Was waiting at the level crossing in Broughty Ferry the other night while ding some deliveries for Mali Thai and snapped this with QuadCam for iPhone. Frickin’ love this photo!
Make Mark II
I hereby (embarrassingly) submit my Make Markl II blog post a few days late.
I don’t feel the need to write a short story summarising my Make Mk II phase as I have been continuously blogging my thoughts, experiences and issues from the beginning. However, nothing wrong with a few, short, points explaining the gist of things…
Mk I was very much experimental, I was toying with different approaches to try and find the one best suited to what I was doing. The majority of Mk I was a learning curve with a crude app and a failure of a prototype being the outcomes (in a good, “I’m learning” way). Mk II has taken what was learnt in Mk I and started again. I rebuilt the app from scratch and completely reinvented the pan/tilt unit using servos and the laser cutter. I also implemented a webcam and have connected the WiiMote to an onboard power supply therefore rejecting the need for batteries.
Mk II also saw the development of a project brand and identity. Time was spent crafting a visual language which encompassed many parts of the project and had some correlation with my design boards from People Design Technology phase.
The final products for Make Mk II
The purpose of this entry is to showcase the final products as they are at the end of Make Mk II. I have taken photographs of the camera unit and shot a quick video of the app in action:
And to demo my iPhone app, please grab a seat and enjoy this short video!>
My, still nameless, project is coming along nicely; just not in the direction Iw ant. I am still waiting for components to arrive which is preventing me from building the mechanical part of the project. This is a huge setback as it is a key element of the project. I had hoped to spend time building it during the Make Mark 1 phase so that it could be perfected or refined for Make Mark 2 - unfortunately the way things are going now I may be hacking it together for MM2. Not ideal.
In lighter news, I have a fully functioning demo app (see image above). I say demo as some elements (i.e store and weather) I have left out as I deemed them too complex or time consuming to focus on. I do however have an app which accounts for multiple users and syncs with an online database. Currently however you cannot view video offline (I had hoped for viewed video to cache locally) but that may come in the future. For the time being however this is fine - at the Degree Show everything will be networked locally anyway so will act as a suitable demonstration; I’d really only need to think about these things if the app/system were to go live.
Here’s hoping I get my components tomorrow so I can power on ahead with the mechanical (and hardest) part of this project!
Filmed a quick and dirty iteration of the User Interface of the app running on my iPhone. Not hugely impressive but it hopefully will be once it works with the physical components of the project.
Today was the day I forgot about my degree and did poster design instead :/
After the success of documenting my work throughout the Zoom Phase I am disappointed to realise that I have all but stopped writing about what I’m actually doing or the thought processes I have been going through.
Just now a lot of my time has (stupidly) been spent working with some of the others on advertising material for our Degree show Fundraisers (‘Tache Bash for those not in the know). Whilst it is entirely necessary (and important) to make sure this is a busy event so that we can benefit as much as possible from ticket sales I have to remember that my degree is paramount.
I had intended on trying to catch up with my uni work tonight but I’m struggling to find something useful I can do. Recently I’ve been building and fine-tuning my iPhone app while I wait for components to be delivered. Once said components are here I can try my hand at building some of the tripod system; I can’t wait to be able to have all the elements connect together (albeit maybe crudely). For Make Part 1 I’m intending on having (basic) functionality and connectivity between elements which demonstrate the key interactions of the project.
Make Part 2 will build upon what I achieve in Part 1 and polish everything up. I really want the system to actually work even if it is not built to look like the final product; i.e: a prototype tripod which records realtime video which the iPhone app then picks up on and can be used to watch back the video (it’d be awesome if the users could also then post it to their Facebook or similar - maybe too much effort, could be a demonstration feature or something on a board or video). If I can get these two elements working then having a website which also interacts with the recorded data will just be a matter of data crunching and time spent on design elements - the back-end will practically already be there.
Excellent, now I just need a name for the whole project; any ideas?
I have got the current build of the iPhone app CodeSigned and running on my iPhone! This marks a major step in my geek chart.
UPDATE: Not sure how I managed it the first time round but can’t for the life of me do it again. Need to find help on Monday. Doh!
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