November 5, 2007
The hunt for the great white solenoid
I'm working on a physical prototype that requires a device that I can send power to, and have it make a sort of punching motion. Luckily for me there is just such a device. It is called a linear actuator, or solenoid.
Devices such as these are EVERYWHERE. There are dozens of them in your car for example. When you push a button, and your door locks click open or closed, that my friend is the work of the solenoid. They are in our cars, our hot water heaters, our thermostats, our doorbells, our security systems, and just about everywhere.
Unless you need to just buy one...
In the case that you just want to buy some solenoids your options are extremely limited.
Essentially, for the everyman, here is what you get...
I know... wow.
This device consists of a magnetic coil with a plunger. The catch is... that's it. You can stick in the plunger, apply voltage, and wham, the plunger moves forward. If you want it to do anything else, for example return to the starting position, you have to do all the engineering yourself. If you have a highly equipped metal shop, no sweat, but who has that?
I've found several companies that produce more complex solenoids, but they do not usually sell to people like me, who need 5-10 units. They want to sell me 1000 units at about $18 each.
This is by far, the most frustrating thing about doing physical design; simply finding the right materials. Sometimes things just don't exist, and sometimes they do, but you don't get to play with them, but at the end of the day you still need to finish that prototype, and the duct-tape solution you've rigged up is not going to cut it. I've spent several weeks working on this prototype, and the vast majority of time has been searching for the right solenoid, or trying to figure out a way to modify the one I have such that it does not require blow-torches, or look like that breakfast making contraption in beginning of Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
All of this has given me a lot of respect for artists who do large scale installations. They really must spend a lot of time just looking for the right materials. In art and design, I have to wonder how much the ability to find these materials separates those who end up being mediocre to those who end up being renown.
Posted by whazlewo at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2007
Status Report
- CHI Workshop paper :: Ambient persuasion
Gettting very close, I don't think I'll have a hard time getting this submitted by Wednesday. Once Kevin gets his revision to me I'll send it out the door. I should have sent a copy of this to Kay for comments, but I'm running out of time. - Paperwork for Qualification Completion
This one is easy, I just need to get signatures from Kay, Erik, and David. - Time-line for Kay
Need to start putting together a timeline of my progress over the next 2 years for my PhD. - Get paperwork for SLIS course (enroll)
This one should also be easy. I just need to pick up the paperwork from SLIS, and then get signatures from two Deans and Katy. - Plan a teaching exercise for the pedagogy course
This one is a week or two away. I need to come up with a teaching exercise for my pedagogy course. 15 minuets, assume it is for an undergrad class, not too technical I suppose. - CIxD Meeting on Friday
This Friday I'll be discussing the sound prototype to the group. I suppose we'll talk about alternate prototypes and developing a plan for completing the prototypes. - HCI/d Group Presentation on Wednesday
For this presentation I'll talk about the Workshop paper from above to the HCI/d group. - Workshop Proposal for UbiComp
This is further down the road, but I think it will be sometime in April. - Upcomming CHI-Note Plan
Kay and I discussed maybe not doing a CHI-Note, but perhaps sending this to UbiComp or UIST. UbiComp is in Korea, and so it would really be important for me to have a few things accepted - Start thinking about a table project for Yvonne
This is a ways away, but I should have it on the list
Posted by whazlewo at 10:41 PM | Comments (1)
August 13, 2007
Status Report
Current Primary Tasks
Ambient Orb Study Paper
Living Lab Specifications
SoundWall Prototype
Find out how many classes I still need to take
1) Ambient Orb Study Paper
I've worked a bit more on how to restructure the paper, and I've been editing the orginal draft to match the revamped emphasis. We will be focusing on the issues that arise when attempting to conduct user studies on technologies that act as ambient information displays. I'm pretty sure this will be a relevant contribution if we can get it published. I generated a nice infographic showing what the state of each user's orb was over the course of the study. It does a nice job at showing just how little the orbs changed in regard to the data. Hopefully this will make a strong case that the reason that people did not perceive it is because it did not ever appear to change. I am not sure how to articulate it yet, but I think this means that the ambient device is doing its job. It is telling the user that they do not need to check up on the data, but at the same time telling them the current steady state of the data. I'll have to work on that. See current draft of paper here.
2) Living Lab Specifications
I met with Jason Pierce (former Aware Home lab manager) and got a little bit of insight as to how the Aware Home functions as a research/project space. I started to get a little concerned that no one was preparing for my visit so I sent out an email reminding them that I was coming. Sure enough someone emailed me back saying the were not aware that I had scheduled a trip. Some of the issues that Jason Pierce brought up were
- The amount of wiring added to the space can mess with wireless functionality
- The logistics of keeping the demo's running are difficult
- Lots of projects died because students graduated and moved on
3) SoundWall Prototype
I haven't touched this since last week. What I would like, at the very least, is to have the solenoids mounted behind the stonework and write a small program that will take input from the motion sensors to trigger them. I did send a detailed message to Leslie Sharpe to ask if she would be interested in collaborating on this project. It is as much fine arts related as it is HCId after all. She said that she liked the idea and had some students that may be interested. We are planning to meet after she gets back to Bloomington sometime after the 22nd of August.
4) Finding out how many credits I have left
I spoke to Erik about this and he suggested that I speak with Marty. I need to have this figured out by the time school starts, but I'll be starting qualification exams on the 20th. I probably will not work on this until after quals are done, probably the 9th of September.
Note: The DiamondTouch table we were awarded has arrived. I am working with Erik now to find a place to install it and a computer to drive it. I really hope we can get some students doing interesting projects.
Plan for the rest of this week: Work on the Paper, prep for the Atlanta trip, prepare for quals.
Posted by whazlewo at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2007
Status Report
Current Primary Tasks
Ambient Orb Study Paper
Living Lab Specifications
SoundWall Prototype
Find out how many classes I still need to take
1) Ambient Orb Study Paper
After discussing the paper with Kay last week I've got a good idea of how the paper will be structured, and where the emphasis will be. The purpose of the paper will be to describe the issues that arise when doing user studies involving ambient information systems. I need to re-examine what I've already written and start the paper anew with this focus in mind.
2) Living Lab Specifications
I've booked a flight to Atlanta to visit their Aware Home Lab. Also, I've started a google document with a list of things that I need to make sure and ask about while I'm there. I still need to send an email to Jason Pierce, a former member of that lab who is now here at IU, and go over this list with him before I go. Kay is paying for the trip so I need to get as much out of the visit as possible.
3) SoundWall Prototype
I've figured for the most part how solenoids work and how I can make use of them. Also, I've gathered parts and constructed a crude prototype, the only problem is that it sounds like garbage. I guess you need a little bit of expertise when working with musical equipment. Until I can figure out how to mount the tuned bars w/o them being deadened I am kind of stuck.
4) Finding out how many credits I have left
As far as I know, I only have 1 required class (pedagogy) and one minor class (SLIS) left to me, but I'm not certain.
Plan for the rest of this week: Work on the Paper, maybe play with the prototype, take another look into the list of things to prep for the Atlanta trip.
Posted by whazlewo at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2007
Getting a new DiamondSpin table for the HCI students
I've been talking to all the people I can find from the Mitsubishi Electronics Research Lab in a mad attempt to talk them into giving us a DiamondTouch table. We used to have one but Yvonne took it to the UK.
When I was working on the DiamondTouch table, the Java API (DiamondSpin) was in version 1.0 and was miserable to use. Needless to say, I was very burned out on it when we finished out project. However I was looking at DiamondSpin again now that it has become opensourced. So many improvements have been made that I am feeling antsy to do a new project. We have several students at Informatics that have project ideas that would be perfect for the ole DT Table.
I guess now what I need to do is get together with anyone who thinks they want to do a project and try to write up a project proposal to send to MERL.
Posted by whazlewo at 3:57 PM | Comments (0)