Showing posts with label grad school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grad school. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Old East Village Commerical Corridor

This past winter semester I was busy with the War of 1812 smartphone app and interactive exhibit design projects, both of which I discussed at length on this blog.  For the public history program I had to choose a third course to fullfill my requirements.  The program is pretty flexible with electives, and many of my classmates took courses outside the history department such as "Principles in Applied Archeology" or "Land Claims and Primary Historical Research."  After exploring some of my options - both within and outside of the history department - I couldn't decide which course to take, nothing had really captured my attention.  That's when I started to look into developing my own course with an independent study.

The previous semester I had done some mapping using ArcGIS and enjoyed it more than I had anticipated.  I looked into taking a GIS course in the Geography departments, but I had some inside information that because of a change in TAs from the previous year it might not have as much of a historical bent as in the past.  So I decided to approach a couple of people I knew in the Geography department (see, it's all about knowing the right people...) about being an instructor for an independent study.  I asked the rest of the Public History crew if they were interested in joining me.  That's how Douglas McGlynn and I ended up spending our winter semester researching the historic commercial buildings of Old East Village in London, Ontario.

Building upon and updating some research that had been conducted a few years ago in the Geography department, Douglas and I used ArcGIS Online to create an interactive map that describes the architectural changes that took place over time to the commercial corridor of Old East Village.  Using city directories, fire insurance plans, historic and modern photographs we tracked how these buildings changed over time, not only in looks but in use as well.

If you would like to learn a bit more about it, head over Old East Village Commercial Corridor project website!




Saturday, June 30, 2012

Mentors, Meals, and Meeting People - NCPH 2012

This is the final post in a series about my experience at the OAH/NCPH 2012 Annual Meeting.  I started out talking about some of the more "traditional" sessions I attended at the meeting and then highlighted a couple of the "non-traditional" sessions that I found particularly enjoyable.  However, by far the most invaluable part of the trip to Milwaukee and attending NCPH 2012 was making connections with so many different people in the field.  

This brings me to the single piece of advice I would offer to any grad student or new professional planning on attending a conference - especially a large one for your field.  Take advantage of every opportunity offered to meet new people and have a new experience.

Volunteer
The first opportunity for me, was to sign up to be a volunteer at registration for the conference.  Grad students could volunteer and have our registration fee waived (so a great way to save money as well!)  Laura and I were assigned the unenviable time slot of 7:45  - 11:30am of the first day of the conference.  As much as it pained us to get out of bed so early, after such a long drive the day before, what previously seemed like a necessary evil to save some money turned out to be one of the best experiences during the conference.  Greeting members of both NCPH and OAH as they arrived, I had a chance to introduce myself, make contacts, and put names with faces of people that I wanted to hear speak.  It turned out to be a great opener when talking with people later in the conference, "Didn't I meet you at check-in?" and even resulted in some consulting work for me!

Mentor/Mentee Program
NCPH provides grad students and new professionals attending NCPH annual meetings for the first time an opportunity to connect with conference veterans through the mentorship program.  I signed up, and was paired with Mary Rizzo, Associate Director for the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.  We exchanged a few emails leading up to the conference, and then planned to meet at the opening reception the first day of the conference.  Mary was enthusiastic and easy to talk to, and introduced me to several other people at the reception.  We talked a bit about how we each got into public history, our roles in NCPH, and Philadelphia (we both love the city!)  I felt fortunate to have such a great pairing in the Mentor Program, because Mary had just as many questions for me as a new member of NCPH (she is a board member) as I had for her, a veteran in the field.  It made me feel that NCPH is concerned with meeting the needs of its members (which can be tricky for such as diverse field.) 

Women in the Historical Profession Luncheon
The conference offered many opportunities specifically for grad students, and one was free tickets (on a first come, first serve basis) the the Women in the Historical Profession luncheon.  Not wanting to miss an opportunity to network (and - let's be honest - get a free meal) Adriana, Laura, and I signed up.  This event was hosted by an Organization of American Historians (OAH) committee (it was a joint OAH/NCPH meeting.)  This was a change of pace for us, as most of the functions we had been attending were geared toward NCPH members (though some were for both organizations, like the opening reception.)  The three of us found ourselves at a lunch table with professors, authors, and traditional history PhD students.  I had a nice chat with a professor next to me about the UWO Public History program and what I planned on doing once I finished with my MA.  While it was a good opportunity to talk with people at the conference I likely wouldn't have otherwise met, it was also a bit of a reminder of why I am in public history as opposed to more 'traditional' history.

Overall, the conference was an amazing experience, and this was mostly a result of the people I listened to/talked with/met while I was in Milwaukee (as well as the fabulous people I traveled to the meeting with!)  It gave me a feel for what I dynamic organization NCPH is, and that is because of the diverse membership.  This was a wonderful opportunity, and I would recommend attending an annual meeting to anyone in the public history field.

Come to Ottawa in April for NCPH 2013!  



Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Pathway to the Past - Route 1812

You can put the app on
your mobile device right now!
If you can "get your kicks on Route 66" you can get your history (as well as hotels and food) on Route 1812!  Yes, the mobile app for which my public history class spent all year researching content, is finally available, and it's free!  People have been asking me how they can access the app, and there are a couple ways.  

First, if you have a touch-screen device (any device - Apple, Android, Blackberry - doesn't matter) you can scan the QR code here, and it will take you to the app website.  From there you can put it right on your device.  (If you don't have a QR code scanner app on your mobile device, you can usually download one for free - it's a pretty handy thing to have since QR codes are becoming so popular.)

If you don't have a touch screen device, you can still access the app using a computer.  The app is available online here.  The website will only work if opened in a Google Chrome browser.  (If you need to put Chrome on your computer - you can do that here.)


Article in the Amherstburg Echo
announcing Windsor launch.
I recently wrote a wrap-up of our year-long Public History project, and I mentioned there how the scope of the project had evolved during that process.  The app now encompasses the entire Southwest Ontario region, and includes War of 1812 sites, other tourist attractions, as well as hotels and restaurants for those travelling the Route.  

Our class was still only responsible for the content of the 22 sites we were originally assigned.  So as you go through the app, you can find our research primarily on the sites between Windsor and London (the little black top hats.) The stellar Prelude to War section written by Adriana can be found under the Introduction tab of the app, as well as Sushima's amazing wrap-up, The Aftermath, in the Conclusion portion.  There is also a list of everyone who assisted us through our research and collaborative process (and it is a lengthy one) in the Tecumseh Parkway Development of the Acknowledgements section.

There has been a bit of press surrounding the launch of Route 1812, with events this past weekend in both Windsor and Hamilton.  I was able to attend both, and they were quite different experiences.  


Article in The Windsor Star about
the Windsor launch.
Saturday evening was the Windsor launch.  This event was held at the Mackenzie Hall Cultural Centre.  It opened with hors d'oevres, featuring specially labelled 1812 wine and a blueberry "cannonball" jam.   The official Essex County War of 1812 Commemoration Declaration was read, followed by speakers Kyra Knapp, 1812 Bicentennial Southwest Ontario Region; Jim Hudson, Southwest Ontario Tourism Corporation; Mike Dove, Western University; and Steve McBride, Weever Apps.  As Steve was walking the audience through the app, he also asked me to talk a bit about the sources we used during our research, and how we obtained all the images and audio found on our sites.  Even after the "official" event was finished, I lingered quite awhile speaking with some of the attendees.  We were thrilled to talk to the grade 7 teacher who planned to have her students access the app on their smartphones in class on Monday.  This was just one of the many ways we had envisioned our original app being used!  It was a nice opportunity to finally meet some of the other collaborators face to face, as well as catch up with my classmates who are all busy with internships this summer.  

The Sunday afternoon event in Hamilton has a slightly different feel to it.  Downtown Hamilton was busy with people since it was also an Open Streets day, and the road was closed to car traffic.  There was a VIP reception prior to the official launch, with more 1812 wine and ice cream.  We also had the opportunity to preview the new documentary series by the Ontario Visual Heritage Project, A Desert Between Us and Them.  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished project, which will officially launch next year.  The official Route 1812 launch ceremony took place in the lobby of the Tourism Hamilton Visitor Centre, and there were numerous speakers representing the many organizations and municipalities that collaborated on the project.  I would list them all here - but honestly I can't remember them all!  It concluded in similar style, with Steve, of Weever Apps, demonstrating to the attendees how to navigate the app on an iPad.  Perhaps it was because this event was larger, or due to the fact there was so much else going on around it, but I felt less "a part" of this event than I had Saturday evening.  Still, it was a pleasant afternoon of visiting with classmates and catching up.
Featured in an 1812 Special Section
of the Windsor Star.
The Amherstburg Echo, The Windsor Star, and the Southwestern Ontario Tourism Corporation have all run articles about the app.  It's interesting to see how each organization involved highlights different aspects of Route 1812.  Some tout the boost in tourism it could bring to the area, others delight in the merging of history and technology, but most seem to recognize that the whole project would not have been possible without the hard work and collaboration of many different people.

I was also interviewed for the CBC Windsor radio show The Bridge to talk about our role in developing the content for the app!  They weren't sure when I recorded the interview when it was going to air, and by the time I got the notice I had already missed hearing it!  Oh well, is probably for the best - as I don't care for the way my voice sounds recorded (chalk it up to my nasal mid-western accent...)  However, I did screen-capture the tweet mentioning the segment about our app.

Radio spot on CBC Windsor, The Bridge.
If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I will likely be updating any more Route 1812 related news I find.  It's rewarding to see all of our hard work finally reaching the public!


Sunday, May 13, 2012

Group Project - War of 1812 Smart Phone App

(Note: I started this blog post on April 24, the day we handed in our final project, as per usual life got in the way, and as a result I have just now finished it!)

This morning, I handed over the final draft of our public history group project.  A good portion of our time this academic year has been devoted to the development of content for a War of 1812 Historical and Commemorative Smart Phone App.  This project has certainly been a learning experience, and not just about local history related to the War of 1812.

A little background about the project:  We partnered with the War of 1812 South Western Ontario Region, Tecumseh Parkway Committee, and Western Corridor Alliance to produce a regional smart phone app.  Our portion was to provide the historical content about Procter's retreat from Fort Amherstburg in the fall of 1813.  This included researching 22 sites from Amherstburg/Windsor area to London relating to this campaign which culminated in the Battle of the Thames where Tecumseh was killed.  To make the project a bit easier to manage, we were divided into four groups of three, and each group was given a selection of geographically close sites.  (My group had all the sites in the Amherstburg/Windsor area.)

Tour of 1812 Sites
We started by taking a bus tour of most of the sites last fall.  We were accompanied by representatives from South West Ontario and Tecumseh Parkway, to give us some background on the area and the 1812 sites (as much of this was new to us.) We learned how after the Battle of Lake Erie, the armaments from Fort Amherstburg (present-day Fort Malden) were used to outfit the HMS Detroit, leaving British General Procter low on supplies and with little choice but to retreat from the approaching Americans lead by General  Harrison and Commodore Perry.  The leaders of the First Nations alliance, most notably the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, did not wish to retreat.  However, retreat they did, up the Thames River, until the two sides met on October 5, 1813 at the Battle of the Thames, just two miles outside of Fairfield.


It was a significant victory for the Americans, seeking revenge for what they considered the River Raisin Massacre.  It was also quite a blow to the First Nations - whose leader Tecumseh was killed during battle - and the British.  General Procter found himself court-martialed the next year as result of the retreat and the battle, effectively ending his military career.  (This has been your cliff-notes version of Procter's Retreat...)

Once the groups were decided and sites assigned, we commenced our secondary source research.  Books such as Glenn Stott's Greater Evils: War of 1812 in Southwestern OntarioSandy Antal's A Wampum Denied, and George Sheppard's Plunder, Profit, and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada were passed around the office, and each small group hunted for resources pertaining to their particular sites.  

We started to visualize what we wanted the app to look like, and how we hoped people would use it.  Grand visions of interactive time-lines, moving maps, and fancy interfaces left many of us feeling overwhelmed and in over our heads at first.  As we started to scale back and just concentrate on our content - developing an interpretive plan, and coming up with a narrative - the project started to seem more manageable.

After turning in our secondary source research report, we had an opportunity to talk with the company we were told would probably be handling the technical side of the app.  We had been contracted for content, they were taking the content and creating the actual app.  Reality set in as restrictions on images, audio, and video became a reality.  But at least now we had a framework we could work in.

Image from Windsor Community Museum
Following the winter break it was time for primary source research.  My group made plans in January for a trip back to Amherstburg and Windsor to spend the day at the Windsor Community Museum, as well as visiting the sites we hadn't had time to stop at on our first tour.  The visit to the museum was extremely helpful in acquiring many of the images that were ultimately used in the app.  We also spent many afternoons going over the resources at Western's Archive and Research Collections Centre, and hours pouring over digitized documents and images from Library and Archives Canada, National Archives and Records Administration, and the Library of Congress.

We turned in our carefully detailed primary source research reports, and it was time to start writing.  Hours of research now had to be summed up into 300 word text boxes with images and audio.  For some of us, keeping it short, sweet, and to the point was not easy.  We had to discuss with others what they were writing as well, to make sure not to waste precious words repeating ourselves.  Along with the 22 sites, we had also decided to address some of the themes we found reoccurring throughout the research, such as farming, transportation, and family participation during the War of 1812.  It was also necessary to provide an introduction, not only to the war, but also to Battle of Lake Erie to put the retreat in to context (as it is all about context...), and have a conclusion to the retreat and the war itself.  
Mock-Screen Shot for First Draft

Once assembled, this first draft needed to be edited.  We were taking content  about 29 different sites and themes, authored by 12 different people, and making it into one cohesive narrative.  That was a very long weekend for the group leaders and editors...


During the time between the first and second drafts were were thrown a curve-ball.  The partners had contracted an entirely different company to create the app.  The technical framework with which we had been working was going to change.  Work temporarily paused, and we knew that new specification from this company could change some of our plans.  How many images would there be per site?  What were the format requirement for the audio and video?  Was there a limit on the number of sites?  These were all important questions we had to address before we could start ordering digital copies of our images, paying for the rights to use them, and record our audio.

After a Skype call between our team, the partners, and Weever (the app company) we were all - for the most part - on the same page, and we kept working toward a final draft.  Weever was eager to start adding content as they were planning on a launch date in May, but we were still waiting for feedback from the partners on our second draft.  I had been serving as a large group facilitator, and I lost track of the number of email sent with images and audio.
Final Draft PowerPoint

Finally, I sent the last of the content to Weever, and gave Professor Mike Dove a hard copy of our final draft, along with a final budget and permissions for all of our images, audio, and video.  It is hard to express the relief that followed.  


There have been a few changes since turning in our final draft.  We were sent a temporary link to the app in progress, which I opened to discover our sites had been combined with dozens more in the south west Ontario region.  It had been decided rather than to do several small regional apps, to just do one large app.  This meant that while our narrative was still there, it was a bit lost among all the other sites.  There were also some edits that needed to be made to the content, and missing captions (which provided information about where we got our content - which was sometimes a condition of permission to use it.)  These issues are being addressed, and I look forward to having a final product I can proudly show to prospective employers when I start interviewing for a job this fall.

Like I said at the beginning, this whole process has been a learning experience.  Those of you who know me, know that I take great pride in my work, and like to have control over the process (that may be what lead me to the role of large group facilitator...) as well as the final product.  I had to keep reminding myself, especially toward the end of the project, that we were just providing the content.  It isn't solely our app, we were contracted to work on it.  

This also became part of one of the biggest lessons I learned about graduate school - it isn't always about the product, sometimes it's about the process.  Is this project what I envisioned it would be when we started? No, not even really close.  Did I learn a lot in the process?  Absolutely.  I researched in archives, made contacts with local historians, sought permission to use images, work on maintaining a project budget, wrote historical text for public consumption, leaned how to be flexible in a contract position, lead group meetings, and with my small group presented our project at a national conference.  So regardless if the end product is what I thought it would be, it was certainly a successful one!


Stay tuned for the Route 1812 app!  As soon as the final app is available I will be sure to let my faithful readers know!

Monday, April 16, 2012

The Wonderboy - "Sweet Spot"

There is a part of the baseball bat called the "sweet spot."  It's that magical place on the bat, where a "combination of factors (physics and all that) results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort."  When you swing a bat and it connects with the baseball at the sweet spot, you hear a clear crack, the bat doesn't vibrate, and the ball soars beautifully through the air.  It's an awesome feeling, like everything has come together at the right moment.

I have found the "sweet spot" of my interactive exhibit design project.  It has taken all semester, in which I spent innumerable hours Google searching Arduino code and brought me nearly to tears of frustration at times.  But after taking all of the hardware and the working code I described in my last post about the Wonderboy and loading it onto my batting helmet, I am finally there.  I'm amazed at how closely my finished project resembles the original idea of a "history appliance" I had at the beginning of the semester.  The final product is definitely a home run, if I do say so myself!

I made a brief video demonstrating how all the hardware attached to the batting helmet for the finished product:  


I've admitted several times that these courses - digital history/interactive exhibit design - have taken me further outside my academic comfort zone than I've ever been before.  It made me recognize one of the biggest lessons that grad school has taught me - don't be afraid to try new things, stretch yourself, step outside your comfort zone.  I'm still amazed at the technical things I accomplished this semester with no background in programming at all.  If you would have told me last year I'd be doing all this, I'm not sure I would have believed you.  It just goes to show that you should never stop trying new things, or pigeon-hole yourself.

My classmate Dave summed up our lessons very well, when he talked about "The Nine Letters, or Three Laws, of the Digital Historian" - do-it-yourself (DIY), steal from others (SFO), and share with others (SWO).  I certainly tried to do all of those things this semester.  Though perhaps I did more stealing than sharing, I'm hoping that perhaps my lessons, trials, and tribulations will be of assistance to someone, someday.

So it is with a bit of a heavy heart that I dismantle the Wonderboy, and return the guts of my project to my professor Bill.  It will be forever immortalized in pictures of my classmates willing to put it on and give it a try:

Douglas

Matt

Lindsay
 
Sushima

Finally, if you are interested, here is the Arduino code I used to program my final project:

int IRpin = 0;  // analog pin for reading the IR sensor
int val = 0;       // analog pin for reading the IR sensor

#include "WaveHC.h"
#include <FatReader.h>
#include <SdReader.h>
#include <avr/pgmspace.h>
#include "WaveUtil.h"

WaveHC wave;      // This is the only wave (audio) object, since we will only play one at a time
SdReader card;    // This object holds the information for the card
FatVolume vol;    // This holds the information for the partition on the card
FatReader root;   // This holds the information for the filesystem on the card
FatReader f;      // This holds the information for the file we're play

void sdErrorCheck(void)
{
  if (!card.errorCode()) return;
  putstring("\n\rSD I/O error: ");
  Serial.print(card.errorCode(), HEX);
  putstring(", ");
 Serial.println(card.errorData(), HEX);
  while(1);
}

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);                             // start the serial port
  pinMode(2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(4, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(5, OUTPUT);
   
  if (!card.init()) {         //play with 8 MHz spi (default faster!)
  putstring_nl("Card init. failed!");  // Something went wrong, lets print out why
  sdErrorCheck();
  while(1);                            // then 'halt' - do nothing!
  }
   
  card.partialBlockRead(true);

  // Now we will look for a FAT partition!
  uint8_t part;
  for (part = 0; part < 5; part++) {     // we have up to 5 slots to look in
    if (vol.init(card, part))
      break;                             // we found one, lets bail
  }
   if (part == 5) {                       // if we ended up not finding one  :(
    putstring_nl("No valid FAT partition!");
    sdErrorCheck();      // Something went wrong, lets print out why
    while(1);                            // then 'halt' - do nothing!
  }

  // Lets tell the user about what we found
  putstring("Using partition ");
  Serial.print(part, DEC);
  putstring(", type is FAT");
  Serial.println(vol.fatType(),DEC);     // FAT16 or FAT32?

  // Try to open the root directory
  if (!root.openRoot(vol)) {
    putstring_nl("Can't open root dir!"); // Something went wrong,
    while(1);                             // then 'halt' - do nothing!
  }
}

void loop() {
   val = analogRead(IRpin);
  Serial.println(val);                       // print the distance
 
  
if(val > 60 && val < 128){
  playcomplete("SCHMIDT.WAV");
  }
else{
  //do nothing
  }
  delay(50);

val = analogRead(IRpin);
  Serial.println(val);                       // print the distance

if(val > 129 && val < 196){
  playcomplete("VENTURA.WAV");
  }
else{
  //do nothing
  }
   delay(50);

val = analogRead(IRpin);
  Serial.println(val); 
  // print the distance

if(val > 197 && val < 264){
  playcomplete("BONDS.WAV");
  }
else{
  //do nothing
  }
 delay(50);
   
val = analogRead(IRpin);
  Serial.println(val);                       // print the distance
   
if(val > 265 && val < 332){
  playcomplete("CURTIS.WAV");
  }
else{
  //do nothing
   }
  delay(50);

val = analogRead(IRpin);
  Serial.println(val);                       // print the distance
   
if(val > 333 && val < 400){
  playcomplete("CARTER.WAV");
  }
else{
  //do nothing
  }
  delay(50);
}


// Plays a full file from beginning to end with no pause.
 void playcomplete(char *name) {
  // call our helper to find and play this name
  playfile(name);
  while (wave.isplaying) {
  // do nothing while its playing
  }
  // now its done playing
}
void playfile(char *name) {
  // see if the wave object is currently doing something
  if (wave.isplaying) {// already playing something, so stop it!
    wave.stop(); // stop it
  }
  // look in the root directory and open the file
  if (!f.open(root, name)) {
    putstring("Couldn't open file "); Serial.print(name); return;
  }
  // OK read the file and turn it into a wave object
  if (!wave.create(f)) {
    putstring_nl("Not a valid WAV"); return;
  }
   
  // ok time to play! start playback
  wave.play();
}

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The Wonderboy - Rounding the Bases, Heading for Home

April is here, which means the semester is coming to an end.  In baseball terms, we're done with the regular season and we're heading into the post-season (a bit of a confusing analogy when you consider that opening day is this week - but you get my drift...)  This is when it really counts, this is when you have to get it done...

In my last post about the Wonderboy, I discussed some of the problems I ran into trying to write the sketch (code) for the Arduino and wave shield I am using for my project.  I managed to find the solution for the SPI.h error message I was recieving on the AF_Wave library code, but even though the error message was gone, the wave shield still wasn't playing my audio files.  Then this message appeared on the wave sheild website last week:


That pretty much solved the WaveHC vs. AF_Wave debate, but posed yet another problem.  So far, all the sketch examples I had found online using an IR distance sensor as an input device also used the older AF_Wave library.

The IR (infrared) distance sensor was also a new piece of hardware I was still figuring out.  My professor Bill, had this one on hand for me to use.  Luckily there is a lot of information online about this product and using it with an Arduino, so I was able to find plenty sketches that use this IR sensor.  Then last week during class, as I was walking my classmate Sarah through my project, she showed me how to open the serial port and record the analog values coming from the sensor.  This was a huge step to figuring out how to get different audio files to play at different distances from the sensor.
These numbers represent different distances from the sensor.

If you are at all confused at this point - join the club.  By now, I have all of the hardware assembled that I need for the project - the Arduino (an open-source electronics prototyping platform), the Ladyada Wave Shield (shield that allows me to add the audio), and the Sony IR sensor (analog input device that will trigger the audio to play.)  Now all I needed was the sketch that would bring them all together.

I had yet to discover a sketch online that encompassed everything I was trying to do, and used the WaveHC library.  So I started to build by own sketch, and let me tell you it was difficult.  But it also forced me to go through the different sketches and figure out what each part did (which was good for me in the long run.)  As I was Googling error messages to try to figure out what was wrong with the sketch I was writing I came across a forum topic about the 'sdErrorCheck' message.

As I'm reading down the page, I discover that this guy is doing the exact same thing I want to do, and he is only one error message a way from figuring it out!  Luckily his question was answered, and I was able to adopt his code for my project.  I pretty much just had to insert my audio files and change the analog values for my distance sensor!

The sketch that worked!

And with that - the Wonderboy started working!


Stay tuned for a final wrap-up and a look at the project once the hardware it all on the batting helmet!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Wonderboy - Hits and Misses

In baseball, if you're batting .300, you're doing pretty well.  Keep in mind this means you are getting a hit only 3 out of every 10 times you step up to the plate.

This is something I've been reminding myself quite a bit as I work through developing my interactive exhibit.  It seems as if every time I solve one problem, two more seem to pop up!

In my last post about the Wonderboy, I talked about my plans to use an Adafruit wave shield hooked up to an Arduino to produce the sound that will be wired into the batting helmet.  My professor, Bill, brought a wave shield into class for me to work with.  I started working through the steps on the online tutorial, just with the hope of getting some sound out of the shield.  Instead, every time I tired to verify the sketch before uploading it to the Arduino, I got an error message.  At the time, I had just started working with sketches, codes, and processing language, so I was having a hard time figuring out what was wrong.  Bill suggested I Google the error message I was getting and see if others had had the same problem.  When class was over that day, and I was no closer to solving the error message, I had a conversation with Bill that went something like this:


He encouraged me to keep banging my head against the wall, and I'd figure it out (at the time I thought that was the stupidest advice I'd ever gotten - turns out he was right!)  I was so determined to figure it out, I took my Arduino home and kept working.  Finally, I found my error.  It turns out that when I downloaded the library to use with the wave shield, I had saved it in the wrong place on my computer.  Yes, you read that correctly, the mistake was that small.  (Fortunately, I wasn't the only one to ever make this mistake, as I found the solution to my problem in an online forum where someone else posted about getting the same error message.)

So as this point I had the Arduino recognizing the wave shield attached to it, but I didn't have sound yet.  Per the instructions of the tutorial, I was working with the waveHC library and was trying to get the dap_hc.pde sketch to play all of the home run audio files I had on a loop.  (This isn't my ultimate goal, but I wanted to start somewhere.)

I tried running the dap_hc.pde sketch, but again, I was getting an error message.  After Googling this error message, I was directed to the Arduino website.  Turns out there had been a update the the Arduino software, and so I had to make some changes to the code in the waveHC library I downloaded.


This was completely new territory for me.  I started opening the files that had come with the waveHC library, and making the code changes where I could.  The files looked something like this:

 

After going through and making all the additions/changes the error messages on the Arduino sketch finally went away and there was sound - YEA!


So since I had solved the problem with using the waveHC library.  I copied and pasted the sketch for the Halloween Pumpkin project (which is similar to what I plan to do with my project) into the Arduino and tried to verify it.  Guess what?  I got an error message!  It turns out that the pumpkin project uses the older AF_Wave library (which I had read was cumbersome to use) as opposed to the newer waveHC library that I had just finished fixing on my computer.

So it was back to another round of getting error messages:


And trying to figure out how to solve them:

  

At this point I still haven't solved my SPI.h error message.  So I'm debating between trying to work out the error and get the AF_Wave library working.  Or trying to figure out how to rewrite the pumpkin project code so it will work with the waveHC library that is operational for me at this point.  Either way, it involves a lot of writing and rewriting code, which is still very new for me.

Also, my professor Bill is currently soldering my wave shield so we can hook up a distance sensor as an input device.  I have a feeling that this will lead to a whole new group of error messages.

Hopefully, batting .300 will continue to be good enough for this project!

Friday, February 24, 2012

The Wonderboy - Deconstructed

Last week, in my Interactive Exhibit Design course, we had a chance to play with Google SketchUp.  Of all the programs we have used so far, I found this the easiest to learn.  Not only is the program user-friendly, but Google provides some excellent tutorials for beginners and advanced users.  I used my class time to go though a Museum Exhibit Mockup Prof. Turkel provided.  I was going to include the one I made in class on my blog, but after looking at what Lindsay had done with her Immigrant's Suitcase, I knew I had to step-up my game a bit.

Some of you may remember my original idea for a "history appliance" - Wonderboy, the interactive baseball bat.  I used SketchUp to visualize how this exhibit might be set up in a museum.

*Bonus point to anyone who can figure out which famous home run is depicted in the projected images.
If you recall from my original idea, this exhibit allows you to experience what it would be like to hit a record-breaking home run.  Speakers in the batters helmet provide audio of the announcers and the roar of the crowd, while the images from the projectors put you on the field.

Using what I have learned so far in the class, brainstorming with my professor Bill, and some online research - I'm trying to figure out a way to make this mockup materialize.  I've decided to start with focusing on the batting helmet.  Since I want to be able to accomplish this with as few things wired together as possible, I would like to put most of the hardware in the helmet.


Starting with the Arduino which I've worked with before, I've been researching using a wave shield for the audio in the helmet.  The audio of the different home run calls can be loaded onto an SD card and put into the wave shield.  I can plug in regular headphones and plant one in each ear guard of the helmet.  I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to wire all these parts into the helmet yet, as I'm still working on getting one to hack, but I figure worst case scenario I can stick it all on top.  (At least while I'm working everything out!)

Next, I have been trying to figure out how to trigger the audio.  Originally, I was thinking that there would be something inside the bat that would sense the way a person was swinging and that would start the audio.  I also thought about the possibility of using a motion sensing input device like a Kenect (but I don't have one of those to play with!)  So I took the idea of the motion sensor, but on a much smaller scale.  As I was researching the wave shield I came across this tutorial to make a Halloween pumpkin:  


I started look a little more into motion sensors as input devices.  I thought if I could find one that had a narrow range and put it into the bill of the batting helmet, facing down, then it would sense when the batter moved their arms and the bat, but not wider movements in the periphery.  I found this High Performance Ultrasonic Rangefinder (cool name, right?)  I don't know enough about this technology to be sure that it would be sensitive enough to catch the arm swing, but not surrounding movements.  I'll have to look into it a bit more.

Add a battery pack to this set-up and all the hardware would be right on the helmet.  (I'm starting to think with all the cool stuff happening in the helmet, perhaps I should name my project something other than Wonderboy...but I don't know of any cool batting helmet names...)  I just need to gather a few more parts and start playing around!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Arduino, and Processing, and Inkscape, Oh My!

Have you ever spent so much time thinking about something that you dream about it?  That is what has happened to me.  I spend so much of my "down time" thinking about interactive exhibit design (and how I should be blogging about it more often) that it has started to invade my subconscious.  The other night I dreamed about sitting in my interactive exhibit design class with all my public history cohorts.  They all knew what they were doing, and how they were doing it, but I was completely lost.  I was frustrated and disappointed, but then Joey Fatone showed up and told me to "Keep at it!"  (Why Joey Fatone - I have no idea.  I guess I need to stop watching Rachel vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook Off before I go to bed.)

"You can do it!"

Subconscious or not, it was good advice (and clearly motivated me to finally get back to blogging.)  So more of my weekends have been devoted to playing around with the programs we are learning about in class.  In my first Arduino post, I talked about how Adriana and I figured out how to turn lights on and off.  In our next class, we had the chance to play around with different inputs or sensors.  Using a potentiometer as an analog input we were able to control the speed at which our light blinked.


Next, we learned the Processing computer language.  This is an open source programming language for creating images, animations, and interactions.  Using this Adriana and I drew (and colored) some images and simple animations.

We started to draw this alien guy a friend
but ran out of time!



Our next class had us playing around with vector representations using an open source program called Inkscape.  We worked through some tutorials, and played around with different drawings.  Over the weekend I worked on recreating this guy:

It was snowing this weekend
so I made a snowman!

You may have noticed that all of the programs we have worked with so far are open source, so that makes them very cost effective to use.  Even the hardware associated with the Arduino isn't terribly expensive.  This becomes important when you think about developing exhibits for non-profit organizations with limited resources.


So how does this all relate to my baseball exhibit idea?  Well, I'm still doing a little research on that, but there will be another post soon to talk about my progress there.  In the meantime, you can check out some of the projects my friends are working on: Lindsay and Adriana's Immigrant Suitcase, Laura and Sushima's Lego Hollywood Squares, Adrian's Talking Money, Michael's 1812 Twitter project, Hilary's Ninja Historian animated short, and though I'm not sure what her class project is Sarah is doing some really cool stuff on her blog!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Adventures With Arduino

Me: Guess what I did in Digital History today? 

Doug: What? 

M: I played with an Arduino board! 

D:  You played with a what?  Arduino board?  Like that waffle-board looking thing? 

M:  Yeah, an Arduino board !  You know...a little computer-like thing that...um, it has all these inputs and outputs.  We plugged it into a computer, copied some code, and made a light bulb turn on!  And then we turned it on and off with a button, then we made it blink and fade.  We tried to get two different lights to fade in and out at the same time, but we couldn't quite get the code right.  Okay, it was a lot cooler than it sounds now.... 

D:  And this was in your history class.....?


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Admittedly I am not a techie.  My foray into HTML last semester was a leap for me, so actually programming?  That would be crazy!  What an interesting challenge!  Prof. Turkel opened the class by telling us that we would be making two things this semester:
  1. stuff
  2. mistakes
As he pointed out, it's not often professors encourage you to make mistakes.  He said he'd rather have us dream big, fail spectacularly, and learn something along the way than to play it safe.  I figured even if it's scary, what's the worst that could happen, I make a mistake?  Cool!


For those of you, like I, unfamiliar with Arduino it's "a popular open-source electronic board that is capable of controlling just about any DIY hardware project."  I figured if this girl could handle it, so could I:


So armed with our box-o-Arduino supplies, and big dreams (or at least big dreams in the making) my partner Adriana and I dove in!  Our kit came with an instruction manual, but we find illustrations much easier to follow so with the help of this comic we got to work.  Adriana had downloaded the software onto her computer, so we sped through the instructions, hooked up all the wires, copied the code into the computer, and voila - our light blinked! 

Now, if that description of how things happened leaves you a little lost and confused, you are exactly where I was in class.  I was so excited to see something happen (i.e. make a light blink) that I wasn't really paying attention to what we were doing.  In fact, everything was pretty much happening all at once.  Adriana was entering the code into the Arduino program, I was following the illustration and hooking up all the wires in the Arduino board and breadboard, but I can't say as though I understood exactly what we were doing.  I was just excited to see this happen:



However, at this point I realized that I had done little more than show I was capable of cutting and pasting code text, and following an illustration to put wires in the right place.  And while the end result was cool - I didn't really understand what I was actually doing.  So we slowed down and Adriana and I went through the code step-by-step.  When you put a sketch (or code) into the Arduino software, it looks a little something like this:

Sketch for fading LED

The light-grey text (following the //) is not actually part of the code, but it's included in the Getting Started with Arduino book to help you understand what each line does.  So we went line by line to figure out what the sketch was telling the Arduino board.  Once we had a basic understanding, we wanted to try something new (dream big right?) and have two different lights hooked up and have them fade in and out at the same time.  So we copied and pasted the sketch over again and made a few changes (there is a "verify" button on the software that double checks your sketch to make sure it's correct), added a second light and BAM - nothing happened.  Well, not quite nothing, but just the first light worked, not the second.


We were really bummed at first, we thought we were wizards and had everything figured out.  But then we realized what we had done...made our first mistake!  So rather than fail, this was just an opportunity to learn what we had done wrong.  Unfortunately, at that very moment, class was over and we had to pack up and call it a day.


But the thing about Arduino is once you start thinking about it, it's hard to stop.  There were numerous Tweets flying around that evening among classmates, with suggestions, solutions, and cool websites to check out.  Adriana eventually figured out our mistake in the sketch.  (If I understand it correctly, we had created a second "loop" or entirely separate part of the code, or the Arduino was only reading the first part - hence only one light coming on.)  


The nice thing about Arduino being open-source is that you can find a lot of people on the web sharing what they are doing and the codes that go along with their projects.  So if you're really bored creative, you can do something like this: