NB: To continue to follow our progress with the Arduino please refer to the dedicated WordPress blog here: http://bauleban.aghillo.org/

So I’ve just got my hands on Oomlut’s Arduino starter kit and I’m going to try to log my progress. First impressions:

The case is a bit naff and there are components floating everywhere (there’s a glass-half-empty attitude). But its fantastic to get my hands on an Arduino at last. Windows XP doesn’t find the driver automatically but that isn’t unusual for XP. But if you follow the instructions on Arduino’s own website carefully: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows you shouldn’t have any trouble. Its simply a case of telling Windows where to look for the driver — which is amongst the files you download for the IDE.

There’s an awful lot of support out there for people who want to have a play with an Arduino board but don’t have previous experience of coding and/or electronics. Quite a few online crafting/electronic suppliers seem to have Arduino starter kits — so this is evidently a popular hobby.

Its exciting to get the “Blink” program running (Arduino’s version of “Hello World”), but because this board has a built in LED I haven’t had a chance to play with the components yet. First of all I’ve been changing the timings of the delay between LED blinks — baby steps first

The Arduino IDE is available for free and on first inspection seems intuitive and powerful. My understanding is that you write in Arduino code (which is based on C++), this is then converted into actual C++, which is then compiled and can be uploaded to the board.

Hello!
I’ve been observing the beginnings of a project by TinkerLondon involving DIY smart homes which will run over autumn of this year, and I wondered if you might be interested (or know other folks who would be)?

The project involves giving 6 homes across Europe a research kit of the latest open hardware tech, and training in how to use them. They then have up to 3 months in the autumn to play with the tech, make interesting things, and share their experiences through blogs and videos. Each household will also be partnered with some local technology experts who will help them throughout the autumn and provide support where-ever’s needed.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about technology – all of the kit and the training is designed so that folks with any amount (or not) of tech know-how. We’re actually really interested to see what kind of things non-techy people would make and how they make it. There’s no constraints on what toys people can build: people could track their cats, their plants, measure how often the fridge door opens, and anything else they fancy.

There’s more information here - www.homesenseproject.com – and do give me a yell if you need to know more. We’re on a pretty tight deadline to find our final round of households so do let us know soon if you fancy it, and please please do pass this on to anyone else who might be interested!

Cheers,
Natasha

Details available here:
http://www.homesenseproject.com/about/

Sign up here:

_Households
http://www.homesenseproject.com/make-me-a-smart-home/
_Experts
http://www.homesenseproject.com/become-an-expert/

Collaboration is a coat of many colours – it exists in many forms and for many ends. It can be fun, it can be exciting, it can be extremely hard work and it can take you outside of your comfort zone. In its very best form it gives everyone involved a chance to learn something, to produce something meaningful and not just merely contribute from their own single perspective. HighWire’s strap line ‘creating innovative people for radical change’ doesn’t quite capture the collaborative nature of much of our work and of our thinking. But it’s there, it’s definitely there.

We held our first workshop on Tuesday around the general theme of emotive physicality. What do we mean by this? Well, there’s a sense that physical products can engage and affect us in ways that are different to digital media. Can we make use of these possibilities and provide experiences that seem more natural, more intuitive and maybe more fun? This is what we’ll be looking at over the next few months and the workshop allowed us to kick start the whole process.

As part of our collaborative approach, we were honoured to have both Taylor Nuttall from Folly and Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino from Tinker working with us for the day. They are both truly inspirational.

So, how did it all work out? Well, in the spirit of DIY culture and just ‘making stuff’ the initial warm-up session felt like you’d just entered a primary school classroom, but with less tears. This was surprising; to be honest I’d been expecting more tears. After the ‘getting to know us all’ session with card, felt, scissors, glue, string and balsa wood we then proceeded into the next sessions armed with only post-it notes for support. Stripped bare, we brainstormed ideas around data and data sources, connections and transformations, and finally physical realisations of these data sources and associated transformations.

There were a few novel interpretations of what data would be useful – ‘confusion’ was identified, along with a ‘busyness’ indicator. A cluster of ideas developed around ‘emotional states’, specifically asking the question about capturing the emotional states not of individuals, but of groups, such as an audience. The prize for the most inventive transformation must surely go to the inspired choice of ‘magic’. This struck me as a wholly appropriate way to think about transformations and maybe even interaction design in general. Interaction that has a sense of wonderment about it may be interesting indeed.

Final concept realisations were developed in the heady atmosphere of both the post-it notes and the contents of the craft boxes. Carnage ensued and fun was had by all as teams were rather naughtily swapped at half-time and inherited another team’s half-baked ideas. The physical models produced included adaptive architectures, connected gardens, handbags that dripped e-pheromones, and an interventionist God. What more can I say?

The day was rounded off in rather fine style with fizz and cake. I believe we may have judged the concepts too and awarded a rather special prize.

For me, this was the beginning of a journey. Collaboration, to work well, has to be based upon trust, building of relationships and of mutual interest (and passion) across a broad topic area rather than short-term specific questions. For those interested in forms of collaboration with Universities I can recommend reading Knowledge Exchange and Universities and Business produced by the Centre for Business Research.

One thing that clearly jumped out to me personally was the Renaissance nature of this developing field. It’s clearly post-disciplinary; skills and expertise are required in a wide variety of areas across art, design, engineering, and computing. We also need to both incorporate and synthesise theoretical approaches to help us understand and support these type of interactive experiences.

A final word – it’s likely that we’ll be running more of these workshops, focusing more on practical skills covering, e.g., arduino, processing and rapid-prototyping techniques. If you’re interested in these or in broader collaboration, please do get in touch.

Yesterday morning my Arduino arrived along with some wire, some RGB LEDs and a breadboard. After a day of handing written work in and getting back late the excitement just about extended into the evening to build a test board. The task: Lighting up one LED, the equivalent of the premier programming exercise “Hello World.”

Having a non-existent knowledge of electronics made it a bit more fun as different data sheets and wiring diagrams didn’t necessarily contradict each other but proved there’s always more than one way to get it wired up and working.

The first problem, after cutting the wire with wire cutters was using the same tool to strip the insulation off at the either end. As frustration grew I looked elsewhere and eventually a pair of kitchen scissors saved the day.

After ramming the wire into the holes on the Duemilanove board then again onto the breadboard I stuck some resistors in what I thought were the relevant places. The LED was added, although I didn’t have much confidence this thing was going to light up.
I loaded up the Arduino IDE and after installing the USB Drivers – I couldn’t find the board initially – I made some small modifications to the Blink program. Changing the ports to send high, changing the timing a little. Surprisingly for me it worked first time!

Compare this experience with learning a “Hello World” program or perhaps the next step up where you might print your name. A semi-colon out of place, which may be a pixel or two in terms of visual mistake on screen and the whole thing collapses. When circuitry becomes more complex undoubtedly there will be a similar process to debugging involved but the physical manifestation allows you to get a feel for where that problem might be.

I was worried the wiring wasn’t perfect but luckily, unlike the code, it needn’t be.