My attempt with the FLAR toolkit….

Let’s just say my attempt with FLAR was barely succesful. After attempting on my own for ages, I decided to find and follow an online tutorial. The only one I could find was thankfully using matrix boards, and I managed this:

The Office 'Word' cube came in the online tutorial download as did the printable matrix board....

After this I tried once more to get ABSee working using a webcam. It did not co-operate. Once I managed to get my apple to sit on the matrix I made for ‘A’, but when I tried to animate it I ruined it and went back to square one. This, therefore, is the furthest I got with the FLAR toolkit 😦

Prototype of ABSee….

Sit your child on your lap as follows….

The teddy bear is used in place of a child....

E-Learning and AR

It is just coming to light how fantastic learning using AR can be.

•“AR has the goal of enhancing a person’s perception of the surrounding world. Being partly virtual and real, the new interface technology of AR can revolutionise education”

•Students can manipulate objects that are not real. This means no “real” errors – eg training a pilot.

•It makes learning FUN!

AR – My Idea – iABC

Ok so I started thinking what could be simple enough that I could actually make it happen, and is original. At first I wanted to do Wi-Fi signals again, and show them as domes on the iPhone screen through the camera. I quickly became bored with this idea and realised it’s not all that original.

So, after a little brainstorming with my housemates, I realised that something that’s really up-and-coming at the moment is ‘e-Learning’, teaching people through interactive means. To keep it simple, I decided that aiming my idea at young kids would be really fun and would allow me to keep it simple. What skills do kids need to learn? How to safely cross the street? How to tie their shoelaces? The alphabet? The alphabet!

Here’s the concept; an iPhone app to help toddlers learn their alphabet in a fun way that really sticks, using AR! The parent will print out the alphabet from the app’s website, something like this:

printout form iABC website

Then, the parent will prop this up infront of them, with the toddler on the parents lap. With their hands around the child, they open the app on the iPhone, hold it so each letter in turn shows on the screen (using the iPhones camera) and the app will recognise which letter is being shown, and respond accordingly. At the moment that is to say the sound, then say the letter, and a animated character will come on the screen. For example, when the letter B is on the screen, it would say ‘Buh’, *pause*, ‘Buh’, then ‘Bee’, then ‘Bee is for Bear’ and an animated bear character would bounce onto the screen and smile/wave. I’ve made a mock up interface below:

mock up of interface for iABC

This is just a prototype, as you can probably tell I just got that bear off Google Images, I will obviously be drawing my own characters for this. I’m really excited about this project! I’m happy with my idea and think it could really come out well….

•Use iPhone to view AR

•Buy book

•Sit child on your lap and open book on table…

•Watch you child learn their ABC’s in a whole new way!

Now to research other e-Learning AR programs that are already out there!

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….

Land bought!

Right, so we’ve all handed over a fiver to our group leader, and he’s purchased the land I mention in the last post. Mathew has set about designing the ‘course’, and our island is pretty much ready! Here’s a few snapshots of the two halves of the island, which are going to be two different games, both tag games obviously, but with different objectives.

One half of the island... filled with houses (click to enlarge)

The land has turned out to be perfect, what with all those prims we have. Time to run a few test gamse I feel…. then research how to get our event on the SL events page….

Land for sale on SL….

So, I found our perfect bit of land. It’s a blank island, and costs L$7862 for a week. Seems like a lot but as we only need it for a week, it’s about a fiver each. Not too shabby I think! It’s a good size, 65536 sq metres, and over 3700 prims to work with. There were a few other options, but we decided we needed an island as they are the biggest space and a lot of other islands I looked at were very pricey indeed…. this is quite reasonable for the amount of land we’re getting.

I’m gonna pass a landmark onto our group leader, Will Skates, and see how it goes.

Second Life – Initial Land Investigation

OK, so for our SL project for iDAT 204 we’ve been asked to hold an event in the virtual world that is Second Life. My first task within our group was to discover what sort of land you can buy for what sort of price. Firstly, here’s a screenshot of my avatar:

J3SSi Sorbet

Yes so, land ey? You can either buy a plot of land from a realtor or a whole island. Prices really do vary, but all in all it’s pretty expensive!! Here’s the first plot of land I found:

Beach Plot

It’s 20X40 and cost L$3000 to move-in, then L$4000 per month after that. This works out at around £10 move in price and £14 a month. Expensive for what is essentially a few pixels!

 

Next I found this place:

Snow Plot

A slightly smaller plot at 15 X 30, but was a lot cheaper with no move in price, and L$538 a week it still works out a lot cheaper than the beach plot. Plus it’s situated in ‘Courvalier’, part of ‘France 3D’ on Second Life. Really like this place, they have a snowboarding run!

Here’s an island for sale that I found:

Island

Islands are pretty expensive, this one is not all that big, but costs L$40000 buying price, then L$19250 per month after that. Expensive stuff!

Digital Organism – TwitFish!

For iDAT204, we have 6 weeks to research, design and create a digital organism, along the lines of a tamagotchi (aka simple, yet behaves as if it is alive) but without the ‘push a button and get a response’. It’s got to have other influential factors that change it’s behaviour

or⋅gan⋅ism
/ˈɔrgəˌnɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [awr-guh-niz-uhm] Show IPA

–noun
1. a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes.
2. a form of life considered as an entity; an animal, plant, fungus, protistan, or moneran.
3. any organized body or system conceived of as analogous to a living being: the governmental organism.
4. any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole.

– Definition – Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/organism)

I’ve done a little research and found some cool examples:

• At the highly technical and mathematical scale, is NobleApe.com, an advanced simulation creating not only the biological environment for the ‘apes’ but also their mental (cognitive) behaviour
• Alan Bourne’s Organism << this is an organism created by another iDAT student of previous years. I like the way it’s really simple yet beautiful and clever. The organisms grow and evolve, and can even spawn.

MinimalisticDesigns Organism

• MusicDish << this is an add-on for iTunes, it’s a visualiser that reacts to beats in the music. It’s a really awesome idea, original, and simple. The circle is the ‘organism’ part that ‘feeds’ off the squares when it comes into contact with them, growing and shrinking when it eats or starves.

I’m working with Josh Bond on this project, and we’re just in the first stages at the moment, deciding what we’re going to do!

We’ve had a few chats and think we’ve come up with an idea. We’re planning to create a fishtank using flash, with a goldfish ‘living’ in it. It will swim, eat, poop and possibly spawn through the use of twitter feeds. I’ve set up a twitter account : TwitFish Twitter, and hopefully the Flash program will use key words posted by the twitter account via an RSS feed and the fish will react accordingly from the keyword. This is just in the first stages but I’m hoping it’s simple enough to work yet complicated enough to provide a challenge. I’ll post up some sketches and prototype fish soon!