Bluetooth, bluetooth where forth art thou…
24 May 2011 Leave a Comment
in issues arrising, project design, prototype
Throughout this project we’ve wanted a trigger action when a potential user walked into our interactive space. Through research we found that 83.3% of users surveyed had Bluetooth, this came out higher than wifi, 3g and infrared. We decided to use this to create a trigger. It was something that I spent a lot of time researching and looking for programs and research on bluetooth. 
Unfortunately, smartphones seemingly are too smart for our bluetooth advertising. Iphones in particular but also many Android phones are not automatically discoverable when your bluetooth is switched on. This seems to be mainly to reduce battery usage, but it does mean that unless a user manually edits their settings our bluetooth trigger is rendered useless.
Despite trying to find a workaround we’ve sadly had to say goodbye to our trigger and try something different. The interesting thing, is that in all my research into bluetooth marketing, this was never mentioned by those selling the marketing packages.
And we Giveth a Name! Logo Design for Social Shelter!
24 May 2011 1 Comment
in design, project design Tags: designs, logo
Okay so we finally decided on name(s) there awhile back so I began creating various logo designs. Tap Shack, Social Shelter and Social Stop were our choices. We asked various users what would they would prefer and they choose Social Shelter because it corresponded and suited the project as a whole completely, it incorporated the bus environment and the experience we’re creating there. Using this name I created final logo images and chose a colour palette etc. for our project. Here are all the designs I created for our logo:
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We decided to go with 3 of the designs. We had 3 colours and liked these 3 designs the best. So here they are:
Bus Stop Construction
24 May 2011 Leave a Comment
So, Kiera’s boyfriends dad is building us a bus shelter to house our project. He’s a carpenter so we gave him rough plans and the sizes and let him loose.
When we were thinking about the design and how the piece will look we were thinking of ways that we could add a little realism to our project. The lovely people at Bus Eireann have kindly lent us a little topper for the top of our bus stop. I think it’s pretty cool. At least everyone will be able to recognise that it is a bus shelter!!
Multi-touch Coding
23 May 2011 Leave a Comment
in Flash, touchscreen Tags: interactive bus stop, multi-touch coding, NUI Group, tutorials
Okay I haven’t updated the blog in while, Denise has been keeping it up to date on general things and her hardware development. Since we changed our idea I’ve been creating and developing playful, fun, interactive and multiple user applications and games as the content and instigators for causing interaction in the bus shelter. I’ve been using various tutorials and open source multi touch applications to develop the content for the touchscreen and also designing the logo and posters.
We’ve located tutorials from a group called the NUI Group where we’ve found multiple tutorials on creating multi-touch applications in flash as3. While Denise has been building the multitouch I’ve been using the mini multi-touch table we built originally to test the applications. We’re looking at have four games; fire/colours, drawing, bubble wrap and musical applications and have them randomly playing every few minutes or so.
Here’s a few images of the fire application tutorial I’ve been readjusting and altering the code to create a different type of flame and colours.
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Interactive bus stops are all the rage these days
22 May 2011 Leave a Comment
Yesterday we were looking over some of our research and we came across an article about interactive bus stops that were launched late novemebr 2010 in san Francisco by Yahoo.
Basically our entire original idea (with even similar designs) all nicely packaged and working nicely. They even had the idea of competition between bus stops (you can see that in the video). I’m glad our idea changed over time with user testing and feedback, as it would have been very discouraging to see that our idea was done.
We didn’t come across them until yesterday as they got a lot of publicity with MacWorld 2011 Expo this year. Our research into what similar technologies were inplace had finished by that stage last year. It just shows you that you can’t it back when it comes to new and emerging technologies.
On a side note, I think our arcade games were a better idea!!
Hacking the PS3 Eye
19 May 2011 3 Comments
in prototype, touchscreen, Videos
Ok so to make our touchscreen, we first needed to make an infrared camera. To do this we hacked a PS3 Eye camera. Following this tutorial.
The tools!
So anyways the things we needed were:
- PS3 Eye Camera
- A variety of small screwdrivers for the teeny tiny screws
- The inside of a floppy disk
- and a stanley knife
The process is pretty simple, disassemble the camera, remove the IR filter lens and then replace with a makeshift filter (floppy disk material) re-assemble and you should have an infra-red camera.
Actually doing the above is very slow, between opening the case and the screws that seemingly get smaller as you go along. However, eventually I got is all working. The next step is to get it working with our multitouch device.
For our 2nd prototype we set up a simple table, from here. Our more high fidelity prototype uses IR led bars to provide the infra red light, the simple table uses IR light from ambient lighting, so it’s not as accurate or easy to callibrate or get accurate readings.
I’ve included images from the process of hacking our camera below:
*Correction it’s a PS3 Eye not PS2
Before I got my hands on her!
Got the back off, eventually.
Got the front off!! just get the lens off now
40 mins later got the pesky IR lens out!
What is looks like with the new filter in
Building our touch screen:materials
13 May 2011 Leave a Comment
in prototype, touchscreen
So as part of this project we are building a touchscreen, I’m going to cover in the next couple of posts exactly how we did that. The first one we built was while we were waiting for our infrared light source. So here are the materials we gathered (minus the infrared light source, I’ve been told that it should work to a certain extent without the light source so for the first prototype we thought that would be ok)
First we got some Perspex:(free from Ger in Sample-Studios)
Our PSEye Camera that will need to be hacked!
Some trusty greaseproof paper and projector!
and a projector
In the next post, I’ll take you through how we hacked our PSEye camera so that it could pick up infra red light!
Tutorials!
11 May 2011 Leave a Comment
in prototype, Research, touchscreen
So to build our touchscreen we relied on all sorts of tutorials and videos to help guide us through.
Here are a couple that helped in some way or form.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Back-projection-56-inch-multitouch-television./
Environmental Lights who do some great infrared strips etc have a great buying guide with some tutorials thrown in for good measure
http://www.environmentallights.com/shop/images/tech_specs/infrared_led_guide.pdf
The NUI Group (Natural User Interface Group) have loads of tutorails open source programs and software, and if you have a question you can generally get a great answer here.
This guy Seth Sandler had some great stuff on his blog too. (he’s part of the NUI community)
Project Re-think: Proposed Build
28 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
Just a quick sketch of what we propose to actually build. Currently I am playing with the projector and mirrors to try and get the best setup for projecting onto the touch screen.
Sorry about all the photos instead of scans of the drawings, but the scanner is on the fritz at the moment.
Project Re-think part 2
28 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
The user enters the bus stop and sits on bench(possibly with a sensor embedded)/leans against the active surface there is an audio and visual reaction from the interactive bus shelter.
The visual interaction happens on a active touchscreen behind the bench. The user has the option to ignore or explore the reactions more. It is proposed that 4 flash apps that are randomly chosen should occur, each lasting 2-4 mins. Simple apps with no learning curve, a graffiti wall, a musical instrument, a bubble pop game and something similar.
With each app, the user can either ignore or explore the app. Users can interact on their own or with those around them or even two at different sides can use it.
The idea is simple if two people are using the interactive surface and enjoy themselves and once it is finished smile at eachother, interaction has occured. The bus stop then encourages interaction in a gentle way, by making the activity of waiting for a bus stop more enjoyable and spreading a little joy even. The strong influence of thefuntheory.com can be seen in this idea.
Storyboard for the new idea.
We both feel that we have come back to our original goals and have decided on something that is achievable and not completely outside of our skill set.
