Projects

Final Project Pitch – SafeBand

My project will be the same that I mentioned on assignment 4, the SafeBand. So, It will be a small device connect via Bluetooth to a smartphone app.  The device will have a little button, when the button is pressed, the fit band will send a signal to the smartphone , sending  a e-mail/text message with the user location to a pre-registered list of people informing that the user is in some kind of dangerous situation.

A possible implementation would be to add a sensor that monitor the life signals from the user, and if it’s below a certain value we would alert his contacts as explained above.

The challenges that we might face on this project would be:

  • Find a hardware small enough to fit on a fitband. ( Maybe in the prototype we would use something bigger)
  • Battery life ( We will have to figure out a way to put the Bluetooth on a sleeping mode or something similar)

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Uncategorized

Pre-Work Project – Victor

Inputs : Switch, button

Outputs: four LEDs, RGB LED.

In this project, the user can turn on/off the device using the switch, and when he press the button the LED’s start to blink faster, until it reaches a limit speed, when it comes back to the normal speed. The RGB LED changes its color all the time the regular LED “reaches” it.

Prework

Prework Project

https://youtu.be/Ob2dtZMEpj0

https://youtu.be/61P30aDy13Y

https://youtu.be/3AoZ6rbsjlI

Input: Light Sensor, Button

Output: LEDs, Buzzer, Vibration

Discription: My prework project is that the leds will blink at first, and whenever the highest led blinks the buzzer and vibration will  ring. Also, there is a light senser dealing with the leds, so, when you put the lights on, led will reacts to the light’s voltage and they will turn up.  Of course the button will going to stop everything!

Projects

Initial project pitch

My Project will be the same that I mentioned in the assignment 4: gloves to play games without using the keyboard. If the user press his finger against any surface, a defined button will be pressed as if it was pressed in the keyboard. I would prefer to work with someone else in this project because I will need to deal with a Bluetooth pin and make it communicates with the computer by Bluetooth signal.  I’m pretty confident that this will be a useful project specially in the winter, when you want to play some games but your hand is freezing. I think that the programming part will be hard to do because of the Bluetooth issue and the need to don’t have delay when the buttons are pressed, but the project worth it.

 

IMG_20141006_235748

News

Seminar: Beyond ubiquitous computing: The fourth generation of computing is already here!

Gregory Abowd, Georgia Tech
Friday, October 17, 2014 – 11:00am to 12:00pm
1240 Computer Science Building

Abstract — Mark Weiser’s vision of ubiquitous computing, or ubicomp, widely understood as the third generation of computing after mainframes and personal computing, has inspired a research agenda for over 20 years and is part of our mainstream lives. Reflection on the history of the first, second and third generations of computing reveals that it is time to be thinking beyond ubicomp. The fourth generation of computing, which I will characterize as the era of complementary computing, is already upon us with important new technological capabilities that enable us to rethink the relationship between humans and computing. These key technologies are the cloud, the crowd and the shroud. Just as the third generation of computing blurred the distinction between the physical and digital worlds, the fourth generation will blur the distinction between what is human and what is computational. Previous generations of com- puting took hold because of “killer applications,” and I will describe the characteristics of those killer apps for the fourth generation.

Biography — Gregory D. Abowd (http://www.gregoryabowd.com) is a Regents’ and Distinguished Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, where he has been on the faculty since 1994. His research interests concern how the advanced information technologies of ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp) impact our everyday lives when they are seamlessly integrated into our living spaces. Dr. Abowd’s work has involved schools (Classroom 2000) and homes (The Aware Home), with a recent focus on health and particularly autism. Dr. Abowd received the degree of B.S. in Honors Mathematics in 1986 from the University of Notre Dame. He then attended the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, earning the degrees of M.Sc. (1987) and D.Phil. (1991) in Computation from the Programming Research Group in the Computing Laboratory. From 1989-1992 he was a Research Associate/Postdoc with the Human-Computer Interaction Group in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York in England. From 1992-1994, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Software Engineering Institute and the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He has graduated 22 PhD students who have gone on to a variety of successful careers in academia and industry He is an ACM Fellow, a member of the CHI Academy and recipient of the SIGCHI Social Impact Award and ACM Eugene Lawler Humanitarian Award. Dr. Abowd has been involved in 5 commercial start-up ventures in his career, several of which are still active. He is also the founder and President of the Atlanta Autism Consortium, a non-profit devoted to bridging the communication gaps between various stakeholder communities in the Atlanta area concerned with serving and understanding autism.

News

Seminar: Inclusive Computing and Design for Those Most in Need

Gillian Hayes, UC Irvine
Thursday, October 16, 2014 – 11:00am to 12:00pm
1610 Engineering Hall

Abstract — Vulnerable populations are at higher risk for educational, physical, and social challenges. At the same time, they often have limited access to and experience with information and communication technologies. However, the low cost of smartphones and data service through these phones is beginning to change this trend, opening new opportunities for using mobile and ubiquitous computing to support them. In this talk, I will describe a series of projects focused on empowering people who are not typically represented in the design process to use collected data to address real human needs in sensitive and ethically responsible ways. Understanding, designing, and creating technologies of inclusion require inclusive and democratic approaches to design. Additionally, in this work, design can be complicated by the need to consider the networks of people responsible for the care of others and their information. Thus, I will also describe holistic systems design methods that include participatory, democratic, and collaborative approaches for the creation of interfaces and interventions for a variety of people involved in any particular setting.

Bio — Dr. Gillian Hayes is an Associate Professor and the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Chair in Informatics in the School of Information and Computer Sciences and in the School of Education and School of Medicine at UC Irvine. Her research interests are in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, assistive and educational technologies, and health informatics. She designs, develops, deploys, and evaluates technologies to empower people to use collected data to address real human needs in sensitive and ethically responsible ways. Dr. Hayes directs the social and technological action research (STAR) group and co-directs the Intel Science and Technology Center for Social Computing at UCI. She is the Director of Technology Research at the Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders and the Faculty Director for Civic and Community Engagement at UCI. She also works on translating her research into the commercial space through a startup she helped found, Tiwahe Technology.

Prework

LED Distance Graph

Description-  What I present before you is a simple2x4 LED bar graph that corresponds to the distance between a Sharp IR Digital  sensor and an object.  The range is between 0 and 10cm.  When you hit the fourth LED, the buzzer sounds indicating that is the maximum range.  There is a SPST switch that can be used to turn the buzzer on or off.  The resolution of the bar graph could easily be increased by simply adding more LEDs if you wanted more precise measurements

Inputs– Sharp IR distance sensor, SPST switch

Outputs– 8 Green LEDs, buzzer

Prework

Game with Blinking Lights and Cheesy, Badly Transcribed Uplifting Trance Melodies

My design implements a simple game with two sets of blinking LEDs. The LEDs on the left-hand side blink at a constant rate, while the ones on the right-hand side blink at a rate that is controlled using the illumination of the light sensor. Shining more light on the light sensor will make the LEDs on the right blink faster.

The objective of the game is to get both LEDs to blink in sync by shining the right amount of light on the light sensor.  Both sets of LEDs must also blink in phase; this can be achieved by pressing and holding the button, which will delay the blinking phase of the right-hand LEDs. Once the player has won the game, they are rewarded with a melody, played through the buzzer. The melody is accompanied by vibration and LEDs blinking in sync with the melody.

Inputs: button, light sensor

Outputs: 4 LEDs, buzzer, vibe

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Reminder: Prework projects are due next week

Just a reminder, prework projects are due next week.  Your prework project should:

  • Demonstrate the use of conductive stitching
  • Show two forms of output
  • Show two form of input
  • Combine these items together for an integrated design

Update on the post specifications

Make a post in the Prework category with the following format:

Description: What does your prework project do?

Inputs:  What inputs did you use?

Outputs: What outputs did you use?

Video: Create a video which demonstrates the complete functionality of project (i.e. shows all input/output interactions)