Week 14
Kate's Physical Computing Journal
Some Thoughts on the 14th week of Physical Computing....
This is the last week and I am leaving the day after our last class so I am writing my last journal the day before. Hopefully I can add some more pictures during the break. This was an interesting few weeks. What was really hard was trying to juggle all of the final projects. It is nice to be near the end. I'm glad we had to take this class. I feel like when I have a break I will really be able to take advantage of everything we have learned.
As we progressed with our project we realized that the qprox did not give us stable enough results to use for our purposes. We repleaced it with a pressure sensor but this is just for the prototype. Some other type of sensor might be better for our purposes. I looked up conductive foam and am currently still a little confused as to how it works.
Someone told me that if it changed shapes it could signal this, but from what I can tell you still need a sensor and somehow the foam transmits a signal. So I am not sure if this would really help us or not. If anyone knows anything about this let me know. Most of what I found on the web was just vendors selling it and not much information about it.
Concept and User Information:
We wanted to make something for people living in a large city like New York. When you live in New York you are constantly surrounded by people and noise and there is not much access to nature. Even in places like Central Park you are constantly reminded of the city by the people and the sounds that find their way into that space. Also New York is a very fast paced city. There is not much of a chance to slow down and relax. Keeping all these factors in mind we decided we wanted to bring nature into the living space. We also wanted the experience to be a solitary experience. We had to consider the size of apartments in New York in our design. For this reason we chose a bed. Using a bed allows us to take a piece of furniture that is already in most apartments and use it for our own means.
In the end we decided to make a canopy for a bed. When the person lays down the current weather outside of their home is found and pictures that are relevant to the range of weather are projected onto the canopy. Music that correlates to the range is also played. For our prototype we handpicked pictures and music.
Building and Materials
We chose to use as many natural materials as we could when building this prototype so that the actual model would fit in with our original concept. We used bamboo for the poles and raw silk for the material to be projected upon. The raw silk was nice for the projection because it allowed us to project not only onto the silk but also onto the cieling. This makes the images look a little less perfect, more dreamlike. We had trouble with stability so we had to add larger bases onto the poles. Since we could not build an entire bed we set a chair under the poles in order to allow people to move comfortably into the space. Also it keeps the experience one that is for one person only.
If the product actually came into fruition then we would have to find a different way to project. Right now our projection is only from the bottom. We would have to project from ontop of the canopy or somewhere other then where we are now because the bed would be blocking the projection.
Research
I did not find information on any other types of beds being made nor on personal spaces. I am sure there are some out there but the information just wasn't readily available. This project is more in line with projects that have attempted to create an experience then with actual consumer projects. Because the idea was so close to us we were able to use our own personal feelings to create this prototype.
Code
global MyID, qprox, gSerialPort,
lastqprox, trigger, onescounter, savenum
on beginSprite me
--put "qprox value is " && qprox
MyID = 0
trigger = true
onescounter = 0
member("field").text = ""
end
on exitFrame me
if member("field").text <> " " then
savenum = member("field").text
if integer(saveNum)>71 then
go to frame "hot"
--if temperature is lower than
degree 48 and higher than degree 45, make flower just nomal
else if integer(saveNum)<=70 and integer(saveNum)>50
then
go to frame "mild"
else if integer(saveNum)<=50 and integer(saveNum)>35
then
go to frame "chilly"
--if temperature is lower than
degree 45, make flower wither
else if integer(saveNum)<=35 then
go to frame "cold"
end if
end if
checkserial
--checking the value of qprox: if 0 get weather, if
1 stay at default image
--is saying that qprox was just not touched and now
is touched
--for this to happen lastprox has to equal 1 current
has to equal 0
if qprox = 0 and lastqprox > 0 then
MyID=getNetText("http://www.weather.com/weather/local/10003")
trigger = false
else if qprox > 0 then
--put the sky movie here
sprite(1).member=member("sky")
end if
-- GETTING THE WEATHER -- (based on weather get images)
if MyID > 0 and netDone(MyID) then
--holds text
member("weather").text=netTextResult(MyID)
----parsing text, based on temp values
calls up images
me.GetThisTimeWeather(netTextResult(MyID))
--we know we have gotten the net request,
so won't keep getting text
MyID = -1
end if
lastqprox=qprox
go the frame
end
----parsing text gotten from web, based on temp values calls up images
on GetThisTimeWeather me, myText
--to find the present temperature on the HTML text
--it's where we begin to search
beginPoint = offset("obsTempTextBlue", myText)
repeat while me.isNumber(myText.char[beginPoint]) = false
-- get next character
beginPoint = beginPoint + 1
end repeat
saveNum = ""
--to include the minus degree of the temperature
if myText.char[beginPoint - 1] = "-" then
saveNum = saveNum & "-"
end if
repeat while me.isNumber(myText.char[beginPoint])
saveNum = saveNum & myText.char[beginPoint]
beginPoint = beginPoint + 1
end repeat
put integer(saveNum)
sprite(5).member.text=saveNum
-- calls up different pictures based on temp values
-- if temperature is higher than degree 48, make flower bloom
if integer(saveNum)>71 then
go to frame "hot"
--if temperature is lower than degree 48 and higher
than degree 45, make flower just nomal
else if integer(saveNum)<=70 and integer(saveNum)>50 then
go to frame "mild"
else if integer(saveNum)<=50 and integer(saveNum)>35 then
go to frame "chilly"
--if temperature is lower than degree 45, make flower
wither
else if integer(saveNum)<=35 then
go to frame "cold"
end if
end
on isNumber me, num
digits = "0123456789"
if digits contains num then
return true
end if
return false
end
Future Action
Many ideas came to mind while making our bed. I would like to take it further by giving more options then just seasonal/temperature related ones. Maybe people could plug in images of their own. They could watch "memories". Perhaps we could make "dreamscapes" and create experiences with the actual images/movies which are played. For children we create nightime images, things to soothe children when they are going to bed. Bedtime stories that are played on the canopy. We would also have to work around a few problems. We would have to find a new place to project from and possibily a new type of sensing device.