Possible content for projection

personally my favorite is this RRS link which could be used in some way in the video, and be updated if there is any news about the club automatically. We'd just need to find a way to make it automatically update

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/danceacademy/rss.html?chid=176345

We could also include some related stories such as the following...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/5258904.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasty_nightclub_raid

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article706346.ece

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6509455.stm

ARDUINO

ARDUINO!

So finally after so much talk about them we are finally going to be playing about with Arduino Boards

"Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software on running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).

The boards can be built by hand or purchased preassembled; the software can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) are available under an open-source license, you are free to adapt them to your needs.

Arduino received an Honorary Mention in the Digital Communities section of the 2006 Ars Electronica Prix. The Arduino team is: Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, and David Mellis." - Arduino

We had a look at this tutorial:

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/PhysicalPixel

After our first look at Arduino I feel this technology would help our project greatly, we had a lot of ideas for our visual aspects but not how to make transitions, with Arduino we can use the traffic lights changing as the cue for the change. We are thinking of doing this by using an Arduino board with a light sensor to do this, every time the lights change red the animation begins.

Another way that was suggested was to use a wireless mouse and instead of a click action on the left mouse button we will use a light sensor. Every time the light turns red the mouse “clicks” a play button that starts the animation. Whilst this is good in theory as the use of a wireless mouse would mean we’d need the sensor near to the computer that gets clicked which probably isn’t viable. One way to get around this would be to use a wired mouse with extensions, the problem with this is that they could get disconnected or cut by passers or be effected by the weather by which would end the project.

Just a cool projection

The following video shows an interactive installation that creates a cool real time interactive projection on a huge scale, the maker of this project said that they aimed to "create an installation that would go beyond merely projection on buildings and allow viewers to become performers, by taking their body movements and amplifying them 5 stories tall." The idea of tracking peoples movement and projecting them is something that is very interesting, I don't think it would really work in Stonehouse as the main traffic through the area is cars not people but in a pedestrianised area such as Cornwall Street or the University this could work very well. A good place this could be projected is either the Council building in the town centre or one of the university buildings.

night lights from thesystemis on Vimeo.

GPS Drawings

After doing our project I've been looking into other GPS drawings people have done, the first I found was known as "the Biggest Drawing in the World' It was however fabricated but the idea was solid.
Below is a brief description of the project.

The finished "GPS" Drawing
Other smaller projects of a similar style have however been ligitimitly completed.
Below are a few examples from GPSDrawing.com





Location: Edmunds Park, Didcot, Oxfordshire
Dates: 10/5/02
Track Length: 3.17 km
Average Speed: 4.8 km/h
Method: Shanks's Pony
Credits: Hugh Pryor






GPS Drawing over Europe made with five consecutive Ryanair flights
5414 miles in 68 hours for £74 from London Stansted airport to London Stansted airport.


With this inspiration I have decided to use Google Latitude to create my own GPS Drawings of my trip home from Plymouth to Southampton, then to Wolverhampton then back to Plymouth.
I may try to make a picture along the way but I just want to test out the technology.

Jon's WiFi Cloud

Jon has made an awesome mushroom style cloud of union streets wifi signals. Below is his description of what's going down with this colourful creation...

Using the hertzian space visualisation I created of Union Street, using a WiFi enabled phone, as a basis and guide, I have created this image mixing the thermal imaging technique to represent the WiFi hotspots. The areas of red are where the signals are strong, and the white bright areas are where the signals are most concentrated. The reverse is also true with the blues and greens being the weaker edges of the signals.

Sir Jonathan Moore - 2010