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Im back home after a few weeks of vacation. Im glad to be home because it means I can get back to work on fun new things. In the past week, I was given a gift-card to Best Buy. The only thing I could think of getting was a wii Remote. I don’t own a wii, but having all those buttons and an accelerometer in a bluetooth device was too cool to pass up. I spent an hour or so and got it working in flash (through bluetooth). Im now able to use all the axes and buttons as variables. I just made a simple ball on the screen that moves as you shake the remote, but it is enough to build off of. 

The past few days I was also going over all the interaction design I did when making RISDpedia, and was thinking about how much better I could do it now. So I think im going to do just that. I made a list of things that could easily be improved, so during this winter-session (6 weeks) I hope to do that (along with 2 site builds, reading 2 books, interning 2 days a week, taking a class, working on a bunch of other stuff (multi-touch table), and more). A lot… I know.

Weekend Update

 This week left me with some extra time, though most of it went to seeing family for Thanksgiving, I did manage to create my first gesture-esk application for my multitouch table. When you place 3 or more fingers on the table, it looks for 3 that are making a triangle within a certain size, if it finds one it places a circle in the middle, symbolizing bringing up a menu system.

I’m not sure if there is a better way to do what I did (it seemed to contain too many for loops), but it starts at a finger, then looks for two other fingers within a certain distance from that one. If it does not find two others close enough, it moves to the next finger. If it finds two or more, it checks to see if any of them are within that distance from each-other, and stops if it does. It works really well, and thanks to a friend on a forum I visit, I was able to use an incenter equation to calculate the center.

I started thinking about the next push for RISDpedia. Im looking at ways to document electronic components next. One of the things I have been thinking about is how to document the availability of said components.

Because you cant just pop into a store to purchase them (sad I know), I needed to have a list of placed they can be ordered. As luck would have it octopart (if you don’t know it you really should) has a search API. Octopart lists all the place where you can order a part (Digikey, Mouser etc), if it is in stock, ho many they have, and more.

The API was a little hard to break into though, and it took me more than a few hours to get everything out of it I needed. It is only available as a JSON object and im not the best with javascript. I used MooTools to handle the JSON call, but because there is no print_r (as in php) to pull, and see everything out of an array, I had to do loop after loop to find the entire structure, so I could then map it out, go back, and just ask for the information I want.

Granted, I’m sure im doing it completely wrong, it works. At some point when I have time Ill make it into a MediaWiki extension for RISDpedia.

touch

This is a 6 channel touch sensor that I soldered a week ago. I was missing a part to see if it worked, but I just got it in. I hooked it up and it works perfectly. I has quite happy. This was the one I soldered that went so well. After hooking it up I took a pic and it just came out so nicely, so I decided it needed a larger pic.

This weekend I have been doing a bit of programming for my Multi-touch table. I gave a presentation on it on tuesday, and I guess people where much more interested in the questions I posed about it than they were with the table. I guess that is a really go thing, because they are the questions Im trying to figure out by making/ using one.

I have been documenting how to make simple multi-touch apps in ActionScript hoping that others will see they can do it too. My dream is that people are able to make much better applications than are already out there. Im really tired of everything just moving around a bunch.

In class I am finishing up an RFID project. I dont think it is the best idea, which is really sad because the infamous Bill Buxton will be there to critique. Sad when a personal hero is there to see not your best work. But I got the short end of the stick in a way.

My RFID project is just a simple box that looks like a stereo. While hosting a party, everyone that comes in would be given a token. They then place the token in this stereo like device and it would add to the music. One may be guitar, another drums, and even some synth or horns could be on that chip. If you dont like how it makes it sound, you just take it out, and that instrument stops playing.

The hard part was finding a way that the songs made would not be repetitive and make it so when you add an instrument it always matches the beat/tempo and plays along with the song, and not against it.

Wish me luck!