Long, detailed notes follow in extended entry.
Continue reading Sketching in Hardware Day 3: Notes from discussion.
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In the Maker Shed
Kits like
Maker Faire!
conversation
- what kits need: hot glue, soldering iron
- kids involvement in Make, Maker Faire?
- Dale: education day the day before
- Ed: kits going to kids?
- Brian: got the sense that a lot of people were buying them for kids
- everything to build machinery
- how do we make this accessible to kids from elementary to high school?
Scratch
lifelong kindergarten project at media lab
something that kids can make themselves - for creativity and for learning
provides some built-in sensors with pre-calibrated values
shows a homemade Guitar Hero made by a 6th grader, who figured out that humans can complete a circuit
developing a community of young programmers through the website - over 170,000 projects posted since it started last year
next version of Scratch will 'raise the ceiling' for more expert use and finer grained control
integrating Arduino
and creating output from Scratch to systems of actuators
building graphic programming systems - enabling sharing code quickly and allowing people to double-click and get immediate feedback on what each visual "block" does
a small piece of firmware on the Arduino connects the Arduino to Scratch
supporting multiple kinds of engagement with Scratch - balancing the needs of multiple people - moving people into "real" programming
conversation
back and forth between controller and desktop - important to let people know what would happen IF they called a function
The manipulative is the message
embodied media
the narrowing of experience through windows-mouse interface
how can computers leverage our physical-world skills in a way that is generalizable
siftables
- using existing physical gestures: tilting, swirling, pouring, moving closer
- sense physical motion
- display color graphics
- sense neighbors in close proximity
- communicate wirelessly with a computer: standalone or interface to a desktop
software: programming a distributed system
- distributed code/algorithms: robust, enables emergent behavior - but difficult to author complex coordinated bheavior
- centralized control: easier to author, but can be brittle
- so siftables combines both
software: events
- both single events (in a single siftable) and topology changes (a cluster of units, like pouring color from one to another)
interaction paradigm: embodied media rather than "physical cursor"
Sensor Network User Interfaces
f
- irst idea: interface to a sensor network
- but can we create an interface from a sensor network - so that interaction with nodes creates interface?
- sensor networks are just barely becoming usable, but lots of opportunity for them
- self-contained/powered mobile nodes! coordinated behavior!
- lots of architecture problems are being solved - graceful degredation, localization, code change
the problem: how do we lower the barrier to entry?
- what is the Flash for sensor network infrastructure? what is the Arduino for sensor network infrastructure?
- Sun SPOTS, SquidBee, XBee
wish-list
- dead-simple mesh networking
- foundation: discovery, position, action,
- higher-level: global, distributed behaviors, easily see what is talking to what -- discoverability
conversation
- Dave M: Why do you want the multiples?
- David M: We're good with multiple manipulation, like blocks. We're good at putting things together
- Jan: Getting students to make the mental leap from the single spot of attention to the multiple units. Also, maybe programming sensor nets is hard is because parallel programming is really hard. Also, why not touch input?
- David M: no touch input mostly because the original vision was of piles of things, avoiding cellphone
- Phil: Productivize?
- David M: Yes! After finishing thesis.
- Pamela: Is there a way we can all be aware of each other and start a forum for exchange?
- David M: networks of distributed objects and UI
The manipulative is the message
embodied media
the narrowing of experience through windows-mouse interface
how can computers leverage our physical-world skills in a way that is generalizable
siftables
- using existing physical gestures: tilting, swirling, pouring, moving closer
- sense physical motion
- display color graphics
- sense neighbors in close proximity
- communicate wirelessly with a computer: standalone or interface to a desktop
software: programming a distributed system
- distributed code/algorithms: robust, enables emergent behavior - but difficult to author complex coordinated bheavior
- centralized control: easier to author, but can be brittle
- so siftables combines both
software: events
- both single events (in a single siftable) and topology changes (a cluster of units, like pouring color from one to another)
interaction paradigm: embodied media rather than "physical cursor"
Sensor Network User Interfaces
f
- irst idea: interface to a sensor network
- but can we create an interface from a sensor network - so that interaction with nodes creates interface?
- sensor networks are just barely becoming usable, but lots of opportunity for them
- self-contained/powered mobile nodes! coordinated behavior!
- lots of architecture problems are being solved - graceful degredation, localization, code change
the problem: how do we lower the barrier to entry?
- what is the Flash for sensor network infrastructure? what is the Arduino for sensor network infrastructure?
- Sun SPOTS, SquidBee, XBee
wish-list
- dead-simple mesh networking
- foundation: discovery, position, action,
- higher-level: global, distributed behaviors, easily see what is talking to what -- discoverability
Good hardware APIs
what makes a good hardware APIwhy is the Basic Stamp so hard? it's unclear what you do to it - you need to buy all those other bits in order to even get started
Arduino: has a USB port, and holes - people know how to use holes, you stick something in!
another good hardware API:
I2C connectors on Wii
Todd made his own connector to an Arduino
it's actually easy to interface
Wii MotionPlus 2-axis accelerometer for $15!
started thinking about this while making BlinkM - how to make an augmented LED that would fit perfectly into standard prototyping setups?
the benefits of .1'' spacing
BlinkM
MaxM - ultrabright
LinkM - productivized Arduino to make hooking up lights EVEN easier and less scary for non-engineers
USB not on Rails
turns out there are a bunch of problems with the original USB-HID idea
instead, use USB Communication Device Class (CDC)!
no drivers needed
it's simple, but maybe too simple (like serial)
generative shapes with laser cutters
Sketchup + SVG plugin to make patterns for containers
conversation
create "least possible" BlinkM deployment tool with connectors already attached for coin battery
adapter board so LED can be swapped in and out
Moving Things and the Anatomy of Prototypes
Moving Things
t
- eaching in Umea
- examples of student work: very fast projects - limited ability to prototype behaviors, faking it with video
- easy to refer to and mimick human behaviors
- but it's hard to articulate a vocabulary around different qualities of movement
- looking for other modalities to describe (as the Futurists did)
- consequences: you have to build stuff in order to ground design decisions
- synthesizing movement (esp organic movement) is really tough! we need better tools
- but the results can be fun
- Kristofer Polhem's alphabet of movement
- Babbage's sign language for the movement of machinery - kind of obscure
- Labanotation - but you have to be trained!
- taking inspiration from CAD/animation software
- Fischer Technik kits
- Parkes/Poupyrev/Ishii article on Desigining Kinetic Interactions for Organic Interactions
Anatomy of prototypes
Lim, Stolterman, and Tenenberg 2008 (behind subscription wall at ACM)
Systemic approach to prototypes and prototyping
past attempts to identify prototypes
fidelity level - not a great way to approach -- all in how prototypes are framed, and you can't separate prototypes from the activity they
dependent on type of activity
Lichter et al (1993): from software, 4 types: (1) presentation prototype, (2) proper prototype, (3) breadboard, (4) pilot system
Principles of Prototyping (from Lim, Stolterman, Tenenberg)
fundamental prototyping principle
economic principles
filtering dimensions
manifestation dimensions
why this is interesting
relationships between dimensions are complex
develop enhanced relationship to prototype quality
use as a thinking guide when planning
a "good" prototype is very dependent on what you are trying to explore, evaluate, understand
Open-Source Hardware vs Open-Source Software
what is open source hardware?
- ex: Arduino, OpenSPARC, RepRap, Chumby
- seven layer open source model from (PT and ladyada): physical, schematic, parts list, layout, firmware, drivers
- people care about different parts
- David's def: "Provision of the digital artificats necessary to reproduce, understand, and modify a piece of hardware"
how does it differ from OS software?
- money!
- this bothers OS software people - you need more money to do hardware
- but if you're spending all this time, like in OSS, you could just spend money and save some time in OSH
- distribution is essential - especially internationally - but it's not a problem in OSS
- tools aren't good (ie, version control is really hard, and standard file formats aren't actually the source code)
- Eagle and CAD are proprietary and expensive, in OSS you can use great free tools
- testing is expensive and slow - it can take hours or weeks, so rapid iteration is hard
- and collaboration is difficult - you can't just email a patch and run it
- first off - what's the equivalent of a patch in hardware? then you'd have to have it manufactured to test it - so lots of people sending in little patches isn't practicable
- so forking is the norm, not as political as in sw
- so there are lots of Arduino versions - they don't stay together in one canonical form
- encouraging entrepreneurship - distribution channels almost require starting a business. it's not just about creating the thing (the piece of sw) doesn't see it as a good thing or a bad thing - it attracts a different kind of person, and he's positive about startups
- can't upgrade after release (given what Nate said) - you can do a new version, but people will still own and use the old one
- extra knowledge required: sources, manufacturers, distributor relationships, etc - it's more than just source code
- OS sw licenses may not apply to hw - you can't copyright a circuit, though you can patent it and you can copyright the expression of a circuit in a form - someone might be able to just redraw your file and not have to keep it open source
- discussion: how to do licensing effectively?
core similarities
- the four freedoms still apply
- start with the minimum useful thing
- you need more than just the source file: documentation, etc
- there are many ways to contribute: documenting projects, teaching workshops
- people are driven by many different motivations: making money, getting name known, helping others
- community is key - support makes the difference in what's successful
- there are many different governance models
- it's okay to make money
- it helps to have a thick skin - refers to talk by Subversion developers
what lessons are different?
- the centrality of the source code: central repository isn't as big a deal; there's not One Big Thing everyone is working on
- what happens when "compiling" hw gets cheap? maybe all these differences are just contingent on the difficulties of making hw - maybe open source software and hardware will look more similar?
conversation
- Leah: relationship btw Arduino and sw?
- Dave M what works is that they're all designed for each other
- Phil: there's a community, a locus
- Brian: well, also -- you just have to install one thing.
- Jan: the big thing is the total usability of the package
- Phil: it's just that someone took the time to do it
- Jan: Layer 0 of the seven layer model added: the material science and the specs
- Nate: traction point: how do you get critical mass of the community that's so necessary?
- DaveM: Davide and Massimo's workshops, and the personal connection of knowing the developers, and when Tom Igoe started using it at ITP.
- Nick: like pirated sw back in the day - you had to know someone - and then there's a movement to wider downloading
The New Ecology of Things
autonomous behaviors: ALAVs human scale: Nikolai Cornell's installation for George P. Johnson encouraging social interaction: round table for George P. Johnson, Jonathan Jarvis, Moto Development - the roundness of the table really makes a difference productive: people make their own experiences and produce their own meanings - designers are the facilitatorsTools for designers - NET Lab tools
- tethered system, but with wireless
- easy to use for designers, but supports coding
- Widgets: drag and drop Flash components, configured in XML file
- Supports: Osculator, analog in/out, esc
- Hub: Java server that talks to all the devices
- MediaControl: controlling the environment
conversation
- free to download
- but there should be some sort of consortium to share all these tools
- demo: DMX light is controlled through ENTEC
- Bjoern: what would the ideal solution look like, because we're all using hacks to make a really good dynamic gui editor for these graphics/hardware protoyping systems
- Phil: Agrees with Matt: students already have and know Flash
- Matt: Flash is important because it handles all kinds of media and web stuff - not because its graphical
Smart Healing Environments
design, art, craft, science: making creativity
things that think, spaces that sense, places that play
teaching: patient room of the future
- field observations - looking for workarounds
- care cart: locating clinical work in one rollable cart
- patient family interface
- patient interactive communication and learning system: touchscreen by bed controls information center
- full room open house to demonstrate
- pervasive asthma monitoring system
- nosocomial infection control through behavior modification
- rehabilitation exercises
a lab for making things
- importance of making things
- where would Leonardo da Vinci take classes today? need synthesis
- programming is design, in the sense of design as making representations, and programming as the creation of representations
conversation
are hospitals really interested in adoption?
Really really detailed notes follow. Thanks to all the SubEthaEdit contributors.
Continue reading Sketching in Hardware Day 2: Notes from discussion.
Electronics as material
what we thought we wanted
an easy way to use electronics prototyping kits for Smart Design
- simple enough for people with little to no electronics knowledge
- supports quick and loose ideation
- easy to assemble and disassemble
- small and mountable
- reusable
what we really needed
- not a prototyping platform, but a material
- already enough prototyping platforms
- industrial designers don't actually want to do software logic - they want to work with a tangible thing like
- cardboard, paper, nuts, bolts
- all you need is a power source
what we came up with: littleBits
you can grab it and use it, but can escalate to a more complex prototyping tool
discrete components that are not quite raw
so they use magnets: small, impossible to connect incorrectly, easy to snap together
no logic: it's just on or off once the components are together
using cardboard with copper tape to mock up surface mount
some ideas
- create a recorder modules to preprogram common behavior and configurations
- moving to 3 wires so that it is compatible with Arduino for more complex interactions
- make it open source to enable libraries of configurations
- get wider adoption!
Looking for something super
from hardware engineering to MIT Media Lab's computing culture group - learning how to make things fast
from assembly to disassembly
from large scale engineering design to hacking
kinet - animated surface from hard flexor materials
random search - undergarment to wear while travelling that records search process from "random search" - complex system
Teta Haniya's Secrets - hacked toys turned into kitschy lingerie in Syria inspired her line of lingerie
Constructed Narratives Construction Kit
- mechanical puzzle and language game designed to encourage exchange of ideas
- technology in public spaces as tool of engagement
- continues existing languages of wooden block forms
- building in physical world echoed on screen
goals
- encourage discussion
- physical interface for learning and exploration
- component tracking system that requires minimum of external devices
- system for building and annotating physical models
2008 prototype emphasizes both swift prototyping and management of power needs in individual blocks
co-building language space and negotiating with that space through physical construction of blocks
Conversation
the blocks are magnetic and they snap together
Confessions of a Recovering Toy Inventor
- I never shared the tools I created
- There is no innovation. We just recycled old ideas.
- Could have given up evil ways sooner and joined IDEO!
- Will go through slides really fast!
So:
lots of stuff created but never shared
design engineering with constraints - making stuff that guarantees a return on investment means no incentive to do anything new (ie, risky)
off-the-shelf prototyping!
tools that people outside the toy industry never see (ie, EM5700 sound chip)
aside: toys don't have power switches because consumers don't remember to turn them on and off
no user-friendly tools for designers - imagine making 2 or 3 prototypes a week
they started to break the tools and needed better software
started to use LabView - very powerful, but very expensive
paradigm is powerful for him, but does not reach larger community - so we're all losing out
conversation
learned about LabView through doing biomedical engineering
two views: graphic programming environments not always useful, but a good tool for doing complex things quickly vs using graphic programming environments to do small things and doing large things with code
phil van allen: not "either or" - lots of options
maybe what we need are interchange formats so that people who work in different modes can translate work between them
