Week 1 Assignments

To create this website I've used Emacs 24 and org-mode. Org-Mode is a major mode for Emacs that help you to write and organize tasks in an easy plain text way. It's possible to export all contents using the key combination C-c e and then h. From a plain text with org extension, you get a nicely formatted html file. I've choosen this approach because of several reasons:

• I've been using Emacs for 16 years at least. I'm quite use to its keybindings and undistracting interface.
• It allows me to focus on text organization and contents, instead of focusing on aspect.
• It's a portable setup, doesn't require more work to put beautiful output (like LaTeX) and works with distributted version control systems like Git or Mercurial.

I still have to research about how to include a sitemap and maybe use org2blog to publish it in a more beautiful way.

I've always aproached new technologies with a big awe. I do enjoy discovering new gadgets and discoveries, and quite often use them too. These last two years I've began to create small projects using Arduino and loved the experience. However, after a few projects I just wondered what would be the real potential to improve our daily lives in a bigger scale. How could we use Arduino to create meaningful, thought-provoking devices? I've been studying about Smart Cities and all regular use cases: reducing waste, improve energy usage, make the city more efficient. Everyone is looking for the Smart City "Killer App".

My final project tries to turn around that idea Smart Cities centered around efficiency, that in some ways alienates from our surrounding and choices, exposing a ludic project. My idea is to focus on the user joy and amazement of being fully present in their own surroundings.

To me that is Zen, being present, focused without effort, as when you're juggling or riding a rollercoaster. You feel what's going on with your body, relaxed, moving in the air. If you try too hard, if you rationalize it too much, it drops.

• Proposal
  My final project evolves around children playgrounds. I would like to expand some of the playground furnitures with a digital layer. One of the most popular here is the climbing net, as shown in this photography (models may vary):

  

  My plan is to put an interactive light in each intersection, building an ultralow resolution display of at least 4x4 RGB points. Each point should be able to detect touch (maybe using ultrasounds or ldr) and promote all kind of engaging games. It should be possible to play alone and to engage players on the other side too.

  Games should be either strategical or purely physical like:

  • Guacamole: people have to cover lights as soon as possible. When players lose, they can play again running and using a nearby tobogan to get extra games

  

  • Three in a row: using diferent colors for each player

  

  • Four in a row: using two colors and making tiles fall from top to down, simulating the circles behaviour

  

  We will build a piece for every interesection. Each piece will be custom made to fit the net, and communicate with each other to create the games. As we progress I'll select either wired or wireless connection depending on the park conditions. Games will be selected from a custom made wood console standing near.

  I would also like to explore some interesting options like playing with remote boards in other cities. For example, we could deploy one in Leon and one in Seville, connect a streaming module they have custom made and make people in each city play with each other. I would love to extend this to Barcelona, Madrid and Rotterdam, where some friends reside.

  Optionally I would like to build an API to be able to consult the status of the game using websockets, that could allow intereaction with mobile phones or other third party items. I'm not sure about portability of the current websockets library of Arduino to the processors we will use at FabAcademy.