Sensor Walk

After spending an afternoon walking around the area, I think the most memorable human/sensor interaction was with a sliding door 3 blocks from campus. There is a Gristedes who's sliding doors are on the corner of West 3rd and Mercer. People walking by the door will often cut into the diamond shaped piece of cement since it is closer than walking around it, however this area activates the sliding doors. In my observations, there were many alarmed pedestrians who were not aware the sensor would react by taking the 3ft shortcut!

Fantasy Device:::Bike Forcefield

My fantasy device is based on my everyday experience of riding a bike in NYC and not being as visible and therefore less safe than a car. Many friends have gotten into bike accidents because cars and pedestrians have made reckless decisions, unaware of the consequences involved. Unfortunately due to the lack of space in the city, it would be difficult to do more to protect bikers on the road than bike lanes, which are arguably just as treacherous, as many don't respect it. 

This device would focus on creating a forcefield that would protect the biker inside from traffic and pedestrians and function primarily to prevent collisions. 

 

The user interface is designed in such a way that it has presets and sensors that give the user total control while also a feeling of safety and security. The forcefield would have three modes that are located on the frame where many gears are located and can be set to: 

Automatic (at center): will detect the speed and trajectory of large moving objects towards a biker versus the trajectory of the biker and activate the forcefield when the biker is considered in danger

Always on: If a biker feels particularly unsafe whether from a threat of attack or threat of getting hit by a car the biker can manually turn on the forcefield. 

Always off: When a biker does not want the forcefield to activate there is a manual off lever

The buttons on the handlebars would act as manual overrides to the levers. Pushing forward would create a forcefield, pulling toward the rider would negate the effect if necessary, and pushing down would click it into off mode.

First Arduino Program

Did not have a lot of difficulty with this project. With help from the notes and code from class this circuit and program was really simple! Very exciting! 

Assignment 1

Assignment 1: Observation. Pick a piece of interactive technology in public, used by multiple people. Write down your assumptions as to how it's used, and describe the context in which it's being used. Watch people use it, preferably without them knowing they're being observed. Take notes on how they use it, what they do differently, what appear to be the difficulties, what appear to be the easiest parts. Record what takes the longest, what takes the least amount of time, and how long the whole transaction takes. Consider how the readings from Crawford reflect on what you see.




Object of choice: Elliptical Machines at the gym


The elliptical machines at the Palladium gym at NYU are multi-functional interactive machines, housing resistance to motion, a heart rate sensor, and an entertainment  system. People typically use them for all the functions they provide and they are intended to be easy to operate and interact with. The data from user generated motion on the machine is averaged and displayed on the screen along with a TV station or radio station of your choice. 


In my observation, it seemed like the longest interaction was the setting up of the machine to the users preferences as there are so many ways the machine can be tailored to fit one's needs: one can adjust length of workout, personal weight, entertainment preferences, height, resistance, and age. Selecting each one individually does not take that much time, however the whole process takes about 1-2 minutes before the user is exercising with limited interaction. Everything else about the machine is automated and very user friendly. 


Crawford talks about interactivity as more of a conversation than a reaction, and requires both parties to listen, consider, and respond. The elliptical does this across the board in a number of ways: it listens and adjusts to preferred settings and then responds with the realization of those settings, it understands when you stop on the machine and instantly pauses it, and it feels when your hands are not on the heart rate monitor and asks you to adjust accordingly. The level of interaction with the elliptical machines is rather sophisticated for workout equipment. 

This blog is intended to document my experience with Intro to Physical Computing at ITP with Scott Fitzgerald! :D