuators for physical pixel project, trying to reduce energy consumption to get high input--> low input
Nuno- made prototype of shoes, working on drum machine
Yenchia- made prototype that makes the light changes color, calibrating pitch for violin
Charles: controlling actuators from arduino to see resulting behavior, going to explain "bigger picture" at a lab meeting sooon
Daiki- working with Dale on a new project
Ray- lit review, working on raymatic, Create lab had a retreat in Newel Simon, body track...
Deren- working on VIA stuff till saturday come help on saturday!, will have map project development to show next week
Karl- submitted a bunch of papers to CHI, went to NM we should all check out the magic lantern museum!
KJ- providence is awesome, Telart is very cool- AS220 is a cool fab/hacker/print/cafe space in Providence