Assignment 5: Pump Your Breaks

Data Set: Highway Police Locations

2024 Assumptions

  • People are still driving because autonomous vehicle timelines have been pushed back (again)
  • Police departments have become more transparent to assure citizens of intentions (or more people submit data on police locations to Waze)

General Problem: One of the most common sources of frustration and/or stress during road trips is running into a speed trap on the highway. No matter what speed you are going, everyone seems to tense up for split second when they see a police car in the distance. Sudden slow-downs or stops on the highway can be extremely dangerous, especially when other drivers do not slow down accordingly. Is there a way to alert drivers as to law enforcement locations to give them ample time to adjust speed safely?

General Solution: Utilizing different sources of data, cars could install haptic feedback systems in steering wheels to alert drivers as to law enforcement locations. When you see a police car, it is often too late to really change your speed, especially safely. This haptic feedback system would take in data sourced from either local police departments (maybe) or crowd-sourced from apps like Waze to determine where police cars are lined up. Based on their locations, your car’s location and speed, the current traffic and weather circumstances and potentially geography of the area, this new gadget would determine a certain distance from the police car that you should begin to adjust your speed in order to avoid getting a ticket and doing so safely. The best feedback for this gadget would be two points of haptic feedback in the wheel. This would allow the driver to still focus on the standard audio and visual pieces of feedback their car already gives them, but a strong buzz on the wheel would be hard to ignore.

Proof of Concept: This prototype uses the following materials:

  1. 2 Vibrating Motor Discs: to represent the haptic feedback; one for the top of the wheel to alert driver to police ahead, one for the bottom of the wheel to alert the driver to police behind (see image below)
  2. 2 Ultrasonic sensors: to represent car’s distance from police car (one behind, one ahead)

Video coming tomorrow (Tuesday) (fickle vibration sensors – want to lay them down/tape them down in classroom)

More Thoughts: I wanted to tackle the vibration motors because Jet mentioned it was hard to smooth them/make them less noticeable or shocking to people. I tried a few things and nothing quite did the trick which is why I ended up “coding” the varying distances using patterns not intensity. Also, these vibration sensors are tiny and fickle little pieces of hardware for future reference.

A5_PoliceScanner

Anti-Slouch Machine

Problem:

As people interact more and more with technology, a problem with sedentary lifestyles is the toll it takes on people’s bodies. One way to alleviate these problems is to promote good posture while sitting.

A General Solution:

A device that would sense the angle of a user’s back and give feedback based on its interpretation of the user’s posture.

Proof of Concept:

An Arduino with an accelerometer to act as input data to control some transducers which represent a more extensive network of physical actuators.  When the accelerometer senses that the user is sitting up straight, none of the actuators move. When the accelerometer senses that the user is slouching or is leaning too far forward, the vibrations move in sequence to guide the user to lean forward or backward in the correct direction. If the user decides to not correct their posture, the device will eventually get to the point where it will just constantly vibrate unless the user fixes their posture. This occurs for a duration of time until the user’s ‘probation’ period has expired (expires when user doesn’t slouch for a while). When the accelerometer senses that the user is asleep, it vibrates gently, fading from nothing to a softer vibration to wake the user up.

Fritzing Sketch:

The Fritzing sketch shows how the accelerometer is setup to send information into the Arduino as well as how the transducers are connected to the Arduino to receive outputs. The transducers have been represented by microphones, which have similar wiring diagrams. Not pictured, is that the Arduino would have to be connected to a battery source.

Proof of Concept Sketches:

The transducer senses when the user is asleep, slouching, or sitting with good posture and sends a corresponding output to the transducers which vibrate to inform the user of how they are doing.

Proof of Concept Videos:

Demonstration

LED Demonstration

Files:

Assignment_5_Final

Assignment #05 – Feeling the Memories/Photos with Space and People

Problem

Photographs are closely related to our emotions and memories. They remind of associations with places, people, and stories. Technology has made taking and managing photos much easier than before, but there are still some gaps.

One of the most precious resources of the modern household is time, and the effort to take care of all those wonderful photographs defeats their value. (…) Digital cameras change the emphasis, but not the principle. (…) Thus, although we like to look at photographs, we do not like to take the time to do the work required to maintain them and keep them accessible. – Donald Norman (Emotional Design, 2003)

Thanks to the smartphone, we can always be accessible to the photos not only in the device but also in the clouds. However, it does not mean that we feel free from those efforts. We actually don’t see the photos that we have taken that much. I tried to think about how can I use tactile feedback for the emotions related to photos.

 

 

General Solution

Since photographs are closely associated with places and people, I thought that I could use these data sets.

Scenario #01 – An accidental encounter with my memories here

When I am passing by a location where I visited before and took photos, the phone alerts me with the vibrations in certain patterns and pop-up some related photos. According to the number of photos and/or the emotions related to them (happy, sad, nostalgia, etc), the patterns change.

Scenario #02 – My emotional connections to places

When I am planning to visit somewhere, and finding a place through map application. I can turn on the heatmap layer on the map, which shows the connections between my photos/memories/frequency of visits and locations. Also, when I touch a specific place on the map, I could feel the vibration patterns based on the number of photos/memories/frequency of visits and/or related emotions.

Scenario #03 – Memory reminder with people

I am planning to meet my friends. While texting and arrange a meeting with them (or extracting data from my scheduler), my phone automatically exposes the photos that I have taken with them or that are related to them in some ways, to remind me of the memories and stories with them.

 

Proof of Concept

To design the tactile signal for these features, I am trying to design vibration patterns. I used Swift and Xcode to use the haptic feedback features of the iPhone X. There are vibration, tactile feedback (success, warning, error), pressed (light, medium, heavy). I tried to design patterns based on them.

 

Video/Image

Assignment #5 – Icy Roads

Problem: In contemporary cars, its common for backup cameras to have additional visual aids such as guiding lines and audio feedback such as a dinging that gets quicker the closer you are to an object.  Rarely, there are haptics in the seat as well.  These haptics are often bad, and may even be different based on where you’re sitting in the seat or how thick / how many layers are between you and the seat.  Further, its the same feedback no matter the road conditions, something drivers want to be aware of.

Image result for backup camera

The Solution: First, the audio dinging does not really communicate exactly how much left you have to go, instead forcing drivers to rely on constantly slowing their pace to match it.  This can be useful in forcing more exact drivers, but can often be annoying.  It is also not available for hard of hearing drivers.  Therefore, a physical system that represents in miniature how far you have left to go would also be good.  This is constructed here as a rotating servo, ideally fixed to some reference point in the car like a level.

Second, road conditions are not communicated with the current back up camera system.  While it could be obvious to look outside the vehicle and see snow, ice can often be more inconspicuous.  To emotionally communicate this state, I thought it could be fun to have the backup device become “nervous” and shiver/shake, alerting drivers that something is off and they should be extra careful.

Proof of Concept: Primarily, a distance sensor driving a servo, with additional input from a potentiometer approximating “iciness” of the roads.  The servo rotates similar to a weather vein based on distance to and from whatever object is in the rear, and is more or less “nervous” (see video) based on how bad the road conditions are.  These are, respectively, a fixed amplitude and a variable frequency of a sin function.

[Fritzing coming later today]

Video + Code

On the legality of counting cards and getting free food and drink at a casino

Gambling and magic tricks have a role in interaction design but I have trouble working them in to the syllabus without encouraging illegal behavior on campus.

The MIT Blackjack Team has a good FAQ on counting cards.  tl;dr: Yes, it’s legal to count cards but not with the aid of any external device or help.  In Las Vegas the casinos are privately owned and they are allowed to eject anyone they suspect of counting cards.

The scheme my friend used to get us free food and drinks in Tahoe casinos was to be seen as people gambling (and losing) a lot of money; we’d get vouchers for free food and drink at the house restaurant.  The (legal!) scheme was betting “Don’t Pass” at the craps table more often than not.  That is, we were betting that the person shooting dice will lose and the house will win.   This is how casinos make money — the people gambling lose more often than the house, so the house wins more money and makes a profit.  When the house notices you’re winning more often than losing (and cutting in to their profit) they change the payoff for winning a “don’t pass” bet or simply close the table.  However, we still had our vouchers for free meals and drinks!

If that doesn’t make any sense, the wikipedia page might help.

Class notes: 3 October, 2019

Physical representation of information

For the purposes of this class we’re looking at physical representation of information over time at a small scale.  Think tabletop or handheld representations.

Some examples:

  • vibration: usually done with “tactors” but also a feature of mobile devices and handheld devices.  Mobile phones can vibrate, some tools for electronics vibrate as a way of sending notification.
  • thumps and pokes:  using motion from a solenoid or servo to relay information with pressure or tapping motions
  • temperature: peltier pads (what we use to cool CPUs and GPUs) that can heat/cool, flowing water or air that is heated or cooled.  Electric heaters or coolers are probably too complex for this class.  Dry ice is another option but can be hazardous to work with.
  • symbols: Braille terminals

Adam Savage’s DIY costume cooling vest for cosplay and a commercial alternative.

Physical representation of information over time

Using motion over time

  • signal encodings of language: Morse code
  • pattern recognition: what motion feels like walking? Running? Being happy or sad?
  • meaning is generated by content that changes over time
  • School for Poetic Computation

Coaching vs. grading

Think  about coaching, providing good feedback and encouragement to take a positive action.

Example: sports trainer that monitors your HR, BP, breathing rate, and hydration and knows your training course.  It encourages you to do better instead of punishing you for not doing enough.

Example: music “coach” that helps you learn to perform music. Watches your body and helps you correct form/posture.  Reminds you that you are always performing, even when you’re just practicing a scale or an etude.

Alice Miller’s “For Your Own Good“, a criticism arguing that we replace the pedagogy of punishment  with support for learning, using the German pedagogy that gave rise to support of fascism as one study.

Crit 1: Cycling Tire Monitoring System

Problem

In the manufacturing of physical goods, it is often difficult to test for small defects. In the case of products such as rubber cycling tubing, small, hard to detect perforations can become much more troublesome for clients in the lifecycle of the product. Additionally, it can be difficult for active cyclists to focus on identifying non major leaks and gradual changes in tire pressure on long rides.

Solution

A mounted sensor array focused on detecting both leak frequencies and changes in tire pressure can be used to streamline the tire quality assurance process, and help signal the need for tire patching or tubing replacement on the fly for cyclists. Using microphones to pick up sounds within common frequencies for leaks, as well as using an air pressure sensor to track significant changes from an ideal benchmark can be used in concert with visual indicators to help identify tears and deformations.

crit1

Proof of Concept

The sensor array would have a visual indicator tied to each sensor to attempt to give users an idea of where a leak would be happening, or if tire pressure was being lost. After attempting to use an LCD to provide descriptive error messaging, I decided to use a series of LCDs in concert with microphones to simulate air pressure leaks, as well as a flex sensor to simulate an air pressure sensor.

Crit1