opening/closing statements

opening statement-
Today i'll be covering the progress i've had with my capstone Project based around Augmented Reality. By using Camera's and programs meant to read images and replace them with other images, i can essentially create a form of new reality that can be used for satire, art or even progress. I will explore using the techniques given to me to create a new canvas on which the world can paint.


closing statement-

In closing, i feel this Augmented Reality project i am working on will far surpass any of my current or past projects i've worked on. The idea i can change the world with nothing more than symbolism contains not just a new way to perceive reality, but a fun way to change what you know and love into something different. A statement can be made by even the smallest changes.

Mind Mapping projects

This is the initial "hitting the drawing board". I had to restart my project, and found myself looking into the idea of Augmented Reality. Things looked pretty promising after i came back to this list of ideas, and came back to it with the idea of hacktivism to see what can happen.

This is what i ended up coming up with when i brought hacktivism into the mix. The great part about this is that i can give different tries to my project because of the diverseness of the ideas pushed together. So if one approach isn't enough, i can find myself reaching for several others to bolster my project's outcome. I plan on doing a lot of exploring the abilities of augmented reality to my fullest.

Capstone-technology (and after-thought)

The project i will be designing is an activism look at editing our surroundings to things we wouldn't normally see. For example. Where a stop sign might be, my project would instead replace this sign with a "go sign", Another example would be to put different oddities around the campus. Such as a rediculous picture of a man staring at you by the urinal, poor people having money stolen from them at the marketplace, and every building built for housing remodeled to look more... phallic.

At first i plan on just taking this project locally. From one side of campus to the other. Then as things progress, i'll start replacing signs outside of campus, likely in the bangor area. I'll be running this with hopefully a lot more people than just myself and capstone peers. Many of the projects i'll be handling myself. people will use objects to look at them and see what's truly going on, but won't be handling the actual projects themselves.

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I feel like my project, with the inclusion of the technology of Augmented Reality, will be a lot easier to pull off, and also lets me do things that could normally put me in jail/get charged for. I feel with the freedom this technology brings me, the project will go over smoother than i had hoped to expect, even with the minor setbacks i've had so far.

the annotated bibliography

Just in case people have thought i haven't been looking into this project enough. i've brought in a few links to different ideas and projects that have really caught my eye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARQuake - this is a wikipedia entry on the version of quake built with Augmented reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-mounted_display - an overview of the visual system i'll be using, a head mounted display, to run my project.

http://www.jawbone.tv/featured/2-featured/119-40-augmented-reality-projects-that-will-blow-your-mind-or-just-blow.html - a list of 40 augmented reality projects.

http://www.invizimals.com/ - a pokemon like game that uses augmented reality to capture animals around the house.

http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/ - one online software, free and looks like it's been used quite a bit in different projects.

http://www.bannerblog.com.au/news/2009/06/35_awesome_augmented_reality_examples.php - another batch of cool projects done with augmented reality, these are more commercial, but they're some really interesting projects.

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/8/watch-the-district-9-augmented-reality-demo-893470.html - another ad campaign, this time for district 9. using special handout cards, it gives the user a chance to "train" with the army in the movie to take down aliens.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102691-Augmented-Reality-Cookies-Confuse-Tastebuds - apparently an AR tastebud test was made, turning cookies being eaten into other cookies. the people eating the cookies were actually confused...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97222-Adidas-Develops-Game-Controlling-Augmented-Reality-Shoe - augmented reality shoes not only give you access to a digital world, but a controller for games. amazing what a shoe can do nowadays.

Promotions!

Hey all, It's time to cover how i will be promoting my project. Since i've decided to swing into an augmented reality direction, i have a list of 5 ideas that will help get my project out there.


1) Web hosting- I will create a small website with a bio of the project, videos, and all the accumulated work from this year's capstone class. on the project. Contact information to reach me, visuals and FAQs would be minimal and simplistic.

2) Get press - weither by crazy stunt or asking to be in the paper, being in the campus paper will up the interest in my project . in one of my earlier classes, a group of students used leaves marked with an URL to help promote a project. the project confused and provoked an interest in the community that pushed for an interested responce from the paper. Which brings me to promotional 3...

3) manipulated advertising- have you ever found something where it shouldn't be, then later wondered what it was doing there? Curiosity may or not be in our nature (for those who are against the idea) but i find things like this an interesting oddity that needs further exploration. I'll give an example. Where i work, produce at a Shaw's, my manager has tricks to bring people to buy product. He'll load product that isn't ready to eat over full. If a person reaches for one, they tend to pull more than 1 into their cart/onto the floor. many people will feel either 1- too lazy to grab the 1 extra veggie in their cart, or 2- guilted into buying it for letting it hit the floor. Though this isn't 100% effective, more like 40%, it DOES push an extra couple hundred dollars of produce out the door every day, with a little extra maintenance as the extra cost.
I would push this project the same way. By locating advertisments to my project in different areas related to electronics, augmented reality, ect, i can hit many targets with my promotions fast and cheap. Computer clusters will be targeted with the website/link to video projects, while areas like lord and chadbourne will be hit with exhibit performances.

4) put on an exhibit/ release party- By creating this AR project, i'll make it so it'll be an event, that people can come to participate in testing out the augmented reality of the project. Setting a date is still an issue, but it'll be something fairly easy to do once i get the project started.

5)get rid of your tv- Fortunately for me, my room doesn't have a TV. So i have found the lack of TV has been helping me get projects done better. Now if i could only ween myself back from video games and internet videos...

Project 1= fail. but with failure comes new ideas

So now that project 1 has turned south, i've found another venue i'd like to venture into. It's called augmented reality. I'll be keeping you up to date with the project, as i'm still working out all the details, but right now i feel like i've got a much stronger project than the previous.

Timelines and estimations.

this is the timeline i feel i've come up with for the project. The main objective is to get the website up i'll be hosting, while i design the actual birdhouse and work on streaming the videos. Once i have this perfected, i'll run a series of tests starting hopefully in november, and while i'm over break i'll launch a couple test runs at a longer range. trying by placing second and third birdhouses in other places. Then in February we will see how the site is doing after promotions and ads are placed in papers/web/word of mouth.


Expenses.
This is draft 1 of my expences. This isn't hard copy, and i don't have it graphed out perfectly, but that will come soon. currently, my expenses look a little something like this:

birdhouse idea

requires:
birdhouse (1) reagents-
lumber $60
transparent roofing for better lighting $40
light paint or stain so the birdhouse will take in light. $50
brushes for paint/stain $12
tools to build said birdhouse - own $500
rent $ 25/hour
birhouse hanger- $25
screws, dowles, hinges and other odds and end pieces $40

webcams-
outdoor webcams (2 per house) $115 apiece
indoor webcams (1per house) $129 apiece


computer to stream recording 24/7 $600-$2,800
birdfeed, to lure birds quicker - $20

website able to support streaming video
books for learning HTML/PHP OR $200
hire a coder @unknown hours $30/hour

Promotional expenses -
blog entries $0
flyers $100
ad in newspaper $100-200
word of mouth $ 0
web linking $0

Other:
Minor medical grievances $0-$50
work hours @ 15/hour $

gas money for traveling = .10 cents/mile
Driving back to NH for supplies/workspace@460 miles $ 46
Driving to a parts store@ 20 miles $2
Driving around town looking for spots to place project@20 $ 2

permissions/contract to put this project on land i don't own $0- $200


This is the beginnings of my project, and will be updated constantly in progress.

Capstone project idea Wired birdhouse.

list of New Media capstone ideas:

1) build a bird watching-birdhouse : The idea is simple enough to build the birdhouse. But what i think makes this project worth doing is the idea that you place a camera inside the birdhouse, while designing the birdhouse itself to "absorb light", so people can view what's going on via camera. Camera's will be placed around the birdhouse as well or exterior viewing on different channels. Then each channel could be direct streamed onto a website built for online bird watching.

2) Movies on 12 frames- Have you ever sat in a movie theatre, or rented a movie and brought it home, only to find that the movie drags on forever, or that the movie just plain sucks? By shortening every clip i can use into 12 frame segments, the movie can be sped along, and stories can even be changed. The idea would be to take several movies, a couple big screens hits, and a couple b list movies, and edit them into digestable segments (a 90 minute movie into a 9 minute movie, )


Birdwatching House

Abstract
The idea of this project is to allow bird watchers to log onto a website to watch birds both inside and outside of a streaming birdhouse.
Why
Many of the old ways are dying. If you sent people into the woods bird watching, i guarantee many of today's young adults and teens would quickly be bored with it, or simply not be interested at all. The idea is that you'd be able to watch a family of birds, from anywhere in the world, with simple access to a website, via streaming webcams built into and around the birdhouse.
Where
...this problem arises
Summarize why your research shows there's a problem or opportunity that hasn't been addressed
What
...you propose
Describe the features of your solution
Describe the outcomes you expect
When
The Birdhouse itself would be the easiest part of the project. I would likely build it on our extended weekend in October when i go home. Until that time, i will look into difference resources to build the structure with, and work on building a website.
Now- start working on web designing a site for this project.
October- have the birdhouse built, minus the webcams.
November- have the webcams working within the birdhouse as well as ready to go in the tree
December- wrap up project, release birdhouse, coax birds in with feed or something.
...you'll have it done
Plot a timeline, including when you will
confirm the collaborators
flesh out the concept
finish an alpha version (prototype)
get feedback on alpha version
finish a beta (pre-launch) version
get feedback on beta version
launch a public version
promote the project
assess your level of success
Who
...you'll work with
Describe the potential and/or confirmed collaborators
How
I have many of the resources for building the birdhouse at home. The camera's i'll likely have to buy online, basically cheap webcams that i'll have to build separate houses for.
so if you figure out the wood (as i have plenty back home.) i would need some sort of plexiglass or transparent roof, three webcams, extra cords to power them. then for the website i'll need to learn HTML, or get someone who knows it well, and pay them.


...you'll accomplish it
Detail your costs (at least for the first year) in a project budget
organize the data like an outline
sum the columns and rows
restrict to first year for now
Describe the legal agreements you'll need
should include
pay
liabilities
licenses
you may need to get a lawyer to write or review these
Describe your plan for getting the word out
review Jeffrey Yamaguchi's "25 Simple Things You Can Do To Get the Word Out about Your Independent Project"

DS Roulette idea

DS Roulette
The idea behind this is to create an interaction experience between two people with their Nintendo DS. Using their wifi connections, the users will turn on the application and start chatting with random people. If the people share a game, or on a shared network one person has it, you can ask to share the game, and play with the others.
Having this capability allows you to actually make friends on the game connections systems. By finding more fun and interesting people who will play games with you, the experience will be more entertaining while still holding true to be a video chat and video game experience.

In order to do this, you would use the system's top screen for the video chat, while controlling the game with the bottom screen. this would work well because the top screen houses the camera, and the player will be able to look at both screens relatively easy.

Imagine being able to play warioware on the DS while watching the reactions of random people playing the crazy and often rediculous mini-games, or playing an RTS with an opponent, reading their faces to figure out their moves.