Week 07 - Interfaces

22.03.19

Collaborative learning

I have learned a lot from other people during this week - especially Moritz who have teached me with almost infinite patience. I have found out that I'm very bad at following instructions and copy paste from the web. In that way I don't understand exactly the steps in the code and what it does - and there my margin errors are increasing. Therefore personal guidance is extremely important since a person immediatly can give an answer - or atleast try - to my shower of questions.

It's also the reason for me not having given any credit in the code since it's all 'written by me' (ind collaboration with far better coders!) Instead I have relied on my classmates who have helped me by contributing to ideas of how to solve certain issues or troubleshooting.

I still lack lots of knowlegde about the programming itself which is natural. However, when Loes tried to get us 'noobies' get going really quick by importing the data from our sensors I supect a disservice was made though the intention (and maybe patience?) was god/short. I still don't get it in a way that would make me able of doing it myself - and I suspect the other 'noobies' don't do neither.

Programming is a tough to get the hold on within a few weeks! But though one can't dive into everything, understanding is key to actually use programming in our future projects. Otherwise the ones who are not comfortable within it will just make the task of the week and then never look back at it in pure avoidance. Maybe differentiated tasks based on skills could be an opportunity?

AI or learning machines. These terms have divided the masses since the idea of a machine acting and 'thinking on its own' came into the mind of humans. Long before the technology was even close to making it possible. It has equally fascinated and repelled. In the extreme potency it both generates the idea of machines as controlled slaves who does the job man wouldn't - if man even have to do a job in a distant future. On the other hand a self-thinking machine could be a self-aware machine. Being self-aware makes you critical, and a critical mind or a critical computer might not be happy to do what man want it to do. And critical machines being able of reproducing themselves not being bound to the human race. That's the material nightmares are made of - at least if they adapt the emotional register of the human species

TEXT was asked by the editors to be seperately attached whereas it is as below

Life goal scale

This is how it turned out: my struggle, so to speak.
Obviously there could be more details into the animations and the background.

Originally my intention was to make the scale out of the truster exhaust så that it would vary in length as you turned the potentiomenter. That would require using the exhaust as a gif - a feature that I still have to get the hold on since I didn't got to use it here.

That feature should also have been attached to the flying rocket, which also could be made more vivid given and more 'life like' acceleration/changes in acceleration

Why didn't I just do that??
Because it takes a little effort to be fluent in coding.. and practice.. lots of practice.

Fritzing drawing of the curcuit

Uploading an image as one of our first tasks gave birth to the idea of combining a 'complex' background picture with a few simple actual processing movements still creating something that as a whole seems appealing and not too simplistic

Sources used in the making of the Life Goal Scale

1. http://lh6.ggpht.com/R82EUh6oyRM/UxKeq3XwovI/AAAAAAAAbIE/kzfUUqHReW8/s1600/IMG_20140301_162048.jpg
2. https://smhttp-ssl-41607.nexcesscdn.net/media/catalog/product/4/6/469940019_1.jpg
3. https://i.redd.it/dtsxav7itwp01.gif
4. https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/009/872/722/large/lucas-g-rodrigues-galaxia-v1-1600.jpg?1521338961
5. https://www.worldatlas.com/r/w728-h425-c728x425/upload/c3/55/d1/shutterstock-258841592.jpg
6. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Adansonia_grandidieri04.jpg
7. http://4everstatic.com/images/nature/cervin,-montagne-neige,-ciel-etoile-218046.jpg (mountain)
8.https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/news_items/main_images/774_edu_distance_to_the_moon.png

Sources:

1. https://www.delfi.lt/darbas/darbo-rinka/dirbtinis-intelektas-uzkariauja-darbo-rinka-ka-ateityje-veiks-gydytojai-teisininkai-programuotojai-ir-bankininkai.d?id=79472027

2. https://a-static.besthdwallpaper.com/chappie-film-tapet-2048x1536-11313_26.jpg

3. https://limotee.ch/android-kuenstlicher-mensch/

Having zero experience with coding, I chose a basic analog sensor, the potentiometer.

Though simple I have had a little trouble with the hardware. The PCB-boards seems rather unstable, and at several occasions they didn't want to connect to my computer or I wasn't capable of uploading. Restarting the computer often seemt to be the solution.

Just think of doing the same think with a broken down car: Restarting it and suddently the punctured tyre is fixed.
Tech is weird..

A look into the machinery // all my code

My code isn't very efficient. It consists of four different computations for each of the four movements instead of one computation with only four different 'stop coordinates'.

The key element to my design: a more or less brief hotchpotch made in Elements and Indesign aka the background picture

Though critised for it's overcomplication codewise, the logic which Morits teached me about resetting the three 'not used' start timers when the pointer was in the last fourth was to me kind of clever.

The timer isn't a real timer sinced it's not based on time ;) It's based on the framerate, and when activated by the 'if' statement, it simply adds 0.1 per frame til it reaches 1. In that way the lauch of the rocket will only initiate when the pointer is held within one area for som time

The little late part 2

My biggest consideration about the assumptions used were about the 'control panel'. The use of left as low and right as high is the preset of the potentiometer but also what is intuitive. Maybe because it has become a standard. So when you turn up the volume using that kind of 'knob' it's always right that is high. The same thing goes with the way of turning the key in the lock. The fun thing is that you do that opposite here in the Nederlands compared to Denmark - or at least at my dorm here in the Nederlands. After approximately three months time I still haven't gotten completely used to it. Anyway, that was a digression..

The other thing that struck my mind was the visualisation of the rocket thrust. Because it makes logical sense that the longer the thrust the higher power. BUT.. That makes it opposite of almost every other 'control panel' because then low is high thrust power. You can open any random game and the amount of xp, nitro, bullets etc. is always shown with scales were the highest point means the highest amount. Since this use is very simple I don't think it did a vital impact. But in a more complex structure interface with several different scales, I think it's important to make the scales work the same way because anything differently would confuse.

As well are the assumptions used that 'green' is little power and 'red' is much power. Or the assumption that when reaching something it's better to reach as far as possible concerning the question asked.

The conclusion must be that almost all thinks we do are based on some kind of (unspoken) standards that makes perception and therefore life easier for all of us - but also more difficult for some. And it's important to be aware of an question whenever they don't benefit us sufficient or creates bigotry.