First preview of the Software

The children will need to create their own image to a headline they get. A visual column. In order to do that they can drag/rotate/resize images. I have the dragging and snapping part done. Here are some results: Download ZIP.

Promo

Iets Nieuws from Maarten Raaijmakers on Vimeo.

Building The Case

Finally we have our concept finished and we started building the case. Our first attempt failed, our second worked. Here are some photos of it:






We will post the results soon. I still have to upload the photos from my phone.

First Fiducial Tests

My first test at school. The original script comes from Heinze Havinga (leftfoodmedia.nl) and is slightly modified because it didn't work for me. Orientation and positioning of the number boxes, for example, is an added feature.

Once I arrived home, I took this old glass plate from the shed, cleaned it up as much as it could be cleaned up (stuff from the garden was growing on it), and made a simple glass table out of it using two boxes.



There's a simple desk lamp (from IKEA, incase you would want to purchase this excellent and stylish monolith of a decoration) under there that lights everything up from the floor, and a webcam pointing straight up. Be sure to draw the field of view on the plate, saves you a lot of confusion. I put a mirror under there to reflect the light from the desk lamp up to the glass plate so it's fully brightened, but not over lighted. You can also put the desklamp up to shine the light -just- under the plate. Both ways worked pretty well for me, but went for the mirror reflection way (unless you'd love a constant light source burning your face).

So, eventually with a little help from the Heinze Havinga script I let the vvvv patch communicate with an AS3 script. It can trigger songs, play and stop them, pause and unpause them, pan and control the volume, all by using the fiducial markers.



- Robin (Cor / The Geek :/ )

Reach of Children: TU Delft

In order to get the best way of interaction, the dimensions of the device should be adapted to children as well. As our target group is 8 to 12 years old, we need to adapt to that. Therefor we found a great article online about human limits in reach, etc. This is based on Dutch children, but it's worthwhile to take a look at. Here is the link to DINED.

3D Models with Google Sketchup

For this project to succeed we need to start thinking about dimensions. Therefor I made initial 3D drafts using Google Sketchup. This, however, still needs a green light from our teacher. We're hoping we can start creating the MT as soon as possible!

First Concept: Touch&Blocks

Each MultiTouch device needs its own concept. After doing research and analysing everything we brainstormed a lot. We had many, many ideas which we had to reshape constantly. It was important to hit the core of graphic design, and it took a while!

Finally, in the last days we decided on a concept to use and reshape until it is just perfect. The basic concept is to have a newsfeed as theme. Each newsfeed has a message, to that message the children will have to create an image that fits: designing the message. Good examples can be found here.

The children will get their own easel (MT) and a box with blocks. The blocks are the items in their toolbox: Colouring, Text, Eraser, etc. They will have to put the blocks in a whole to active that tool. If they pick - for instance - the paint bucket, numerous paint splatters will float over the window, which they can drag and really leave a paint trail. I tried to explain it with an image, which you see below.