Day 6:
Here we are halfway through our lab weeks, we completed the first week. We are very happy and in a good place, since playing around with all the different technologies, we have chosen to continue with the accelerometer. We got the accelerometer to connect with processing and used open-source games on processing to see how the input would affect the game. We changed the existing input on those games to the values received from the accelerometer. Here you can see us changing the size of a ball and steering the pong in a pong game. What’s interesting was that we thought the accelerometer gave us the acceleration so when we move quicker the amount would be greater. But that wasn’t true, it looked like when you moved it higher, the value would be higher, it had nothing to do with speed. It seemed like it was more so looking at the location rather than speed/acceleration.
Day 7:
My partner started to work on the processing game. We thought of a guy running away from zombies, the faster you run, the more distance between the zombies. If you run too slow, then the zombies catch up and eat you. The game takes inspiration from temple run, you need to run away from the monkeys. I also started to investigate how we could get the actual acceleration values from the accelerometer. I then found out we could get 3 different values, the movement in the; x-axis, y-axis and z-axis. The x and y-axis measurements were like I had previously thought, it was just the location of where they were, not the acceleration. But the z-axis gave us the acceleration as it was the change in speed (on the x and y-axis) over time. This was the value that I was going to use in the processing code. I tested the movement of running with the accelerometer and noted the values that we received in the serial monitor. Then in processing, we made an if statement, that, if the value is greater than the chosen value we had found out previously (it was 15), boost our character a couple of steps. This meant that every time a movement in the run was registered, our character would move forward. If it wasn’t registered then our character would not move.
Day 8:
Today we tried to connect the Bluetooth sensor we had bought at the start of the project to our Arduino. We spent the entire day trying to connect the Bluetooth sensor with one of the assistants that were helping that day. We couldn’t get it to work and if we would work on it any longer, we would fall behind and potentially miss the deadline. We really wanted the Arduino to be remote as we didn’t want the user to need to run right next to the computer as the cable was very small. We then went to the innovation playground and Chris came to look at our project. He suggested we buy a 4 vein flexible wire, male headers and female headers and solder a much larger cable. This way the user is still connected to the computer but has much more space to move around. It was too late in the day to go to the store so I went the next day.
Day 9:
I went early in the morning to the store to buy the requested equipment from Chris. We then headed to our help desk appointment and soldered the wires with Chris. It was a very fun experience soldering the wires and creating a longer cable for our product. We were incredibly happy with how our product came to be. The final step for the project was to film a video. We didn’t want to make it a boring video as we were gonna watch videos the entire day at the expo and wanted to make ours funny. We wrote a small script (mainly improvisation) and a storyboard. We then started to film the entire video. The final scene that we wanted was in a gym so I and my partner booked a session and recorded the gym experience. It was a really fun day and we had a lot of laughs. The editing took a very long time and took us late into the night, but in our opinion, it was worth it. We ended up with a very funny video that we are both proud of.
Final Product:
Our final product is a smart glove that has an accelerometer built inside. It connects to a game in processing. The game involves the user running in one spot, the faster they run, the further they are from the zombies. If they stop running, the zombies catch up to them. Our game takes exercise and makes it more playful. It doesn’t feel like you are exercising but instead playing a game.
General Reflection:
This project taught us a great deal, it allowed us to play around with technologies that we wouldn’t normally do and learn new skills. My partner and I definitely had a rocky start to the project, a lot of fights and not agreeing on what we wanted to do as we had a lot of different ideas, but in the end, we are both extremely proud of what we made together. We both helped make our combined vision a success. We would have liked a little more time to get our Bluetooth sensor to work so the glove was truly wireless and the user didn’t have to be scared that a wire would come loose or they would break something when exercising. Also, we spent the majority of the first week trying to think of an idea, this was definitely a big mistake as we could’ve used those days to try different technologies and see what we liked. Our final idea wasn’t even one that we had thought of at the start but was a product of us playing around with different technologies and thinking of an idea on the spot. Our group dynamic worked very well as I hate building the Arduino circuits but I am in love with coding them, and my partner was the exact opposite. So she built all the circuits while I coded. It was the perfect duo. It was also useful as my partner was talented in processing and made the entire frame of the game. I then coded in the input front accelerometer and the game worked perfectly. All in all, I am extremely fortunate that we got to do this project, it was not only a fun experience but also very educational.
Demo/Expo Video: