Sound Engineering (Colour of Music)

The studies have started again and now I have finished the first quartile. There were some new courses that we had to participate in. My favourite one was definitely Sound Engineering!
We had several assignments throughout the course in order to get a better feeling with music in all kind of situations. The final assignment was to take a video without(or very little sound) and do the foley effects on it. Than means recording all the noises that you would think you should be able to hear when watching the movie. For example foot steps. Since my roommate has quite a nice camera, we thought that we should make our own movie and add the foley effects to it afterwards.

Have a look and do not forget to press the 1080p button on the video!

                                                                        Colour of Music

Free Time

In the beginning of this quartile we had a weekend with barely anything to do so we thought we should make a video. It is quite random, but a lot of fun!

 Enjoy!
http://vimeo.com/50928770

Have fun and Play

The Lemon group, including me, has created the installation “The Voice of Chaos”. The main message behind this installation is that connections in all kind of ways can be helpful and good to have but as soon as there are too many connections made, it can create chaos and confusion. The message also includes that people can be similar but when too many connections are made, individualism gets lost, which is often a negative thing.
            This message is conveyed to the participant/spectator by allowing the participants to turn a wheel that will let a glowing orb appear on the screen, if another participant turns at the same speed as the other one, a very appealing connection is made between the orbs. The user and spectator will hear people talk. The more people turn at the same speed, the more connections are made and this will result in more people talking. The user will understand them less and less the more connections are made, which will give the effect of chaos. Furthermore when all 6 orbs are connected to each other, they will all turn white, this conveys the part of the message that is about the of the loss of individualism, as all the orbs will look the same.


Picture will come soon.

Human Factors

For the course human factors my group and I redesigned the user interface of a CD-Player.
Here you can see a picture of the old version.

Our redesigned version had several changes. These were making the buttons more comfortable, changing the kind of cd drive and getting rid of several buttons that were confusing.
Here is the new version. The first picture is where the system is turned off and the second one is on.

We came to the conclusion through our usability test that our new designed interface is better than the old one, however users thought we have integrated a touch screen, which created confusion but we didnt do so due to several reasons but we think this problem only occurred as we have tested it on a computer.

Interactive Visualisation

Here you can see what I have done for my Interactive visualisation assignment. I have created a lonesome and mysterious island that had been conquered by pirates many centuries ago. The objects such as the ship wreck, the skeletons, the bones and the strip saber are made with blender. If you walk around on the island you can hear the theme song of Pirates of the Caribbean. Here are some pictures that I have taken. 

the wreck in blender

 the bones and the skeletons have a bone material but it is difficult to recognize

In order to play it yourself you can just click on this link:
http://d.pr/f/wN0b
and download the zip file, after clicking on it you will be able to play it yourself through your web player.

Sketching

Sketching Class

Here are some sketches that I have drawn in Sketching class. I know that they might not the best but compared to the first ones that I did during the course, they have greatly improved.

Design in Context
One exercise for this course was to create something that could be used as an extension for the body. For example a device that would help you to point out certain things.
I have created a kind of "glove" that you can put around your hand and use it for giving presentations. You will be able to control the presentations with the buttons on the bottom of the glove (eg. 2. picture) The glove would also have touchscreen on the top side, which can show you your current presentation and you will also be able to use the screen in a way such as a tablet pc so you can affect your presentations by clicking on certain links and etc. .

Smart Environment SOS

For the Smart Environment Project, my group and I decided to built a Secure Overtaking System (SOS). This is a system that can be integrated into a car, which will then inform you constantly if it is safe to overtake the car in front of you or not. We have built a model, where one car (the red one) is overtaking a parked tractor while from the other side a white car is coming. We build the system in a way that there are two different variants, one where the overtaking car is safely overtaking the tractor, where our system has told the driver it is safe to overtake. The other version is where our system tells the driver that it is not safe to overtake but the car will overtake anyways and the two cars will crash. Our system works with distance sensors that realise how fast the other car (white one) is driving and will then be able to tell if it is enough space or not for an overtake. The advice of our system is represented by green and red lights, for safe and unsafe overtaking. In the real world the system could you satellites instead of distance sensors, so it would become more practical. And also did we only use a parking car for the one that is being overtaken, the reason for that is that we would have needed too much space and our model was already 2 m and 50 cm.

Smart Environment SOS

There is a video on my youtube channel to the right, which is a commercial about our product.

Mailbox

For the course of Programming and Physical Computing we had the assignment to create a system that is able to show you, in the real world, if you have received in email. My partner and I have builded a mailbox such as one that many people in america have, so if you receive an email, the white handle will go up and stay up until you read the mail(s). You can see a video of that on my youtube channel to the right.