Reflection

Today was the presentation of our final project and it went rather well. In the end we had to make some compromises on our final output that limited the range of detail that the haiku could capture, but all in all iKu575 functioned well enough to get our main concepts across.

Matt asked us what we learned from the making process that we wouldn’t have gotten from merely the design. At first I didn’t really know what to say. But now that we’ve had some time to reflect, I think there is one point that is crystal clear: any system or object that you design will impose some sort of structure or limitations onto the ideal form. These outside standards or infrastructures are always, in some way, shaping the final form or output of a device. In our case that was made crystal clear, both by our inability to fully grasp (in the relatively short time frame) coding possibilities, and the limitations of code itself. The interaction between language as we use it and coding language was a very difficult relationship to manage. As well things such as power sources and ethernet cables tied our device to a physical location. While in the design stage, these were elements that could be overlooked and imagined in the ideal form, but when the physcial making process begins, there are many choices and challenges that must be dealt with that ultimately affect the final product. This process of making has highlighted to relationship between the ideal creation and the realities one must deal with.

Form

The final form has been decided upon and ultimately finished. We opted for a leather jacket, both for it’s versitility in physcially creating the piece, and the versitility of the image it portrays. We wanted to create wearable technology that didn’t advertise its

External Sensors - Can you find them?

technological abilities. As such, the technical components, both the sensors and the physcial wires have been place in inconspicuous places, that upon first glance would be hardly noticable. It is an effort to pursue “ubiquitous computing” desires to seemlessly integrate technology and activity (Bell & Dourish, 2006; Weiser, 1991). Rather than continue to envision ubicomp as in a proximate future, it is possible to acknowledge that comptuing technology has begun to reach a level in which it permeates, or has the possibility to, almost every aspect of our lives, and our project is a direct reflection of that belief.

Given the limits of our technology and skills, this goal of seemless and invisible technology is not possible, as our final form still relies on wired power and internet connectivity. Our ideal form would, of course, have its own powersource and utilize a wireless internet connection.

iKu575

Related Readings

Beer, D. (2009). Power through the algorithm? Participatory web cultures and the technological unconscious. New Media & Society 11(6), 985-1002.

This article explores Web 2.0 and the influx of mundane personal information into the web and available to organizations. He argues that the information used by software algorithms can shape cultural and auditory experiences. Through  the use of algorithms, information provided to the user is mediated by already gathered information about user preferences. For example advertisments within one’s email application may be tailored to the users specific interests, as interpreted from information gathered. Beers argues that Web 2.0 provides an opening up of vast amounts of mundane information and questions how this information will be gathered and used to shape the environment of the user.

This reading provides a foundation to explore our device, but in a different manner. Our device rather than illustrating how information can shape experience, it uses our cultural and environmental experience to generate information to alter ones online presence.

Code Update

We have made some critical modifications in terms of code. In fact, since the last entry we’ve altered the syntactical arrangement of iKu575 almost entirely. Instead of calibrating the range of sensor mins and max, we’ve determined the various limits through debugging and experimentation. We’ve additionally employed the functions of ‘if/else’ and ‘for’ statements to control the multiple lines of the haiku. With this approach, the only constraints are the lack of poetic selection (i.e. the variety of end haiku results).  Essentially, the ‘random’ function which would ideally generate a random sequence of haiku lines cannot be applied in this case.

Aside from the technical matters, we’ve considered some potential design specifications for the wearable interface. Specifically, we have reflected on the possibilities of embedding the system within a suit jacket or hat in order to formalize our design values and physically make them more visible.  Ideally, we want iKu575 to exude an aesthetic appeal or somehow make a cultural reference to artistic expression in augmented digital/physical realities. Voytek, mentioned presenting the device in the form of a beret, stereotypically identifying the user as an artist or poet (Of course, I love this for its pretentiousness). In last week’s class, Professor Ratto also suggested a ‘tuxedo’,  which nicely compliments the eloquence of creating poetry. Whatever the case, these kinds of specifics would further contextualize the utility associated with the device by providing metadata on the user.

Finally, Latour’s (2008) philosophical account on “A Cautious Prometheus…” was quite inspirational in this matter (Indeed, he is just too fabulous).  To briefly summarize, he explains design as an extension or reconfiguration of technological functionality granted that its subjective, recursive and symbolic implications are advantageous in craftsmanship and scientific meaning-making. In essence, this theory gave us insight on the ‘naturalization’ of technology in a social environment that combines physical attributes with artificial intelligence; and so the challenge continues…

Progress

After our last class we made some headway, and came to some obstacles. We got the basics figured out on the hardware end. Each sensor is hooked up and we’ve calibrated correct values for the correpsonding three measurments. Eg hot, average and cold for temperature. What we’ll need to do now is move the sensors from the breadboard to a remote location on our final wearable device. Our initial intention is to have the sensors placed appropriately around the wearable, all connect via wires to the aurdino which will be held somewhere on the jacket.

On the software front, we managed to generate a Haiku based on the sensor     values. Each of the three sensor ranges corresponds to a specific line of the haiku, and depending on what the sensor reads, the haiku will be different. The next step will be to allow for a choice of line within each sensor range so that the haiku’s will be different everytime. This we have yet to tackle..

CODE

So far, developing the source code for iKu575 has proved to be quite a complex endeavour. We’ve managed to adapt a priliminary sketch by incorporating Arduino’s ‘Twitter Library’ (enabling output processing), with references to ‘Calibration’ ‘String’ ‘Array’ examples.

After declaring the set constants ‘lightPin,soundPin,tempPin’ with sample integers, we comprised a list of variables (lightValue,soundValue,tempValue) meant to identify the value of the different sensors in each instance of use (light, microphone, thermistor).  Since we additionally expect these readings to communicate with the Twitter SNS (the outputting process in the form of  a haiku post), we also declared the character variables ‘haikuline1,haikuline2,haikuline3’ to identify the isolated lines of poetry, we humanists, have written ourselves! (Selection TBA).  We suspect that this process would also require a mapping of the ‘sensorMin’s and ‘sensorMax’s that could be determined by debugging with the serial monitor in the next CM session. Therefore, the values are declared as ‘0’ or TBD constant integers for the time being.

const int lightPin = 1;   // sample pin that the Light sensor is attached to

const int soundPin = 2; // sample pin that microphone is attached to

const int tempPin = 3; // sample pin that thermistor is attached to

const int lightMin = 0; // sensor min and max TBD

const int soundMin = 0;

const int tempMin = 0;

const int lightMax = 0;

const int soundMax = 0;

const int tempMax = 0;

// variables

int lightValue = 0;         // sensor value

int soundValue = 0;

int tempValue = 0;

int lightRange = 0;      //value range

int soundRange = 0;

int tempRange = 0;

char haikuline1[];           // character variable

char haikuline2[];

char haikuline3[];

Form

So now that we’ve thought a bit about the conceptual aspects of our project, another very crucial element is now looming: form. This is important in two ways. First, what are we capable of constructing, and still making it ‘wearable’. And second, what will the construction say about assumptions we’re are making.

For instance the placement of the sensors will determine what kind of values are picked up. The microphone sensor, for example, can be placed near the wearers mouth, in hopes to document the variable sounds of the user, or could be placed in a more remote location that would primarly document the ambient sounds in addition to any generated by the wearer.

These are decisions we need to keep in mind throughout the process, what are we attempted to create a relative history of, the users actions, responses and behaviours or the environment around them, or a combination of both. This question can largely be explored through the design of the wearable device itself.

Concepts Behind the Suit

A brief outline of our project is necessary I believe. Our attempt is to create a piece of wearable technology that takes readings from sensors attached to a garment and then generates Haiku poetry based on those values. The Haiku is then sent to a Twitter account iKu575

Some of the issues raised by this device are: the relationship of the user to their environment; the users agency in providing a description of their surroundings (or lack thereofe in this case; generating a preserved history of the user’s activities as interpreted through sensory values; the elevation of the mundane to a status worth recording.

It also explore the use of technology in a manner that does not value work, effeciency or organization. It explores Gaver’s notion of ‘play’ but unlike his designs, this does not aim to involve or challenge the user intellectually. The project removes the participation of the user altogether in terms of the generated Haiku. Unless, the start to alter their behaviour to change the generated poems. It brings up and interesting question of how technology may or may not affect people’s behaviour, and whether it is concious or unconcious.

Gaver, B. (2008). Designing for Humo Ludens (Still), revisied version of article originally published in I3 Magazine, No. 12, June 2002.

Scenario/Environment Brainstorming

• running on a treadmill (thermister, microphone, motion, capacitance)
• walking into a dark bathroom (light, microphone, thermister, capacitance)
• sitting on a patio (light, thermister, microphone)
• crowded subway (light, thermister, microphone, capacitance, conductive)
• sitting in a library (microphone, light, motion)
• starbucks (light, microphone, motion, thermister)
• basement (microphone, light, thermister, motion)
• windy beach (light, microphone, thermister, motion, capacitance)
• movie theatre (light, microphone, thermister, motion sensor)

Sensors:

• light sensor (light)
• thermister (temperature)
• microphone (audal)
• capacitance (touch sensor)
• conductive fabric (body position) lina says that this is subjective.
• piezo-electric speaker (knock)
• motion sensor (motion) — tentative

Related Readings

Here are some links to interesting, possibly relevant articles.

Mann, S. (1997). Wearable computing: a first step toward personal imaging
Computer 30 (2), 25-32. Retrieved from http://resolver.scholarsportal.info.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/resolve/00189162/v30i0002/25_wcafstpi

This is a general introduction to wearable computing and the possibilities surrounding it. A good place to get grounded within this subject.

Makita, k, Kanbara, M & Yokoya, M (2004). Shared Annotation Database for Networked Wearable Augmented Reality System. In Advances in Multimedia Information Processing – PCM 2004 5th Pacific Rim Conference on Multimedia, Tokyo, Japan, November 30 – December 3, 2004. Proceedings, Part III.

This is more about networking via wearable computing devices and enhancing ones surroundings and reality. It talks about annotating objects via wireless networks, which is somewhat related to our goal, albeit much more practical, but I think it has some of the basic elements.