Project Ideas

[David Bartolo]

I thought it may be nice to have a forum for project ideas. In the spirit of collaboration we could share our thoughts (which some have already been doing) and maybe help each other with our initial concepts, and their development. Anyone interested?

I must admit I am at a bit of a loss initially for ideas, but hope to start brainstorming some concepts in this forum. Great if others could be involved too.

[Michael Sarroff]

A great idea David. There are lots of ideas but I think a forum might help in refining the process of whether the ideas should get past the scoping stage.

One of the issues that has always bugged me is running water while people brush their teeth.I would like to automatically turn off the tap while someone is brushing, you could also have an override if you need to access the tap of course.

As a starting point for my research does anyone agree that this could be an issue to solve or do most people (including yourselves) brush with the tap off anyway?

[Andrew]

There might be research about this. Reminds me of a project that tracks children's brushing movements while showing each tooth's "brushed state" on a display as a game to encourage them to brush more effectively.

Michael Sarroff said:

A great idea David. There are lots of ideas but I think a forum might help in refining the process of whether the ideas should get past the scoping stage.

One of the issues that has always bugged me is running water while people brush their teeth.I would like to automatically turn off the tap while someone is brushing, you could also have an override if you need to access the tap of course.

As a starting point for my research does anyone agree that this could be an issue to solve or do most people (including yourselves) brush with the tap off anyway?

[David Bartolo]

Now that is cool!
I'm starting to get it. Beautiful things encourage people to interact with them, and if the result is a certain change in behaviour... I know some of this week's lecture resonated with me - humans are always searching for meaning - good art or music doesn't present it on a platter but encourages the user to look for meaning.

I see there are a few elements to our project. There is the behaviour that we are looking to influence; there is the way we sense the current situation, and there is the way we want to convey this in an ambient, hopefully beautiful way.

I have been thinking along a couple of themes. The first is looking at reducing the amount of rubbish that gets put into the bin. I initially thought that every time the bin is opened it would know, and could relate its "perception" of amount of rubbish in some way. Then I figured that perhaps the outside bin would know how full it is, and if we were indicated this every time we used the indoor bin, perhaps it would encourage us to think more about how much we are using (for example the outside bin's "fullness" may encourage us to use less inside...).

I was also thinking about trying to reduce things like the amount of toilet paper used, perhaps with a 'brake' that only applies when too much is used in a given session - but that is not really a beautiful thing...

Andrew said:

There might be research about this. Reminds me of a project that tracks children's brushing movements while showing each tooth's "brushed state" on a display as a game to encourage them to brush more effectively.

Michael Sarroff said:

A great idea David. There are lots of ideas but I think a forum might help in refining the process of whether the ideas should get past the scoping stage.

One of the issues that has always bugged me is running water while people brush their teeth.I would like to automatically turn off the tap while someone is brushing, you could also have an override if you need to access the tap of course.

As a starting point for my research does anyone agree that this could be an issue to solve or do most people (including yourselves) brush with the tap off anyway?

[Kim Mo]

Hi Everyone,

I must admit I brush my teeth with the tap is running. In fact, I also keep the tap running when I lather my hands with soap so I don't get a soapy tap when I wash my hands!

I have a couple of ideas that I want to explore more and welcome your input. I am thinking of plants (programmed, not real living things of course) that react to how much electricity and water we use. There will be a sensor that monitors electricity usage and a sensor that monitors water usage. If the amout of electricity and water used is within or below average, the plants will happily grow. If the usage of water is higher than average, the plants will wilt (because we use up water that is otherwise available to the plants) and if the usage of electricity is higher than average, the plants will die because of over-exposure to heat due to greenhouse effect. I can also use an aquarium of fish and coral instead of plants. I hope by using plants or fish, people will see with their own eyes how their action is affecting our environment.

The other ideas of ambient visualisation of data collected from the sensors are (1) use laser beams to draw patterns on the wall to represent over- or under-usage, (2) use LEDs mounted on a stick or pointer that oscillates very fast to display numerical values collected from the sensors, the display will appear floating in the air as the stick or pointer oscillates.

Another idea I have is very similar to David's idea. I can put sensors on the big wheelie bin and recycling bins (paper, plastic, glass etc) to calculate how much of the things we throw out are recycled. There is one problem though - this relies on people putting the right things in each bin and being honest.

I have a few other ideas I want to explore before Wed's presentation. Let me know what you think of the ones I described above. Thanks.

Kim




Michael Sarroff said:

A great idea David. There are lots of ideas but I think a forum might help in refining the process of whether the ideas should get past the scoping stage.

One of the issues that has always bugged me is running water while people brush their teeth.I would like to automatically turn off the tap while someone is brushing, you could also have an override if you need to access the tap of course.

As a starting point for my research does anyone agree that this could be an issue to solve or do most people (including yourselves) brush with the tap off anyway?

[David Bartolo]

Hi Kim,

Your ideas sound good - I wonder if it may be too abstract to have plants that wilt depending on both water and energy usage - will the user know whether they have used too much water or too much energy? Maybe it won;t matter so much, as long as they know that they are doing something wrong... Fish good too.

I am still thinking about the rubbish idea - I want to have the outside bin communicate with the inside one - maybe both recyusling and rubbish can give a comparison which is indicted by a dial of some sort... But will need more than one Arduino, one on outside bin(s) and one on inside bin or on display... more thinking to do...

Kim Mo said:

Hi Everyone,

I must admit I brush my teeth with the tap is running. In fact, I also keep the tap running when I lather my hands with soap so I don't get a soapy tap when I wash my hands!

I have a couple of ideas that I want to explore more and welcome your input. I am thinking of plants (programmed, not real living things of course) that react to how much electricity and water we use. There will be a sensor that monitors electricity usage and a sensor that monitors water usage. If the amout of electricity and water used is within or below average, the plants will happily grow. If the usage of water is higher than average, the plants will wilt (because we use up water that is otherwise available to the plants) and if the usage of electricity is higher than average, the plants will die because of over-exposure to heat due to greenhouse effect. I can also use an aquarium of fish and coral instead of plants. I hope by using plants or fish, people will see with their own eyes how their action is affecting our environment.

The other ideas of ambient visualisation of data collected from the sensors are (1) use laser beams to draw patterns on the wall to represent over- or under-usage, (2) use LEDs mounted on a stick or pointer that oscillates very fast to display numerical values collected from the sensors, the display will appear floating in the air as the stick or pointer oscillates.

Another idea I have is very similar to David's idea. I can put sensors on the big wheelie bin and recycling bins (paper, plastic, glass etc) to calculate how much of the things we throw out are recycled. There is one problem though - this relies on people putting the right things in each bin and being honest.

I have a few other ideas I want to explore before Wed's presentation. Let me know what you think of the ones I described above. Thanks.

Kim




Michael Sarroff said:

A great idea David. There are lots of ideas but I think a forum might help in refining the process of whether the ideas should get past the scoping stage.

One of the issues that has always bugged me is running water while people brush their teeth.I would like to automatically turn off the tap while someone is brushing, you could also have an override if you need to access the tap of course.

As a starting point for my research does anyone agree that this could be an issue to solve or do most people (including yourselves) brush with the tap off anyway?

[David Bartolo]

I am approaching this from three angles:

Project type - what it is I want to alert the user to
Sensors - how to detect the event or usage
Displays - how to display this in an effective yet ambient way to the user(s)

have had a lot of thoughts, hope to upload drawings...

[David Bartolo]

Here are some sketches I've made. Thionking of something probably to use angle as a comparative display...

[Timothy Yuen]

I think i want to make something that encourages the person to do more exercise. I'm not sure how to go about this as yet.
Remember the game from nintendo ds?...the one where u carry a pedometer(?) around with u the whole day and when u go back home, it would connect to the console and record your activity for the day.

To me, that is a great idea, but obviously, we cannot copy ideas :p

[David Bartolo]

Maybe there could be something in the home that interacts depending on how much the person is moving around?

Or you could make something with Mercury switches - these could detect how much the arms have been swung, for example, as the person moves around outside. Shouldn;t be too hard to make something that registers the type of mevement that is being made, and connects this to the arduino...

Timothy Yuen said:

I think i want to make something that encourages the person to do more exercise. I'm not sure how to go about this as yet.
Remember the game from nintendo ds?...the one where u carry a pedometer(?) around with u the whole day and when u go back home, it would connect to the console and record your activity for the day.

To me, that is a great idea, but obviously, we cannot copy ideas :p

[Michael Sarroff]

What about accelerometers or they mercury switches?

David Bartolo said:

Maybe there could be something in the home that interacts depending on how much the person is moving around?

Or you could make something with Mercury switches - these could detect how much the arms have been swung, for example, as the person moves around outside. Shouldn;t be too hard to make something that registers the type of mevement that is being made, and connects this to the arduino...

Timothy Yuen said:

I think i want to make something that encourages the person to do more exercise. I'm not sure how to go about this as yet.
Remember the game from nintendo ds?...the one where u carry a pedometer(?) around with u the whole day and when u go back home, it would connect to the console and record your activity for the day.

To me, that is a great idea, but obviously, we cannot copy ideas :p

[Timothy Yuen]

mercury switchs can detect how much an arm has swung?
that gives me another idea!!! :D
decourage drinking too much.....hahha....by having the switch on a beer mug. The number of times the person lifts his mug to drink. But then again, the person could just drink more each time to decrease the number of times he has to lift his arm.

Anyways, I use the computer quite often and do not maintain a proper posture. For an initial stage, I was thinking of sensors detecting the proximity of hte person's head to the screen. As far as I know, the optimal distance is 50cm. If the person gets too close, some sort of ambient device could respond.
Being aware of such a device would help me to maintain a better distance away from the screen and probably not stress my eyes more.

[Timothy Yuen]

I'm not sure what devices we can use. But i think we can use the projector. U would still need your own sensors to sense whatever u want to.

Have you been to some korean restaurants?
on a small scale, some of these restaurants have a button on the table and when you press it, your table number would be shown in an lcd display. Then the waitress would see it and come to your table.

I didn't know about this button before and would press it, wondering what it was. And the waitress would keep coming and asking if we wanted anything. well, we thought that was a pretty good service, until we tried to draw attention by waving (and getting ignored).

Hideyuki Fujikawa said:

Can we use a projector or computer display to create data visulisation?
My initial idea is inspired by a data visualisation work below.
We saw this artwork in week 1.

I want to design something that the ambient display helps relationship between customers and a waiter/waitress in the restaurant and cafe.

Sometimes, waiters don’t come to the table for a long time when the resultant is really busy. My initial idea is that each table has an ambient display which tells waiters what the customers want. The pattern of ambient display can be controlled by a customer who uses a small device with push buttons, light sensors or a keypad with number etc. For example, if the ambient display is flashing with yellow, the customer wants some beer.
As a result, waiters can recognise what customers want before going to take order and customers also do not need to call them every time.
The display becomes a part of interior furniture as well.

If I can’t use a projector or computer display what kind of device can I use? Any suggestion? Please give me any idea.