I’ll be spending today at mac workshopping some ideas for a pervasive game involving this prototype sonar whale hat I’ve made.
Prototype whale hat using a sonar range-finder and Arduino processor
Doing a quick bit of online browsing about whale migration beforehand, I came across this and love the image:
Humpbacks Humpback
Winter: warm, low latitude tropical waters (breed and give birth)
Spring/Summer/Autumn: cooler, high latitude polar waters (feed)
Most humpback whales make mammoth journeys every year between their feeding and breeding sites. Because seasons are reversed either side of the equator, Northern and Southern Hemisphere populations of humpbacks probably never meet; those in the north travel towards their breeding grounds in tropical waters as those in the south are travelling towards the pole to feed, and vice versa. [source]
In the second of my two interviews this week, I was invited by Whitmore Park Primary School in Coventry to help them look at ways to develop their children’s skills as active learners in mathematics.
With only a day and a half’s notice for the interview – which required me to design and deliver a ten minute activity with a group of pupils – the only sensible thing to do was not only to figure out the content of the activity, but also to embark on constructing a technological doohickie, the workings of which I had no prior experience in! Well, it’s all good learning, isn’t it?!
The things I wanted to achieve through the activity were:
To have the activity pupil-led as much as the restrictions in time would allow.
To use a medium that highlighted a ‘special’ technical skill that I could contribute to the mix – ie something not likely to already be available or in use within the school.
Something that felt to me like it was a genuine activity, and not too much like ‘maths dressed up’.
Something with a bit of ‘wow’ to it.
Riffing of something I had referenced in my application, I decided to do something based on code-breaking, but I wanted this to involve a physical object – one that would respond when the code had been broken. This, I felt, would give me a chance to make something using my hack/electronics skills which, whilst not being up to much in the grand scheme of things, should be adequate enough to impress a 9 year old…
After much searching of Instructables and Hackaday looking for the right combination of inspiration and cold, hard instruction, I decided to work with a system for recognising sequences of knocks in order to open a box. For this I am deeply indebted to Steve Hoefer’s detailed documentation of his Arduino-based Secret Knock Detecting Door Lock, which I only modified slightly to take into account the resources I had available.
Secret knock box gubbins: components labelled up to facilitate explaining what they were for, free ends of wires labelled up so that they could quickly be replaced in the right row of the breadboard if they accidentally came out...
Since it was only a ten minute activity, I decided to leave the components on the breadboard, rather than permanently soldering them up. It was also for this reason that I was reluctant to drill holes in the box I had acquisitioned to use as the casing. The downside of this being that there wasn’t really much in the way of a feedback mechanism, because the LEDs were not visible. As a compromise, I fitted a buzzer in the place of the door-knob opening motor so that the box would buzz when the correct knock was given. I also implied a lock through the way that I introduced the box and handled it in front of the children.
When it was time for the kids to go into action, I reverted to the now familiar Agent N role and gave them an introduction that indicated that they were a specially selected team of code-breakers and we’d been given a mission to investigate this box.
I had some vague knowledge about such things, but I certainly didn’t hold any answers. After telling them they needed to find the secret knock, I handed them two folders containing stuff that might be clues and asked to “please tell me what you think”… I encouraged the children to help eachother out, and also to offer lots of different ideas and hypotheses.
A selection of clues from which the children successfully built up and interpreted a diagram of the secret knock's rythmn.
From there I nudged and guided, seeking to let the pupils make the connections between the different clues wherever possible. We just managed to open the box in time!
The session was a bit slower and lower energy than I had imagined it would be. On reflection I think this was as much to do with nerves and shyness on the part of the pupils (I was the first artist they were interviewing) as much as anything in my control. Certainly the three children who had previously accompanied me on a tour of the school seemed more relaxed and outgoing than the others who had only just met me. The nice moment was when the Deputy Head came back to the room and asked what they had done. The description they gave, with no input from me, was spot-on and showed a sophisticated understanding of the principles involved.
Given the opportunity, I would love to expand this into a much longer activity in which we could solve the initial code, investigate how the box works and then – because obviously the code was too easy – reprogramme it with another knock and get the children to invent ways of codifying that information in an even more fiendishly difficult manner…
Following on from the artist-led spaces podcast, there have been various other fizzPOP-centred events and conversations recently.
[Quick recap: fizzPOP is a hackerspace I’m involved with; hackerspaces being a place where people from all sorts of backgrounds can work on projects that typically involve varying degrees of programming, electronics, craft and/or jiggery-pokery.]
Antonio Roberts presenting at Eastside Projects
On Thursday 19th of November, Antonio Roberts gave a presentation to the Eastside Projects associate members. In the short time available he gave a very good, comprehensive, whistle-stop tour of how the hackerspace came about, what we do there and what our aims for the future might be.
The bit that has stuck with me most though, was when someone in the audience asked what kit we hoped might furnish a more established fizzPOP with. Antonio’s response included the usual basic toolkit of soldering irons etc etc, but then for his ambitious one-day-we’d-like-to-have item he went on to mention web servers. That would never have even occurred to me!
Now, Antonio comes from a graphics/code sort of a background, and I come from more of a maker/sculptural background. If I’d have been asked the same question, I would have answered with something along the lines of a laser cutter or a rep rap for rapid prototyping of physical objects. My point is not that one or other of these answers is right or wrong, just that it was a timely, healthy reminder that fizzPOP plays host to a really diverse range of people and that, if we asked 20 people that question, we’d quite likely get 20 different answers!
Right from the beginning we’ve said that the community is our number one priority and as fizzPOP grows it will be interesting to see what shape things settle down into.
drone's eye view (we wish) of a small part of the fizzPOP Howduino event in full swing
On Saturday the 21st of November, fizzPOP and Howduino joined forces to host a day-long hacking event at VIVID as part of the Hello Digital fringe events programme. This is something we’ve been itching to do for some time since our regular Wednesday evening haunt, The Edge, can only hold about 15-20 people and we’re only there for a couple of hours in the evening once a fortnight.
Saturday was intense and involved about 40 people, whatever stuff they bought with them and lots and lots of ideas. It was amazing to see how all these ingredients got circulated around over the course of the day. We certainly filled the space!
Marie and Helen blink like mad
fizzPOP regular GB did a sterling job of compiling and delivering beginners’ workshops introducing people to the basics of the Arduino platform.
This led to messages such as “Woo Hoo! I’ve downloaded a program onto the board & successfully have an LED winking @ me! :) Thanks 2 the wonderfully patient Howduino team” [@IonaMakiola] and “My first ardunio (technically a freeduino) http://twitpic.com/qct4g Never been so proud of turning on a light on before” [@TigersHungry] being posted on Twitter. TigersHungry has also written a fuller account of her learning experience on her blog.
At the other end of the skills spectrum, we also had two proficient hackers teaming up to work on projects together. Arvydas and Stewart could be seen running around the gallery space testing the autonomous robot car they’d programmed to recognise and avoid obstacles in its path. Check it out in this video avoiding even a pencil-sized object!
Evil Ted gets patched up after having LEDs inserted behind his eyes and an Arduino implanted in his head
Nicky Getgood and her mum popped in for a bit and were moderately baffled by the whole thing. When, whilst being interviewed by 6-year-olds the following Monday I described the “inventors’ club” my friends and I had set up, their eyes sparkled with excitement!
I’ve indicated as much before, but it’s worth saying again: I love fizzPOP as a space where I can go to learn things, to teach things, to be exposed to new ideas and to just try things out without risk of ridicule if it all goes horribly wrong.
Evidently other people feel the same way: several people clocked up round journeys of about 200 miles to attend the Howduino event (Bath, London, Milton Keynes, Hertfordshire and, of course, Adrian and Thom coming from Liverpool). Others came from Leamington and near Banbury, as well as a more local Birmingham contingent being present.
Despite going from strength to strength at the moment, fizzPOP will be going a bit quiet over the coming months due to the combined effects of heating costs for the warehouse space we hold our hack sessions in and a Christmas break. We’re looking to hold at least one more hack session before we go – add your name and preferred day to this poll.
Though we may become quiet in practical terms, behind the scenes we’re also beginning to think about how we can develop fizzPOP’s activities and give it a more stable base from which it can operate. We’ve seen that the demand for this sort of a space exists, and we know we won’t be able to hold our hack sessions at The Edge indefinitely, because at some stage it will need to be reclaimed as a studio and exhibition space.
If you know of anything you think we should be aware of – be it a potential advocate, source of funding to help us get started up, or some bricks and mortar that are available, please get in touch.
Also, if you have any spare web servers or rapid prototyping machines…
I’m liking this circuit-bending stuff. It’s making me do things I don’t want to do.
The particular comfort zone edges I’ve noticed are:
Restraining myself from immediately unscrewing the back and tinkering with the innards without having properly explored what the ‘normal’ behaviour is first. I must make more of an effort to document this too.
Choosing the 3 or 4 bends from several that I’ll try and work with. This is usually a balance between the “awesome!” and the practicality of getting wires and soldering irons where they need to get to. I ‘lost’ a really nice bend in the hippo – the behaviour changed when I soldered the switch wires onto the board. I’m starting to get into the habit of making audio recordings of the initial noodling noises.
[audio:http://npugh.co.uk/media/hippo.mp3]
Revising the previous decisions, based on what switches you can accommodate in the shell.
Making the first incision. Usually my electric drill is hilariously large compared to the toy I’m working on: one of these days the toy’s just going to disintegrate. It’s also a very definite point of no return.
I’m slowly getting better at drilling holes a few sizes too slow and then taking them up to size with a file. Neater results, but there’s still room for a lot more improvement. I’ve also started thinking a bit more about the feel of the switches – adding in rubber o-rings to cushion body contact points etc.
Similarly for the first solder, but given extra edge by the memory of all the circuit boards I’ve managed to kill in the past.
I’ve circuit-bent a few toys now, all with similar push-to-make switches and body contacts. An important edge is coming up where I’ll have to learn new stuff. With the hippo bend I made myself repurpose the existing switches. It’s a bit of a bodge, but it was worth the brain-wracking to come up with a (hopefully more than temporary) solution that a) works and b) is satisfying in the way that it looks and touches.
Antonio Roberts (aka hellocatfood) is marshalling our efforts to gather a community of people interested in tinkering with code, electronics or any other manner of stuff for the sake of innovation, problem solving or just finding out what “happens if you do this…?”.
The group is currently in a very protozoic stage: we’re discussing various models for structuring the group and also looking into different spaces to work in. As well as a few discussions in pubs there has also been a bit of hacking at my place. Our next session for getting stuck into some hacking has been set for 11-6 on the 11th of April at the Linux Emporium in Sutton Coldfield.
If you don’t have a specific project to work on, then please feel free to come along anyway to meet some of the gang, find out what everyone is up to and potentially discover a collaborative project to work on or some new skills to learn!
I see a huge overlap in ethos and tools between the hackers and the BARGers, so stand by for what I am sure will be interesting interactions between the two groups in the near future.
Here are two photos I took of yesterday’s meeting with some nice surprise effects: the first is Antonio explaining how he plans to lead some of Birmingham’s artists and art organisations into the light and the second one is inspiration zipping around the room before lodging a stonking idea into my head.
My main area of enquiry is centred around interactions between people and place: often using tools and strategies from areas such as pervasive games and physical computing to set up frameworks for exploration.
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