iDAT210 – a very open brief!

OK so a little while ago we got given the brief for our big project for iDAT210. It is extremely open, basically find a problem, and create an innovative solution. Woah.

Luckily, we had a lecture with Ben and he went through some previous students projects and gave us a loads of ideas to spark from. Augmented Reality was the thing that grasped me first, especially as we’re doing this for 204 as well….. But then Ben showed us this:

Made by TheFunTheory.com, to get people to use the stairs more, they made them into piano keys that when stepped on, would play the corresponding note on the scale. So I looked into this website further…. Their main idea is that “something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.” Aka, take something that people don’t like doing, and make it fun!

Here’s another example from TheFunTheory.com, the Bottle Bank Arcade Machine!

I really like the idea behind the Fun Theory, it’s a very good springboard for new inventions and I think governments should really look into developing someone these things to combat our ever-increasing lazyness and can’t-be-bothered attitude .

Augmented Reality

“Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.”-Wikipedia

So, my next project for iDAT204 is to augment some sort of digital information into real life. I’ve had a good dig around and found some brilliant examples of AR on YouTube and the like, and I’m really quite excited about this project!

The first thing that came to mind when I thought of AR is a game my friend used to have which, at the time, seemed like the most amazing technology ever! And that is the Eye Toy for the Playstation. Here’s a video:

This is slightly more advanced that the original my friend had, but it gives a clearer picture! Basically the EyeToy (a sort of webcam) sits on top of your TV and when you play the game it puts the picture of you up on the screen, and it can detect your movement.

Very recently, Playstation have brought out a new version of EyeToy, but rather EyePet. Here’s the advert for it:

It shows your living room on the camera and places your ‘pet’ in your own lounge (but rather on the tv) and certain movements you make allow you to interact with your pet who’s on the screen.

This game was invented for iPhone and iPod Touch. You buy the ‘quadracopter’, then can control its flight using your iPhone. The AR part is the cameras attached to the copter. You see the camera view on your iPhone, and also when you ‘fire’ at opponents you will see your laser, and other ‘bonuses’ you can fly to and collect. You can play against  a robot (an AR board) that shows up on your iPhone screen and reacts to shots fired etc and shoots them back, or play against a friend if they have also have a quadracopter. Here’s the video:

I’m quite interested in the iPhone aspect of things, I’ve seen many awesome AR apps, most of which show you directions to things, or give you info on your surroundings, like this:

The problem is, coming up with something original! I’ll be giving this some thought over the next few weeks….

More location thoughts….

During a group meeting today, we talked about our location choices, and Gav mentioned about what I called the ‘loading bars’ effect on the bus shelter, and he said he saw them as censorship bars, as when you look directly onto them they block out a section of the people sitting in the shelter… He showed us this picture to demostrate:

See how part of the people waiting for the bus are blocked out....

This leads to discussion about censorship and what it brings to the table….

An interesting group regarding censorship is the CAC – Campaign Against Censorship, who say that “We believe that the repressive dangers of censorship for adults outweigh any possible benefits, and that what is acceptable for adults to read, see, or hear should be decided by personal judgement and taste, not by the law.”

A campaign pic from the CAC

The issue of censorship is really interesting to me…. Hopefully we can work some more on this.

The other location of behind C103 is fantastically grungy like I said before, but I overlooked it’s main purpose of being a smoking area. Jean reminded the group of this, and we’ve been thinking about ways we can make an impact on such an area, mainly by showing the reality of smoking and the harm it can cause. Maybe even more raw than that, reflecting the dirty-ness of the area to the dirty habit of smoking…

Here’s a 3D model with the same lighting we feel the area has at night, made by Gav:

Location of Projection?

We’ve narrowed it down to two locations in Stonehouse: one being a bus shelter right on the seafront by the newly converted houses, and the other being the smoking area behind C103.

So first, the bus shelter. We liked this because it’s transparent, which opens a whole new dimension to our projection. It also has this cool bar across the middle, which made me instantly think of a ‘loading’ bar like when you open up a webpage or internet game. Here’s a picture of the bus shelter:

There's me an Cookie sitting in the bus shelter, and the 'loading bar'

We’re hoping to play around with reflective light as there is essentially a box of transparent plastic, which we hope could provide the right environment to produce something really cool, even considering our relatively small projector. The one issue with this location is audience; this area is not very busy at night and therefore will be seen by relatively few people.

The other area we’re interested in is the smoking area behind C103, which is a busy club in the heart of Union Street, close to the old Dance Academy building.

The smoking area round the back intrigued me because of it’s grungy-ness, it looks like something out of an old gangster movie set in the backstreets of London. Here’s a panorama Gav made of the smoking area outside the back of C103 (click to enlarge!)

Click to enlarge!

The area I think would be best for projection would be the stairs; it’s a light-ish backdrop, and the stairs create an interesting dynamic. It’s slightly too big for our projection, but we don’t have to fill it corner to corner. It also gets darker earlier because it’s quite enclosed, and as long as we get permission from the owners of C103 to project, it’ll also have a large audience as it’s busy late at night.

LEDs/Projections

In our lecture with Shaun Murray today we learned that our main project for this module is just as the title presumes….. Transforming Stonehouse. We’re going to be placing something back into Stonehouse in the form of a projection or LED display. I was really caught on the idea of projection especially after Shaun showed us some examples. Here’s a few examples I found myself on YouTube:

^^ This one is by far my favourite. This was presented at the start of a party at a country mansion. It’s just so extravagant, and so realistic. The graphics are fantastic, and I love the way it integrates the actual building into the projection. The Pacman bit was especially awesome.

^^ The way the hands push on blocks that look like segments of the building (because they’re the same size as the square blocks of the windows)

^^ This collection is absolutely amazing! Especially at 1:24, I can’t believe how real the projection looks! It really makes you think that the building is changing shape… I hope we get to play with something like this!

Amazing huh? I’m really quite stuck on this idea….. However we don’t have the equipment to project on the same sort of scale as the above examples! Just the usual whiteboard size projector. So now to find a space perfect enough in Stonehouse! Hopefully going to relate it back to our research on wifi hotspots…..

Middle section…..

SO the main bulk of my POV video is done, here it is!

I may tweak it a little before handing it in, but I think I’ll just do credits at the beginning and the end and then I’m sorted! The heart and word ‘see’ took forever to ‘twinkle’ as they do. Took me quite a good few hours to get them right! It’s a case of editing it, finding some music to go over the top and the credits. Then just chuck on the dome plug-in and away we go! Not sure I’ll have the chance to test it except on the day but as mines quite simple it’ll be fine.

Can you see what’s not quite there?