Respons to readings

Folded Space by Alison Gazzard

This reading discusses mazes, labyrinth and "folded space", and some of the social significants. The reading also sumerises the characteristics of mazes in different time contexts. Also interestingly talks about mazes in video games, mostly the classic game "pac-men" where walls and boundaries can not be manipulated by the player in anyway. The reading also mentions the video game "Doom"


Technologies of Location by Tapio Makela

This reading is a little more to do with what we are currently doing, this touches on location based technologies like GPS. The reading also taks about some projects already made, fir example the Blast Theory projects, which are 2 early serious games made, that was pretty much the most interesting part of the reading.

GUI Test

Here is the SWF of the GUI:

Update

Here is a little demonstrator I have been working on, I should have the DEMO .fla file up and running really soon, probably later today

Web Domain

After looking for a sutable web site address I found that the only one avalible is www.fitness-freaks.net, all fitnessfreaks.com, net, biz... are taken and www.fitness-freaks.com is also taken. I think if we all pitch in about $3 we can buy a domain instead of having something crazy like www.ozosil.com/fitnessfreaks having something short like www.fitness-freaks.net will look alot better on our marketing campaign.

Healthy Tips Research

I researched some Tips about healthy living that could be included in the game, these tips could be displayed at the bottom of the screen in the speech bubble, said by your IPAQ trainer. These include:

• Set a goal of trying one new fruit or vegetable every week
• Substitute sweet potatoes for regular baked potatoes or fries. You'll get more Vitamin A.
• Get more fiber. Add canned beans or a handful of nuts to your salad.
• Take the stairs, not the elevator.
• Don't e-mail your office mate. Walk down the hall and deliver the message personally.
• Start your day with breakfast.
• Balance your food choices—don't eat too much of one thing.

These and more will be integrated into the GUI system

Project 3 - The interface-

The little IPAQ character at the bottom of the screen is there to guide you and help you get started with the fitness freaks software. Of course this interface has to be as simple to use as possible because of the demographic this game is aimed at, hence I mad the buttons big and also really easy to navigate.

The next step after this is to establish a good guise for new players, as you can see from these pictures an IPAQ can be seen in the corner of the screen. This Ipaq is a friendly guide that is there to help new players to get started with this exciting game and to provide some exciting healthy tips along the way.

So from now I will establish some of the text that is spoken by the IPAQ

Final Doco

This is my crazy experimental documentation, it is split into 3 segments all covering different aspects of this project. I thought presenting the assignment this was would be interesting and also put emphasis on the hard work that went into this project. ENJOY!




Note the quality of the video, may take a little longer to load, but its in SUPER HD!!! (only when compared with youtube)

The visual

Here is hat the visuals look like up close, this is what was being projected, and whet the user could manipulate using the physical object I have made.

for mt live demonstration I also used a web cam to activate live feed into the visuals (as toy will see in the doco) this live feed is activated by flicking the switch in the middle and is set up to capture hand movement on the controller board.

Note about the location

I was originally going to set this up at the atrium, but due to compilations and also the fact that it took over 8 hours to setup, I decided to set it up at the back of the media lab. So that explains that.




Also Just a quick update on how this works:

The way it works is that the physical object is hooked up to the arduino and the arduino is hooked up to 3 LED lights (that just signal when and which switches are on). The arduino is then hooked up to a computer which then sends signals to the program MAX/MSP in realtime of which switches are on and which ones are off. This gives people the ability to remix computer created vortex visuals in real time by interacting with the physical board created for this assignment.




This shows a basic flowchart of how I hooked this up, getting the switches to work real time with a computer took alot of effort.



This flow chart shows what is interacting with what, also how this all comes together.



Below and above are just some images from my yet to be award winning experimental documentation video, which will be uploaded soon... I am looking for a better quality alternative to youtube

OK done... or am I?

Pretty much done, after spending around 9 hours setting this thing up, I finally have completed the installation. But I am a little worried, after seeing everyone else's work mine seems to be different, for example, people have made stuff that serves a purpose, but mine does not, all it does is provide a visual experience that a use can be involved in, an abstract exhibition to be precise. oh well I'm hoping I didn't go off track too much. But at least mine works 100% and is pretty close to what I imagined it to be.

Oh well, here are some more pictures of the final product:

Almost done

Here is another update, almost finished my object and visuals, it should be ready for presentation soon. Since I am running out of time there had to be of course some aspects of this project I am unable to complete. But at least I know the installation should work to some degree.







Just a reminder that the 3 "plants" in this project are a visual guide only, tells people which switch adds the artificial visuals and which one the natural