Principles & Practices + Project management

Making this Website

When making a website there can be lots of areas that contain duplicate content across pages such as headers, footers and navigation that can be tedious and error prone to update manually.

There are lots of tools out there to help solve this problem. One class of these tools are called *static site compilers*. There allow you to extract duplicate content and potentially use different markup for content that is then compiled into a static HTML site.

To make this site I chose to use Nanoc a static site compiler written in ruby.

To follow the steps below your computer will have to have a ruby interpreter.

First we need to install [nanoc](http://nanoc.ws/install/)

~~~sh
gem install nanoc
~~~

We should now have the nanoc command available and can use it to generate the scaffold for our site.

~~~
nanoc create-site journal
~~~

We should now have a folder called journal that contains the basic structure needed by nanoc.

By changing the `layout/default.html` file we can change the content that is shared across all pages.

The main files of interest to us are in the `content` folder, the HTML files we create here are wrapped by shared content when we compile the site.

To compile the site in the terminal you run the `nanoc` command, after this completes you can find the results in the `output` directory.

For more details see the nanoc tutorial http://nanoc.ws/docs/tutorial/

PhasePercept

Explore sensory augmentation as a pathway to improve mountain biking performance

Goal

To augment the sense when mountain biking using vibrotactile stimulation to give the rider additional senses about the bike and terrain. This is done with an eye towards measurement and characterisation to improve riding performance.

The sensory augmentation will be done with small vibration motors attached to the riders body in various locations. For example there could be a vibration motor on each leg that informs you when in the pedal stroke you should be applying power.

The data that is gathered should also be logged and allow visualisation and comparision of rides to be able to assess performance over time.

Why

I love mountain biking and I am very interested in enable people to add senses to enable to perceive different aspects of the world. MEMS sensors and low power computation now enable this type of project to be done on a scale that makes it convenient to use and at a price point that is affordable.

Things to potentially instrument

* Wheel rotation speed
* Crank rotation and position
* Force on the pedals
* Force on the handlebars
* Rider heart rate
* Rider position and movement in space
* The Bikes position and movement in space
* Suspension travel
* Distance from the ground
* Position in the world (GPS)

Potential feedback paths to look at

Wheel Rotation

By enabling the rider to sense the actual rotation rate of the wheels it might enable the rider to better control traction and not over break. This could be done by mapping rotation rate to intensity of vibration. Another interesting sense could been able to sense the difference in rotation rate between the wheels.

Peddling feedback

One aspect to explore is prompting the user to apply power during the correct angle though the pedal stoke to help increase efficiency.

Cadence control

Similar to the prompting when during the pedal stroke they should be applying power, help the use to maintain a set cadence.

Distance from the ground

Provide the rider with feedback about how far the front wheel and rear wheel is from the ground allowing them to move their weight to manage these distances.

Suspension travel

Does feedback about how much travel you are using enable you to manage the suspension to ride better and lose less peddling energy in the suspension.

Previous Work

* [feelSpace](http://feelspace.cogsci.uni-osnabrueck.de/)
* [Mobile Music Touch](http://www.news.gatech.edu/hg/item/140221)
* [Paray Electro Bike Data Logger](http://www.parayelectro.com/products/BDL/default.html)
* [DIY Data Logger](http://hackaday.io/project/2376-diy-data-logger)
* [Human Power Output Measurement Device For Cycling](http://hackaday.io/project/2314-human-power-output-measurement-device-for-cycling)
* [Open Bicycle Computer](http://hackaday.io/project/1887-open-bicycle-computer)