Tree of Light

The Tree of Light is a solar powered kiosk and information booth that engages the community through science and solar energy workshops.  The leaves of the tree are made up of solar panels that provide shade and power the information display that can be used to provide directions, local business info, and information about Pittsburgh's emergence in solar and green energy. 

The bridge arch and beam design are reminiscent of Pittsburgh's iconic history and culture.  The information display can help visitors navigate the city with maps for public transportation,  local restaurant menus, sport schedules and insight into what is happening in Pittsburgh.

Workshops provided by Pittsburgh Tutor on science and solar energy can take place at the Tree of Light kiosks and are a way to help children and adults learn about how to make solar gadgets like cell phone chargers and solar trees. We are working with sponsors have solar panels provided for the workshops so that we can build in large groups.  The kiosk and solar tree uses a raspberry pie, arduino,  and other computer components that will also be talked about in the workshops. 

 

Slinkables @ LAUNCH Conference 2011

Slinkables flew out to San Francisco to attend the LAUNCH Conference. Even though it was my first time in San Francisco it seemed so familiar to me. It may have been the snowfall that almost never happens there and I can’t tell you how many times someone asked me if I brought the weather from home. Overall about 100 new and existing companies showed off their ideas and products. The companies all were technology related start-ups from all over the world that got invited to attend the event to launch or promote their products and services.

The Grand Jury selected Slinkables to present on stage at the Launch Pad rapid fire round. Slinkable was last to present after a long day of presentations. Jason Calacanis, the host of the event, was impressed with the industrial design that I had created and liked the product. Photo: (cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.snapfoc.us

One thing is for certain Jason, the judges, and staff members all deserve a a lot of credit for hosting such a well organized with a great selection of guest speakers, Grand Jury members, and new and emerging companies.

Overall the trip was an incredible experience on making things that start from an idea and develop into a working products that can be shown to the public. I hope to attend more events and hopefully LAUNCH 2012 with even more work from my lab in Pittsburgh: Computable.

Once back in Pittsburgh I continued working on the Kickstarter campaign for Slinkable the flexible USB docking cable. If your interested in this idea please visit my campaign or check out the website at Slinkable.com

quirky ideations | show

quirky ideations | show

Kids Compute

Kids Compute is an educational software package I developed for use on touch screen devices such as tablet PC's or surface tables such as the Microsoft Surface or CompuTable screen. The application was written in C# with Microsoft Expression Blend. This is a prototype application and animation was originally developed for the Microsoft Imagine Cup. The learning software teaches kids language, math, reading, and art on a user friendly natural user interface or NUI.

Inflatable Touch Screen

Inflatable Touch Screen System



What’s an Inflatable Touch Screen?



A portable and simple way to have a touch screen system. This inflatable touch screen allows you to quickly set up an interactive system. Because the tracking equipment and projector can be set up behind the screen you can interact with the front without disturbing the image. Set up takes ten minutes provide you have an L.E.D. touch pen and a wii-mote. I have not tested with ir laser projection yet.


-Materials-


-Inflatable home theater- Such as Sima 72" Inflatable home theater (msrp $80.00)
-Webcam modified or Wii-Mote
-ir light Pen with switch
-Computer

Total Cost: $75-100


Software:

MT-Mini (using modified webcam)
Johnny Lee's Wii-Mote Whiteboard (using a wii-mote)


How to set up the projector and wii-mote/ webcam

Set the projector and wii-mote behind the inflatable screen. Point the projector and wii-mote or webcam at the screen from about five feet away. The infrared light is visible to the camera in the wii-mote or modified web cam.


ir light pen.

The simplest form of a switched ir light pen is a AAA battery, wire, and an ir. led.
1. Bend the wire into an L .
2 the bottom of the L goes on the negative battery terminal
2. + on led to + on battery
3. push L wire down on the (-) led terminal
4. tape and pray

The one in the video is more complicated and rechargeable.

XBOX 360 Surface Edition Concept

This Student Rally Project gives a glimpse into what a future version of XBOX may be like. Similar to Project Natal, the XBOX 360 Surface Edition uses a web camera and LED light pen to track movement. Users have the ability play sitting down, standing, or even on the screen like a multi-thousand dollar electronic whiteboard. Surface platform contains a variety of apps and games that respond to multi-touch gestures and objects. Using object recognition allows unique id tags called fiducial markers to be placed on things like game pieces and instruments. Photos can be flicked, scaled, and sorted like a stack of Polaroids. Surface applications are build using XNA Surface SDK.

wm_touch to TUIO interface

This is a demonstration of the capabilities Dell XT Tablet with Windows 7 the next generation of Windows with multi-touch capabilities enabled. The touch events were captured and converted to TUIO messages for Flash and C# applications. Although these features are currently limited to SDK supplied by NTrig we were able to still leverage these features using wm_touch to TUIO interface. This platform can be used to easily develop programs that will use Multi-Touch features in the future Windows. Applications include AudioTouch, SimpleDesktop, WM2TUIO, CompuTable User Interface