My name is Jack Eggebrecht and I am a 3rd/Nth year student in Texas A&M’s Visualization Lab. My thesis work is geared toward character (role) recognition in games as it pertains to level of detail and character design (as the best way I can describe it). This will be my second semester repeating this course, since I thoroughly enjoyed it so well the first time around. As per the course setup, I will be developing 2 main projects (first and second half of the semester).
My main interests grow in video game development, specifically environment/character creation and user interaction. It is the user interaction specifically that I’m looking forward to expanding in this class. I’m still brainstorming, but I’m pretty sure that I want to use my 2 projects to gear towards a single large project in 2 parts, so I can get the most polished and interesting result possible, rather than two smaller results. I’d like to work towards some sort of wearable physical computing device in this class, and to that end I’ve found 5 different links that should and already have provided some interesting and helpful information.
Interesting how the physical computing aspect can be integrated so visibly into the clothing, plus the motion of the arms really helps. Maybe this could be combined with lights or sound to really set off the aesthetic. I’m not sure how it’s controlled, whether some sensor is picking up something, or manually by remote, or even something the model is doing that’s not apparent. My guess is just remote controlled by a human operator, since the video doesn’t say, but I could be wrong.
Interesting how these clothes are designed so that LEDs integrated into the material display multicolored patterns, apparently based on social media like Twitter. I’m more into something involving some sort of motion, but the moving patterns are still enjoyable to look at here.
This is a good reference site for what types of cloth and thread work well for wearable/physical computing, as well as some neat sounding tips and tricks on what techniques work best for this pursuit and some good places to obtain these materials.
This is a practical example of a type of clothing that could be achieved using the materials and techniques from the previous link. This shirt has sleeves that produce sound based on how the fabric bends and moves as users flex and cross their arms. With this link, I have a nice example from motion, light, and now sound. Finding an innovative way to combine these three aspects into my project is one of my long term goals in this class.
This project looks fairly straightforward in its purpose; LEDs light up based on the amount of email the wearer has received. Aside from the cute, gimmicky nature of this, I note it for its use of wirelessly connecting an Arduino Lilypad, a basic setup which seems very advantageous for wearable computing. I know the Lilypad isn’t as powerful as other Arduino boards, so it seems like a balance would have to be achieved. I’m sure I’ll find out more about this balance as I progress in my project(s).
There we go, I look forward to an enriching semester, with me being able to showcase an awesome result from this class in VizaGoGo!
Now let’s get physical. Again.
Physical Computing, Round 2 