I like the idea of being able to introduce a new digimal as a reward for caring for plants. I think there would be a temptation to overwater though as people would be anxious to get a new one and I would hate for the well-being of the digimals to outweigh the importance of the health of the plants. Perhaps instead, people could be rewarded for for going for 7 days without falling into extremely dry. (This will penalize people with cactii and succulents even more so than they are already though).
Feedback for the collective moisture of the community plants would also be good.
I might also suggest negative feedback if any plant(s) is extremely dry for a whole week. Such as a mean carnivorous digimal that will damage and/or eat other digimals.
Our hopes for a carbon dioxide sensor have been revived by Six who believes that one of his former classmates did a project with $200 CO2 sensors and that sealing the room wasn't necessary. He's trying to track her down now for more info. I would love to have one more biochemical sensor input to reinforce the natural ecology aspects of the environment.
Also, some folks have brought up concerns that the touchscreen will dominate the room. But Silvia and Bonnie bought some hardware so that we can hang plants on the walls on either side of the touchscreen to help balance things out.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Viva Piñata
I have a couple friends who are addicted to this game, Viva Pinata. I think it is interesting wrt the hybrid ecology idea. You build a garden and different gardens attract different kinds of creatures. It might be interesting to check this game out sometime.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Garden Ideas
Here is a brief synopsis of the ideas and development i've done for the visualization component of the Technology Garden, compiled for 11/29 meeting.
Overview
Charlotte and I had discussed my creating an interactive visualization (and sonification) of the sensor data being collected from the garden. The idea is for there to be a wall-mounted touchscreen display that hangs over the plants and complements the current informational display with something more representational and ambient. This display will allow for different ways to visualize the current and past state of the garden; encourage interaction with the digital portion of the garden's ecology; become another facet of the aesthetic experience of the garden; and can act to communicate garden state externally - within the building and via the internet.
Data
I got some sample data from Bryant that they collected during the pilot study. Here is a simple bar chart visualization of the readings over time. I'm just parsing the data file and doing a little bit of normalization for the display.
There are 812 samples in the dataset for (5) soil moisture sensors and temperature and humidity sensors for the room. Bryant said it was roughly 1.5 days of data with 20 seconds between each sample. However with 812 samples it seems like it is more like a sample every couple of minutes (or the data covers a shorter period of time). This first reading of the data it appears that the room temperature and humidity have an inverse relationship to one another... which makes sense i think. yes? The climate fluctuations are likely between daytime and nighttime settings of the climate control. With the soil moisture, a higher reading means dryer soil. I believe this dataset starts with the sensors not in the soil (to explain the really high readings) and then we see a watering and a slow taper after the watering.
Next step I think we need to capture some more data and do these things:
Other sensor data that we would like to capture:
Phase One (real time display)
Display the sensor information in real time through visuals and sound. The sensor acquisition computer will relay the readings via a network socket to the client application running on the touchscreen display. The default screen will give an overview of the state of the garden (plant moisture, light reading, motion, sound). Interaction with the display allows for more detailed information on a plant-by-plant or sensor-by-sensor basis. "Events" can also be reflected through sounds, graphics or messaging on the display. For instance, we can discern a watering event by the sudden change in moisture level of a plant sensor... the plant representation can reflect this watering and perhaps a sound or a message can be delivered. (also see below for ideas on how to use this event to collect further data from the people in the garden) Other events could be someone entering the room or turning on/off the lights... perhaps a welcoming message or a change of state of the visualization.
History
Integration of historic sensor data. Allow for interaction with the display to provide the browsing of historic data through timeline-based visualizations. Also (as above) allow the visualization of historic data for a specific plant or sensor. View animations depicting the garden state over the course of a day, week, month, etc. When were plants added, "friends" made, and other events can be included.
Social
The display could become an interesting part of the social component of the project. It can reflect current social relationships that exist in the system... such as plant sponsorship, friends, etc. As we build more social features into the system we could use the display to facilitate. For instance, we have talked about wanting to display garden visits and maybe tying events to people. While we may want to be careful about making the system too surveillant, we could collect voluntary information. For instance, a watering event could thank the user and ask them to identify themselves. We then have some more social information to display and to develop activity patterns and linkages between plants and people.
Sustainability
People. Plants. Technology. Some people are sure to ask "why?" Many of the benefits of the garden exist simply between the plants and the people... relaxation, becoming more familiar with natural or "sustainable" ideas and systems, a place to gather, etc. So what is technology's role in this, does it make the system more sustainable? The CHI paper shows how technology can be used to help engage gardeners and get them involved, with the garden and with each other. Technology brings the garden to the gardeners when they can't be there in person, and helps to bring them back to the garden when they can come. In many ways the technology acts as a link between the people and the garden. In some ways this could be construed as making the system more sustainable, but in general I think we really need to unpack the implications of this term, especially if we are using it as the center point of the rhetoric around the project. If increasing awareness of sustainability is a goal we maybe should figure out ways to emphasize this in the project in a more overt way.
A Hybrid Ecology
Another way to look at the relationship between plants/people/tech that I'm interested in pursuing with the visualizations is the notion of a digital ecology that exists in a symbiosis with the other two components - the human ecology and the garden ecology. Inside the visualization I would like to enable an ecology of digital organisms that have behavior attributes which cause them to interact with the garden in various ways. Some organism may like light, others vibrations, some attracted to high moisture while others are repelled. Maybe even some parasitic organisms or some kind of food chain interactions. Gardeners program simple character attributes and release their creatures into the wild of the garden, where their fate depends on interaction with plants and environmental factors and on interaction with other digital organisms (think a simple version of Spore with "real world" influences from a biological system). I think this has potential to be a very cool thing... theoretically and as far as being fun. One possibility is that when someone waters a plant they are presented with the award of being able to add a new digital creature to the garden. This will allow the digital ecology to grow over time with the garden, provide a personal connectedness to the digimals (digital animals... sorry just made that up), and could increase awareness of the ideas behind enabling a sustainable ecosystem. I have many more ideas surrounding this, but this blog post is already way too long!
Overview
Charlotte and I had discussed my creating an interactive visualization (and sonification) of the sensor data being collected from the garden. The idea is for there to be a wall-mounted touchscreen display that hangs over the plants and complements the current informational display with something more representational and ambient. This display will allow for different ways to visualize the current and past state of the garden; encourage interaction with the digital portion of the garden's ecology; become another facet of the aesthetic experience of the garden; and can act to communicate garden state externally - within the building and via the internet.
Data
I got some sample data from Bryant that they collected during the pilot study. Here is a simple bar chart visualization of the readings over time. I'm just parsing the data file and doing a little bit of normalization for the display.
There are 812 samples in the dataset for (5) soil moisture sensors and temperature and humidity sensors for the room. Bryant said it was roughly 1.5 days of data with 20 seconds between each sample. However with 812 samples it seems like it is more like a sample every couple of minutes (or the data covers a shorter period of time). This first reading of the data it appears that the room temperature and humidity have an inverse relationship to one another... which makes sense i think. yes? The climate fluctuations are likely between daytime and nighttime settings of the climate control. With the soil moisture, a higher reading means dryer soil. I believe this dataset starts with the sensors not in the soil (to explain the really high readings) and then we see a watering and a slow taper after the watering.
Next step I think we need to capture some more data and do these things:
- Timestamp the samples so we can get a more accurate sense of time
- Figure out how to normalize and calibrate the readings between the different moisture sensors as best as possible
- Begin archiving sensor data in a database. Will be a tradeoff between sample frequency and storage space.
- Begin simple visualization of realtime data so we can get a better sense of how the data changes in real time.
Other sensor data that we would like to capture:
- Light readings, both inside and outside the building. Outside readings will reflect the sun patterns and help bring an outdoor context. Indoor light readings might help infer activity in the room. The interaction between these two light sources can add interest to the visualizations.
- Motion sensor or webcam to discern movement and activity in the room. Could be one sensor that just reflects presence in the room, or with more work could reflect movement in different zones, or reflect when people enter vs. leave the room.
- Microphone to gauge sound. Do not want to record the actual audio (no surveillance!) but just to record sound levels to also help infer when there is activity in the room. For instance, if there is motion in room but no sound then someone is present but not talking. Sustained sound level might reflect social activity of some sort.
- Silvia and I had talked about trying to measure the vibrations of the plants (she was interested in touch between the people and plants) and thought about using piezoelectric for this. Any kind of microscale vibrations of the plants would be cool. Also have read something about microvoltage fluctuations in plants but need to do more research.
- Oh a new one... how about seismic? I know Calit2 has seismic sensors we could probably tap into and perhaps so does Bren Hall? I think it is interesting to consider the way that earth and building vibrations might relate to the vibes of our little micro ecology :)
Phase One (real time display)
Display the sensor information in real time through visuals and sound. The sensor acquisition computer will relay the readings via a network socket to the client application running on the touchscreen display. The default screen will give an overview of the state of the garden (plant moisture, light reading, motion, sound). Interaction with the display allows for more detailed information on a plant-by-plant or sensor-by-sensor basis. "Events" can also be reflected through sounds, graphics or messaging on the display. For instance, we can discern a watering event by the sudden change in moisture level of a plant sensor... the plant representation can reflect this watering and perhaps a sound or a message can be delivered. (also see below for ideas on how to use this event to collect further data from the people in the garden) Other events could be someone entering the room or turning on/off the lights... perhaps a welcoming message or a change of state of the visualization.
History
Integration of historic sensor data. Allow for interaction with the display to provide the browsing of historic data through timeline-based visualizations. Also (as above) allow the visualization of historic data for a specific plant or sensor. View animations depicting the garden state over the course of a day, week, month, etc. When were plants added, "friends" made, and other events can be included.
Social
The display could become an interesting part of the social component of the project. It can reflect current social relationships that exist in the system... such as plant sponsorship, friends, etc. As we build more social features into the system we could use the display to facilitate. For instance, we have talked about wanting to display garden visits and maybe tying events to people. While we may want to be careful about making the system too surveillant, we could collect voluntary information. For instance, a watering event could thank the user and ask them to identify themselves. We then have some more social information to display and to develop activity patterns and linkages between plants and people.
Sustainability
People. Plants. Technology. Some people are sure to ask "why?" Many of the benefits of the garden exist simply between the plants and the people... relaxation, becoming more familiar with natural or "sustainable" ideas and systems, a place to gather, etc. So what is technology's role in this, does it make the system more sustainable? The CHI paper shows how technology can be used to help engage gardeners and get them involved, with the garden and with each other. Technology brings the garden to the gardeners when they can't be there in person, and helps to bring them back to the garden when they can come. In many ways the technology acts as a link between the people and the garden. In some ways this could be construed as making the system more sustainable, but in general I think we really need to unpack the implications of this term, especially if we are using it as the center point of the rhetoric around the project. If increasing awareness of sustainability is a goal we maybe should figure out ways to emphasize this in the project in a more overt way.
A Hybrid Ecology
Another way to look at the relationship between plants/people/tech that I'm interested in pursuing with the visualizations is the notion of a digital ecology that exists in a symbiosis with the other two components - the human ecology and the garden ecology. Inside the visualization I would like to enable an ecology of digital organisms that have behavior attributes which cause them to interact with the garden in various ways. Some organism may like light, others vibrations, some attracted to high moisture while others are repelled. Maybe even some parasitic organisms or some kind of food chain interactions. Gardeners program simple character attributes and release their creatures into the wild of the garden, where their fate depends on interaction with plants and environmental factors and on interaction with other digital organisms (think a simple version of Spore with "real world" influences from a biological system). I think this has potential to be a very cool thing... theoretically and as far as being fun. One possibility is that when someone waters a plant they are presented with the award of being able to add a new digital creature to the garden. This will allow the digital ecology to grow over time with the garden, provide a personal connectedness to the digimals (digital animals... sorry just made that up), and could increase awareness of the ideas behind enabling a sustainable ecosystem. I have many more ideas surrounding this, but this blog post is already way too long!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
New Plants and Solar Fountain
Slowly but surely the elements of the Technology Garden are coming together. We have the plants for the user study. As shown in the photo, we have three species of plants for the pilot study: Fatsia Japonica, Caladium, and a type of Philodendron. They look gorgeous in the room. It will be kind of sad when they leave with their caretakers at the end of the pilot study. We've also gotten the solar fountain set up and installed. I placed the solar panel in the window and when the sun hits the window full on, the pump churns impressively. The pump doesn't seem to work when the sun is indirect. This bothered me at first, but I found that it functioned well as a primitive sensor. I'm now much more aware of slight changes of light outside during the day. If the users learn half as much as we have while building the Tech Garden, I think the project will be a great success.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Moisture Sensors Operational
The first six soil moisture sensors for the Technology garden are now operational. In order to get them operational we needed to create some electronics to convert the soil resistance between two metal probes, to a signal that can be read by the data acquisition device (DAQ). Marcel developed the circuit and soldered it together. (Thanks to the ACE Lab for the use of their oscilloscope!) There are some hobby shops that sell kits to do similar things, but they all came with extraneous features and we saved a lot of money by building our own. Bryant developed all the software to read the output from the DAQ. Pictured are six circuits on one breadboard, sitting on top of the USB DAQ that we purchased from LabJack.
After we receive our 2nd DAQ, we'll have the rest of our sensors working. Currently we're waiting on a bunch of materials in order to have everything ready for our pilot study which is tentatively scheduled to start on August 20.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Tech Garden Springs to Life
The Technology Garden has come a long way in a short time. When we moved into Bren Hall in the Spring, every time I went by Office 5054, now the site of the Garden, I had an irrepressible urge to see what was then an empty office, filled with plants. That’s how the project got started.
The Garden office is well situated – at the end of a line of sight in a main corridor on the fifth floor of our beautiful new building, the Donald Bren Hall of Information and Computer Sciences. The office has a pretty window and good light. I pass by 5054 on the way to my own office probably a dozen times a day as I walk around the fifth floor. Thank you David Redmiles, our Department Chair, for seeing the potential to use this office as a community space.
Through one of those gifts from the gods, the talented and creative Charlotte Lee agreed to collaborate on the project. Charlotte has contributed more than I can possibly say, but her blog posts indicate the nature of her resourcefulness, thoughtfulness, and organizational prowess. She is working closely with one of our best undergraduate students, Bryant Hornick, on the software to support the project. I will always have a fond memory of going plant shopping with Charlotte ;)
Silvia Lindtner provided important inspiration as we were designing the project, as did Don Patterson, Bill Tomlinson, Shadi Shariat, Beverly Andrews, Miryha Gould, Eric Kabisch, Jim Doyle, and Marcel Blonk. We hope to fold in further contributions from all as the project proceeds. One of the things I like about the Garden is that its development has been effortlessly interdisciplinary – we have expertise in social science, computer science, the arts, media, facilities, and environmental psychology -- not to mention plants!
Our Dean, Debra Richardson, has provided crucial support and we appreciate the way she views the building as a living space to be worked with and shaped through human activity and creativity.
The Garden office is well situated – at the end of a line of sight in a main corridor on the fifth floor of our beautiful new building, the Donald Bren Hall of Information and Computer Sciences. The office has a pretty window and good light. I pass by 5054 on the way to my own office probably a dozen times a day as I walk around the fifth floor. Thank you David Redmiles, our Department Chair, for seeing the potential to use this office as a community space.
Through one of those gifts from the gods, the talented and creative Charlotte Lee agreed to collaborate on the project. Charlotte has contributed more than I can possibly say, but her blog posts indicate the nature of her resourcefulness, thoughtfulness, and organizational prowess. She is working closely with one of our best undergraduate students, Bryant Hornick, on the software to support the project. I will always have a fond memory of going plant shopping with Charlotte ;)
Silvia Lindtner provided important inspiration as we were designing the project, as did Don Patterson, Bill Tomlinson, Shadi Shariat, Beverly Andrews, Miryha Gould, Eric Kabisch, Jim Doyle, and Marcel Blonk. We hope to fold in further contributions from all as the project proceeds. One of the things I like about the Garden is that its development has been effortlessly interdisciplinary – we have expertise in social science, computer science, the arts, media, facilities, and environmental psychology -- not to mention plants!
Our Dean, Debra Richardson, has provided crucial support and we appreciate the way she views the building as a living space to be worked with and shaped through human activity and creativity.
Solar Water Fountains and Datafountain
With help from Silvia, I have beens shopping around for solar water fountains for the Technology Garden. We found that most commercial water fountains are pretty ugly and are overpriced. The situation only gets worse if one wants solar power. I decided to try experimenting with building my own as it is possible to get a solar powered pump on ebay for as low as $30. I'm still waiting for my pump and solar panel to arrive, but I have certainly been thinking about water fountains.Lately, I have been thinking about how much the Technology Garden would benefit from an ambient display. I also thought of how cool it would be to use the ambient sound of water flowing to convey the sensor data that we are now working so hard to capture. Perhaps the sound and visual of greater or lesser amounts of water flowing could provide information about soil moisture. After all, if people are chilling out in the TG, which doubles as a lounge, they probably won't want to stay fixated on the display on our monitor. We've got our hands more than full at the moment just trying to get bare bones system working, but this is an idea that is worth exploring.
Of course after doing a search, it turns out that someone has already done something similar.
The Datafountain is connected to money currency rates on the internet. Refreshed every five seconds, the fountain displays the Yen, Euro and Dollar (¥€$). This mobile fountain measures 5x4x3 meters. The Datafountain is supposed to show how the interdependence of currency rates is interconnected, but I imagine that you'd have to watch the fountain a pretty long time in order to get the message. I'm not troubled that someone has already done something similar as the goals of the Technology Garden are focused on how we can create awareness of plants and nature and the technology is just one element of our research. We're interested in the what the technology facilitates more so than the technology itself.
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