Picking up a random book to read in the library led me to take it out and read it cover to cover. The excellent “Out of their Minds” profiles 15 Computer Scientists including John Backus, Alan Kay, Edsger Dijkstra, Knuth and Fred Brooks. Having the human element really makes a change from a lot of the other reading I’ve been doing on all things smart energy, smart power and smart homes. Often the papers present systems in such a dry, systematic manner you would be forgiven for forgetting that people are supposed to want to live with them. Exploring the motivations for installation then the extent of continued interaction is a theme I’d like to explore more within the “smart home” area.

This in mind on Friday, I, Rachel Keller and Gordon Blair visited the Horizon DTC at Nottingham University. Discussed my interests in smart energy and kept in mind my inherent computer science predisposition to frame problems and discover solutions.

Met some students after being shown into the facilities by the Lake on the Jubilee Campus. The computer science buildings are located separately to the main Nottingham campus and finding it in the morning on the way up from the Igloo Hostel was a happy accident.

After sitting in on a meeting then having lunch we went to the other building housing the Horizon project and got mini-introductions to a variety of projects by staff. The time taken out to see us was much appreciated. Finally we met Prof. Tom Rodden whom seemed to share similar ideas to me around the data side of smart meters and pointed out some relevant projects with a great deal of knowledge and enthusiasm.

Meeting this Ubicomp focused contemporary of Highwire was an enjoyable and valuable day out.

A few days after attending the first HighWire workshop on Physicality this HighWiree took off to go to the Pervasive conference. This is one of the premier ubiquitous computing conferences and on the first day ran a series of workshops. I attended “Energy Awareness and Conservation through Pervasive Applications.” This is a very specific domain and the likely HighWire project resulting from the Physicality workshop will not be in the area of energy awareness, efficiency or tackling fundamental problems like algorithm efficiency. The common ground of these workshops for me being the mobile and ubiquitous computing they hoped to exploit.

Despite the different areas of work, the aims of both workshops were similar, to define a research agenda for those involved. The approach taken by each workshop was very different and both generated plenty of ideas and inspiration.

The Physicality workshop introduction set the fun and playful mood to be carried through the project. Creating craft representations of facets of ones personality broke the ice rather than the now tired introduction of name and short background bio.

Introductions at Perasive were the more formal name, where from and interests. Prof. Giulio Jacucci, the organiser and presenter did try to make this a little more exciting with a favourite food or fun fact.

After the introductions at Pervasive the rest of the morning was taken with presentations of accepted papers to be published in a special edition of PsychNology. Jon Bird of the Open University presented the Change Project more specifically “The Pulse of Tidy Street.” Followed a project describing how devices can interact with Smart Meters using web technologies, fascinating for me as close to how I imagined my PhD would be perhaps a year ago. The last presentation by Duncan Wilson on the engineering firm Arup’s approach to sustainable cities.

The Highwire workshop included a presentation from Tinker to set the scene and give participants an idea of where this partner company is situated.

Post-its were used at the Highwire workshop to put ideas on boards on three typical areas that need to be addressed in any physical computing installation. That’s the methods of data capture and potential sources, imaginary, wacky and impossible included. The means of processing and transforming and means of output or interaction with the data.

At Pervasive the ever present post-it was also utilised but a more general comment on anything approach which were then condensed into three themes by a few volunteers. After lunch we broke-up into three groups to tackle one of these emergent themes. I set out to a local cafe with James Scott, Jörn Loviscach and Matthias Betz armed with a pen and a couple of pieces of A3 paper. Initially we tried to find common ground but quickly each person lead off into their own area. This proves how broad this particular area is and finding an agreed overall research imperative and set of questions may be impossible. Governance plays as much a part as technological research challenges.

The Physicality workshop kept people on topic after lunch with an exercise in making something and part way through proceedings swapping the topic the team had to discuss.

Both workshops were concluded with a presentation from these groups. Looking back on both of these proves designing a workshop is as much an exercise in managing levels of disagreement and with them different agendas as generating that buzz around a particular theme.

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.

You may have found this site (stephen-lord.co.uk) through several domains that point here.

stephen-lord.co.uk is one I’ve just registered today as more appropriate for an online portfolio. You’ll see why in a second.
hydrogenoxide.com goes way back, I now know it’s Hydrogen Hydroxide, Dihydrogen Monoxide or just “water” – a great buy if you’re a clever teenager with a delusion of a mega-bucks domain sale if or when the Hydrogen age arrives.
ripup.co.uk may still yet get converted to a Maps “mash-up” with the tagline Skate, Surf, Snow spots. Stick a pin and a review where the water or terrain is especially conducive to particular outdoor activities.