its me, hirumi

The Harry Potter Pumpkin

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:23:28 +0000

This was an assignment in my physical computation class. We were to create some sort of enclosure for a Halloween jack o lantern.

The Harry Potter Pumpkin is a social pumpkin that interacts with you based on proximity. From far away, he is sad and sits quietly with red eyes. If you move a little closer, his eyes change to green and he turns on the light from his magic wand. When you are REALLY close, his eyes change to blue, his wand lights up completely, and he hums the Harry Potter theme.

Final Pumpkin

Parts used:
LEDs
RGB LEDs
8 Ohm mini speaker
mini photocell

Whats happening:
The photocell values dictate what the other components do. The largest value keeps the RGB LEDs (the eyes) red. The medium range changes the RGBs to green and lights the tip of the wand. The lowest range changes the RGBs to blue, lights up the entire wand, and plays the Harry Potter theme from the speaker. I looked up the sheet music for HP to compose the tune.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE3QXuyaN90]
Testing out the circuit

I had to tweak my original concept, which was having the pumpkin shoot different spells the closer you approached it. The Twig sound recorder was sodifficult to work with. I was able to record spells, but controlling it through the arduino was tough. The sounds kept looping instead of playing one at a time, so I decided to change my concept a bit.

If I could redo this project, I would use the sound shield, which seems to be easier to control with the arduino, so that the pumpkin will actually shoot spells.

CODE:

#include “pitches.h”

int analogPin = 4; //Set value for analog pin input from photocell into arduino

int red = 3; // If serial reads val <= 700, red will go HIGH

int green = 4; // If serial reads val >= 701 or val <= 825, green will go HIGH

int blue = 5; // If serial reads val >= 826, blue will go HIGH

int wand1 = 9;

int wand2 = 10;

int wand3 = 11;

int wand4 = 12;

int wand5 = 13;

int val = 0; // Store value of pin input (i.e. photocell) for serial to read

int melody[] = {

NOTE_B3, NOTE_E4, NOTE_G4, NOTE_FS4, NOTE_E4, NOTE_B4, NOTE_A4, NOTE_FS4};

// note durations: 4 = quarter note, 8 = eighth note, etc.:

int noteDurations[] = {

4, 3, 8, 4, 2, 4, 1.5, 1.5 };

void setup(){

Serial.begin(9600);

pinMode(red, OUTPUT);

pinMode(green, OUTPUT);

pinMode(blue, OUTPUT);

pinMode(wand1, OUTPUT);

pinMode(wand2, OUTPUT);

pinMode(wand3, OUTPUT);

pinMode(wand4, OUTPUT);

pinMode(wand5, OUTPUT);

}

void loop(){

val = analogRead(analogPin); // Read the value (amount of light) from photocell

Serial.println(val); // Print out the value to the serial port

if(val <= 749){

digitalWrite(blue, HIGH);

digitalWrite(wand1, LOW);

digitalWrite(wand4, HIGH);

delay(250);

digitalWrite(wand3, HIGH);

delay(250);

digitalWrite(wand2, HIGH);

delay(250);

digitalWrite(wand1, HIGH);

lumos();

delay(2000);

}else{

digitalWrite(blue, LOW);

digitalWrite(wand1, LOW);

digitalWrite(wand2, LOW);

digitalWrite(wand3, LOW);

digitalWrite(wand4, LOW);

}

if(val >= 750 || val <= 799){

digitalWrite(green, HIGH);

digitalWrite(wand1, HIGH);

}else{

digitalWrite(green, LOW);

}

if(val >= 800){

digitalWrite(red, HIGH);

digitalWrite(wand1, LOW);

}else{

digitalWrite(red, LOW);

}

void lumos (){

for (int thisNote = 0; thisNote < 8; thisNote++) {

// to calculate the note duration, take one second

// divided by the note type.

//e.g. quarter note = 1000 / 4, eighth note = 1000/8, etc.

int noteDuration = 1000/noteDurations[thisNote];

tone(8, melody[thisNote],noteDuration);

// to distinguish the notes, set a minimum time between them.

// the note’s duration + 30% seems to work well:

int pauseBetweenNotes = noteDuration * 1.30;

delay(pauseBetweenNotes);

// stop the tone playing:

noTone(8);

}

PITCHES (to include in new tab)

#define NOTE_B0 31

#define NOTE_C1 33

#define NOTE_CS1 35

#define NOTE_D1 37

#define NOTE_DS1 39

#define NOTE_E1 41

#define NOTE_F1 44

#define NOTE_FS1 46

#define NOTE_G1 49

#define NOTE_GS1 52

#define NOTE_A1 55

#define NOTE_AS1 58

#define NOTE_B1 62

#define NOTE_C2 65

#define NOTE_CS2 69

#define NOTE_D2 73

#define NOTE_DS2 78

#define NOTE_E2 82

#define NOTE_F2 87

#define NOTE_FS2 93

#define NOTE_G2 98

#define NOTE_GS2 104

#define NOTE_A2 110

#define NOTE_AS2 117

#define NOTE_B2 123

#define NOTE_C3 131

#define NOTE_CS3 139

#define NOTE_D3 147

#define NOTE_DS3 156

#define NOTE_E3 165

#define NOTE_F3 175

#define NOTE_FS3 185

#define NOTE_G3 196

#define NOTE_GS3 208

#define NOTE_A3 220

#define NOTE_AS3 233

#define NOTE_B3 247

#define NOTE_C4 262

#define NOTE_CS4 277

#define NOTE_D4 294

#define NOTE_DS4 311

#define NOTE_E4 330

#define NOTE_F4 349

#define NOTE_FS4 370

#define NOTE_G4 392

#define NOTE_GS4 415

#define NOTE_A4 440

#define NOTE_AS4 466

#define NOTE_B4 494

#define NOTE_C5 523

#define NOTE_CS5 554

#define NOTE_D5 587

#define NOTE_DS5 622

#define NOTE_E5 659

#define NOTE_F5 698

#define NOTE_FS5 740

#define NOTE_G5 784

#define NOTE_GS5 831

#define NOTE_A5 880

#define NOTE_AS5 932

#define NOTE_B5 988

#define NOTE_C6 1047

#define NOTE_CS6 1109

#define NOTE_D6 1175

#define NOTE_DS6 1245

#define NOTE_E6 1319

#define NOTE_F6 1397

#define NOTE_FS6 1480

#define NOTE_G6 1568

#define NOTE_GS6 1661

#define NOTE_A6 1760

#define NOTE_AS6 1865

#define NOTE_B6 1976

#define NOTE_C7 2093

#define NOTE_CS7 2217

#define NOTE_D7 2349

#define NOTE_DS7 2489

#define NOTE_E7 2637

#define NOTE_F7 2794

#define NOTE_FS7 2960

#define NOTE_G7 3136

#define NOTE_GS7 3322

#define NOTE_A7 3520

#define NOTE_AS7 3729

#define NOTE_B7 3951

#define NOTE_C8 4186

#define NOTE_CS8 4435

#define NOTE_D8 4699

#define NOTE_DS8 4978

#OccupyWallStreet Reaction

admin — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:56:13 +0000

When this movement began, I have to admit I didn’t know much about it. From the outside looking in, I went along with how the general public and viewed portrayed the movement: a disorganized group of young people without a cause.

As soon as I stepped into the square, I felt completely absorbed into a new community that was self-sufficient and encompassed an entirely different mentality than the usual hustle and bustle I normally feel throughout NYC.

: OccupyWallStreet Site

The energy and vibe of the square promoted one of inclusion, excitement, and sincerity. It’s probably the best definition and example of an open source community. There’s an info center for those that are curious about the happenings of the day, an arts and crafts section to visualize and vocalize your beliefs. Holy crap, there is even a media center and library!

: Media Center

: Suggestion Box

: Sites of OccupyTogether

: Signs

There’s two things I noticed immediately:

1. Information and staff was more kind and more readily accessible than at the place of higher education that I pay thousands of dollars to, semesterly
2 The food available is more plentiful and nutritious than my fridge at home.

This doesn’t seem so disorganized to me.

I was trying to figure out why these feelings of inclusiveness and general solidarity felt so nostalgic… until it finally hit me. This felt like Obama’s inauguration. I had acquired tickets to the event and drove to DC with friends to experience the monumental event and that feelingwas the same. I had never seen such a vastly diverse quantity of people in one place for the same cause. The gentlest bump elicited an “excuse me,” smiles were plentiful, and people were so willing to help each other. The environment felt comfortable and familiar as we united behind the campaign of “Yes we can.”

: Obama’s Inauguration

Obama symbolized hope and change and we rallied behind him in order to make these things happen. He didn’t get himself elected, it was a large group of passionate, inspired people that did. Unfortunately, since Obama took office, we transitioned from “yes we can” to “yes you [obama] can.” We relied on him to fix everything, and to fix everything quickly.

..which brings us to now. A different type of movement with the same ideals, making certain that our voices are heard so that SOMETHING changes. I can only hope that a president who was so supported and moved by a passionate group of people that believed in him will return the favor.

As I watch my student loans accumulate, and my friends with masters degrees submit to low paying jobs and internships for lack of better opportunity, I can’t help but to wonder if my pursuit of happiness will end in the guest bedroom of my parents’ house.

Fractivism

admin — Mon, 16 May 2011 22:45:44 +0000

4.13.11
After watching a screening of Gasland at school, I was inspired to change gears for my final project in Major Studio to do something to combat hydraulic fracturing in New York’s watershed.

Hydraulic fracturing is a volatile and a pretty much unregulated way of extracting natural gas. The trailer for Gasland above, and this image explains it pretty well.

4.17
After my initial presentation to the class, Melanie resonated really strongly with using maps to tell a story. I still believe that face to face interaction is the best way to drive the point home, so here is the next iteration of my process:

Fractivism

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I garnered a lot of interest from classmates that wanted to get involved. Kenny wanted to partner up, and Heather & Graeme from Victoria’s nanotech class also were super interested. From there we decided to split up. Graeme & Heather would be working primarily on the public intervention part, Kenny would spearhead figuring out the google map and I would be split in both parts. We also got started in the social media realm by creating a facebook group and twitter account. We followed both hydraulic fracturing supporters and those against it.

4.22
I attended the Sustainability Awards to get a better feel for what the environmental activist community was doing to fight this legislation. It was a little extreme, which made me realize that I would need a different tactic to pull in the rest of the population that would be interested if they knew more about the issue. Kenny, Heather & I headed to a rally held by NYU students against fracking. We held interviews and filmed the scene. Heather had our logo and social media information printed on business cards and we handed them out to interested parties.

Kenny & I presented the following presentation to our guest crit:

Frackpresentation3

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It didn’t go over as well as we had liked. Part of it was that we were a bit flustered throughout our presentation. We had focused so much on the time we’d spent on the rally and our social media efforts, and not so much on the map we were working on. Our major critique was that it was too much activism and not enough design + technology. At this point, we realized we were trying to do too much, and we should drop the public intervention part of our project and really start iterating our map.

4.27
We had initially wanted people to contribute stories and we would curate and edit what we could find, but after our crit, we were inspired to look more at pulling in feeds from social media. When reflecting on our own experiences with this project, we realized that we had relied a lot upon twitter and google alerts in finding the latest trends and information about current events.

Here are some layouts I worked on for our map:

Fractivismwireframes

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5.6.11
Even with honing in on just the website, we realized the website was doing too much. There are plenty of websites that already explain what fracking is and what can be done to help. So we chose to excise that from our site and really push using alerts and twitter. Here is our final product:

Our final crits were a success! Our guest crits liked what we were trying to achieve with our project. One crit that we were really intrigued by was transforming what we’re doing into a social activists kit– an easy way for a person or an organization to start a movement. Interesting idea, and I really would like to continue it further.

Final Presentation:

Frackfinal

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And our research paper.

Social Media Fellowship with NYC Mayor’s Office

admin — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:35:21 +0000

From the NYC.gov site: The Mayor’s Office of Adult Education welcomes the 2011 cohort of the Social Media in Education Fellows. Eight NYC graduate students will develop social media projects to foster digital communication of information, ideas and other content relevant to the City’s adult education system. The Fellows will collaborate with College & Community Fellowship, the Mayor’s Office of Adult Education and the New York City Council, the New York Public Library, and the We Are New York Community Project.

I was partnered with Elle Yuan from the Teacher’s College at Columbia University. We had approximately 6 weeks to speak with our organizations, conduct interviews, design a solution, iterate it, and produce a final deliverable.

Elle & I with Kunchok Dolma, one of our WANY mentors.

Our organization was the We Are New York Community Project. WANY is an Emmy award-winning television series that helps adult learners speak English. We decided to design for the volunteers that make WANY so successful. The currently lacked an organized, central network to communicate with each other and with WANY employees aside from phone or email. We designed an online social hub that features a live chat, forums, news feed, events calendar, classroom map, volunteer openings, blog, and links to Youtube, Facebook, & Twitter that facilitate ideas/resources/experience sharing among volunteers. This website provides volunteers with as many options as possible in terms of communication through social media platforms.

Walk through of site

WANY was pleased with the beginning stages of the site structure. The success of this project is based up on the positive feedback received from test users and their excitement towards creating similar systems for WANY participants.

Going forward, the site needs to be developed to incorporate not only volunteers, but participants and general users. We had also suggested creating an interactive lesson plan system designed as a game. Students would be able to interact with each other over the web, compete in cooperative collaboration exercises, get real-time results on their homework assignments, and provide a mobile and dynamic home for their learning curriculum. Another area of suggested research and development is incorporating international version of social networking to better transition international learners into their current living environments in New York.

Download our policy memo here.

Though brief, this experience provided great insight into working for a governmental entity. Paul Kim and Marlee Ickowicz did a phenomenal job putting together this program. In addition to working with our organizations, we had many wonderful guest speakers (Clay Shirky, Cindy Gallup, and Emily May to name a few) come and speak to us about social media.

——————————————————————————————————————————————-

If you are curious about a breakdown of our process, check out or week by week breakdown here:

Week 1:

IDEAS
1. Turning study guides into interactive learning games (stands out to Pauline. Gaming around conversation groups)

instant grading
guess & check
monitor progress
cooperative competition/collaboration with other students

2. Implementing QR codes as a method of marketing/outreach
3. Visualizing group chats/communication domestically & abroad (
4. Utilizing international social media platform like QQ in connecting the immigrants communities
5. Incorporating mobile phone texts into the exiting social media platform the WANY uses, since a lot of ESL learners might not be familiar with social media tools like Facebook and Twitter; but almost every one has a mobile phone.
6. Mapping tool (nyccares)- volunteers and participants

CURRENT TASKS
1. Revamping youtube channel
2. Design layout for new website that promotes information + interaction
3. Maximize efficiency in sharing information between teachers/students
4. Develop mapping tools to visualize resources available for volunteers

ex: resource centers, volunteers, study buddies, etc…

Week 2:

Elle & Hirumi meeting notes:

items to focus on:
- 1. mapping visualization
- 2. explore text based services
- 3. extending marketing to international social networks
disseminate survey to students/volunteers
- survey located at surveymonkey.com
- login: WANYspring
- pw: elleandhirumi
- email: hirumianajones@gmail.com

Group Texting:
http://groupme.com/help
Group Size: 25 Maximum
Possible model: Large groups → subgroups → Individuals

About QQ:

Wikipedia -Tecent QQ
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tencent_QQ

QQ could be used as our pilot program in reaching out to people who are still using their home countries’ social networking sites.

(Besides creating groups on QQ and other marketing efforts that could be made, maybe we could reach out to the company directly to see whether there’s any special channel could be created…)

CONFERENCE CALL MEETING NOTES
1. Turning study guides into interactive learning games (stands out to Pauline. Gaming around conversation groups)

instant grading
guess & check
monitor progress
cooperative competition/collaboration with other students

putting up classes (how full classes are)
choose sites
find subways/directions for class sites (googlemaps API for public transport)
signing up to be a volunteers

Prototype of website: include interaction tools (game, mapping tool).
Send out updated survey of website catered to volunteers/teachers.
Expanding mapping tool to volunteers/site sponsors eventually.

International Social Networking Sites:

Cyworld: A South Korean social networking site similar to MySpace
Renren: Chinese’ Facebook
QQ: Chinese social networking portal
Orkut: Originally created by Google to compete with MySpace and Facebook, it has mainly caught hold in Brazil.

How to set up a short code: http://www.ehow.com/how_4836576_short-code-sms-text-number.html
1. Register and obtain your short code with the Common Short Code Administration (CSCA). This organization handles the registration on your short code number and makes sure your code works for all cell phone carriers that are associated with CSCA.

2. Your short code can be randomly assigned or you can choose your own, as long as it is available. Once your short code is set up you will be able to set up mobile marketing and your SMS platform.

3. Establishing your own short code is a great way to market your business. Try to find a code that spells out part of your business name so it’s easier to remember. The fees for your short code are paid monthly.

Beluga.com (with location identification function)
Disco.com
Frontlinesms

For next week:
Social media components:
how it will fundamentally affect the population

Week 4

4Square Specialist – Elle
Wordpress Magician – Hirumi

Emailed all current volunteers.
Need to email past volunteers and newsletter recipients

Focusing on creating a page for WANY volunteers

include forum
availability
customize 4square badges for checkins
collaborative cooperation/competition between class sites
visualize checkins on page
4square based games/challenges
mayor of WANY badges

Ultimately extend this platform to students of WANY.

Upload photos from mobile device to website (class-based activities)

Week 5

Custom badges not quite available on 4square API, bigdoor gamification toolbar added in the meantime. Volunteers can login via facebook and earn points/badges for interacting with website.

Bugs in forum, need to explore more.

Perhaps integrating a flickr area for teachers to submit pictures directly to website.

4.12
Forum fixed! Any guest can search and post ideas.
Photo albums from FB page can be imported; however backend maintenance is necessary
Group text feature added; site manager must moderate dissemination of texts

4.15
Take out extra forums
How to get sign up to get involved

4.21

Brief notes for ourselves
A video capture of the live chat in action
some data visualization of our survey responses
Some mock-ups for next steps

To do for Elle:
User feedback (forward that after H sent that to me)
Ask the team for specific locations of classes for the mapping tool

Memos: deep dive, more details; a tool to give to the customer (WANY); operational questions; what are the requirements; not just philosophical stuff
anything should be in place
instructional menu

Windfall Farms

admin — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:37:15 +0000

Site analysis of a NY based farmer.

Sneak preview of our project:

Final Writeup & Deliverable:

Our group decided to interview Farmer Morse of Windfall Farms in the Union Square Farmers Market. Initially it was the giant green bus and the abundance of green vegetables that drew us in, but the more we spoke to Morse and his staff, the more we found them to be an incredibly kind and enjoyable bunch.

We as a group had a great time learning about Morse and his farming process and decided to harness that energy into this project. We decided to go beyond creating a video presentation and assembled an interactive video experience.

The farmers’ market is so dynamic; no two visits are the same and no two people have the same experience. These unique site visits are what we attempted to recreate in our Windfall Farms Treasure Hunt. We wanted to give our AUB counterparts agency in uncovering facts about the site and also about Farmer Morse. We analyzed the site from a multitude of perspectives in order to integrate visual cues, textual analysis, video interviews, infrastructure, and public access. The treasure hunt allowed us to consolidate all of our various diagrams and pieces of media into one platform and hopefully achieved an enjoyable educational experience.

Click here to access the map.

Food Diary

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:23:54 +0000

This assignment is from my CityAsLab class:

You are what you eat
To get the semester started we’d like for you to introduce yourself. But this being a studio on housing and food, we’d like you refrain from reciting your CV and instead show us what goes inside your mouth. This first exercise is a visualization of the relationship you have with food in Lebanon. We need to see our food in our environment in order to react with an appropriate design. This not only provides a great perspective for yourself, your classmates, but our colleagues in New York City, as they will as well introduce themselves to us in terms of the food they eat.

Requirements:
Document your eating and buying habits for a period no less than 5 days. Utilizing a number of different medias and documenting tools how can you present to us a visualization of your food consumption patterns in relationship to home and school. Where do you buy it, where do you prepare it, where do you eat it, where do you throw out the waste?

——————————————————————————————-
I’ve always found food to be the highlight of my day. I think my love for food comes from my family. My mother is an amazing cook and can throw down everything from delicious Sri Lankan food to Thai noodles to good ol’ New Mexican cuisine (and yes, New Mexican is different from Mexican or TexMex). Our family gatherings revolve around food and then more food, and then eating even more food. My frequent visits to Las Vegas during my college days revolved not around the black jack tables, but which buffets we’d be dining at. There’s something incredibly special about making your own meal and also enjoying a good meal with other people. I love food and I envision the perfect job to be Anthony Bourdain’s. My friends have nicknamed me “The Beast” because of the amount of food I would put down in any given situation. In actuality, I’m not sure if that’s because I like eating food a lot or if my parents have engrained the “clean your plate there are starving children in Sri Lanka!” in my head. Regardless, I am embarrassed about sharing my true routine of food consumption with the world.

Since I went back to school, I’ve found that I’m working on projects around the clock, few hours are dedicated to sleep, and I frequently use this schedule to justify poor food habits. But this semester, I’ve been trying to plan my grocery shopping better and cook my meals for the week on the weekend, however it’s only been semi successful; I usually drop off towards the end of the week. As you’ll notice my weekends and early week look pretty good (Sunday – Wednesday). But later, (Thursday – Saturday) is a little sketchy. Thursday and Friday are also the days where I’m loaded with classes, so I’m sure that attributes to my poor food choices or just not eating much at all.

Picture taking and sticky-noting were my main methods of documentation for this assignment. I had a sticky note on my igoogle page and I just listed everything as I went through the day, which was easy enough since my laptop has become my official sidekick. Sit. Stay. Good boy, laptop.

Most of the food I use to cook with comes from Trader Joes or Chinatown. Neither is really in a convenient location for me, but I can find fresh produce in Chinatown much cheaper than anywhere else as well as seafood…if you go to the right place. Trader Joes has as an abundance of self-proclaimed organic products and is also cheaper than other grocery stores. For both places, you need tough skin and strong arms because they are ALWAYS crowded and you need to move quickly and furiously to sidestep the meandering Chelsea shoppers or the impressively strong Asian grandmas. Although I must note that I do stop at Food Emporium if I need something on a whim.

Some things I noticed:

1. I either eat a lot (“lot” meaning super large servings as opposed to many meals) of food in one day, or very little food at all.
2. Days with coffee constitutes less food intake
3. I’m a serial snacker and a lot of food comes charging in during the late hours of the night.
4. I work while I eat. All. The. Time.
5. I find myself eating with other people usually if its over the weekend or I’ve brought my food to class; otherwise its eaten in front of my computer or vegging out to whatever rerun is on TBS.
6. I drink more water when I am on campus.
7. A good chunk of food is starchy. Boo.
8. No food + long day = angry Hirumi (This is a special note for my future roommates and collaborators for the summer.)

I initially struggled with how to analyze the data, so I compiled a detailed breakdown of my information into an excel spreadsheet.

Breakdown of every morsel consumed.

From there, I quantified my servings based on origin and put the results into a pie chart.

Food consumed broken down according to origin.

I was happy to find out that the largest portion of my consumption is food that I prepare at home, which comes from Trader Joes. I was able to recycle most of the packaging form that waste, but what really bothered me was the amount of compost I throw out with trash because we don’t have an organized composting system for residences in Manhattan. If I were able to compost, the amount of trash I would be sending to the landfill would be extremely small. Such a depressing realization.

Here’s a quick video summarizing my meals. I didn’t have pics of everything, so if you are looking a detailed breakdown of my diet, please see the excel screenshot above.

I honestly need to do something about my serving portions. If I suffer from any deadly sin, gluttony is surely the one. From that, I came up with a Flash game idea, but I ran out of time. It was entitled “Feed the Beast” and the object of the game was to feed the girl all the meals until she exploded. See sketch below. Perhaps another time, friends.

Hungry Hungry Hippocrites

admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 02:08:08 +0000

Goal: to critically consider how tangibility and physicality affect the functions of an interface.

The House of Representatives recently voted to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood. I was livid, to say the least. Before attending Parsons, I worked at an institution of higher education in San Francisco in student affairs. I cannot count the number of times I have counseled female students and advised them to go to Planned Parenthood (PP). It’s unfortunately categorized as an abortion provider and nothing else. Take a look at this tasteless ad that appeared in SoHo, NYC right around the voting period.

What many fail to realize, or fail to consider as important as abortions, are the many other services PP provides. Physical exams, cancer screening, STD testing, and contraceptive dissemination are all available at little to no cost to many women. By cutting funding, the people that are hurt the most are low income women, single-mother families, and young females.

I really wanted to make this issue somehow fit the goals of this assignment. The debate is always volatile and everyone fighting over it are usually people that don’t need it. Politicians have great healthcare. Most politicians arguing against funding are men, and probably have never even set foot into a PP clinic.

All of a sudden, this idea popped into my head. This political debate is like a game of hungry hungry hippos. It’s a volatile environment. Everyone is yelling and fighting to win. Watching these debates is like watching a Hungry Hungry hippos game because people honestly lose their shit.

First presentation:

Tangibility

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In the end, the people who really need PP aren’t the ones making the headline. And so I’m taking the platform of Hungry Hungry Hippos and turning into an educational game. People assume one of 4 roles and try and get their family through the game without anyone getting sick or dying. It’s sort of like a healthcare dependant Oregon Trail.

MSAADA: Final Presentation

admin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:29:16 +0000

Ushahidi is an open-source, crowd-mapping platform created in 2008 to visualize the violence that occurred after the election fall-out in Kenya. Since then, it has been customized in many situations to aid in disaster relief; specifically in 2010 to assist in crowd sourcing the crisis after a devastating earthquake hit Haiti. Approximately 60,000 text messages were received from Haitians requiring assistance without an existing system in place to validate, answer, or monitor those pleas.

After analyzing the various crises associated with technology in Haiti, we decided to focus on designing a solution that created a continuous feedback loop between victims and aid groups as well as developing a method that validated and tracked aid relief pleas and efforts.

Our concept, MSAADA (Mobile Service and Aid Deployment Agency), is a model that trains able-bodied members of the community to provide relief and assistance post-crisis via mobile technology.

Msaada: Final Presentation

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Google TV Commercial

admin — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 08:16:15 +0000

This Motion Graphics assignment required us to make a 10 second project that utilized motion tracking. The House MD title sequence inspired me the most. I’ve found it easiest to do animations that are themed as TV commercials. For this project, I decided to do a commercial for GoogleTV. Major thanks to VideoCoPilot for their amazing tutorials on motion tracking.

Music: Cake – Sheep Go to Heaven
Footage: Times Square, NYC

Crisis Cadence – Technology in Haiti

admin — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:19:02 +0000

After Chris Blow’s presentation and our collective research of Haiti websites, Ada & I decided that the crisis we wanted to focus on the lack of rapid response in mobile media applications. We felt that this was a crisis that has the most potential for a new design solution. Our solution may potentially be helpful in future crises.

Hot Flash

user input
information compilation
large volumes of people requiring aid

Slow Burn

filtering/categorizing information
delegating response teams
aid/relief to those not in immediate danger
providing emotional relief

Glacial

making application universal for all relief organizations
aid/relief to those not in immediate danger
long-term rehabilitation to city & citizens

Actors/Agents

application users
victims
organization using application
aid workers
government endorsers

Design Problem/Solution

MARE – Mobile Application and Responsibility Execution
adding an additional layer of categorization within applications currently in use
adding an additional layer of people to verify/categorize level of need in various situations
incorporating image texts
using google earth satellites for verification
incorporating hash tag filtration of messages (like twitter) to organize information

Prevention/Intervention

distribution of literature
pilot-testing application

Evaluative Methods

ratio of messages received to people receiving relief

Goal

provide immediate relief to those in dire need
provide structures/plans for those that can wait
have a singular database to compile and organize information to increase efficiency and provide information for data visualizations and analysis post-crisis

Trying to figure out a design solution for this problem is kind of a mind-melt. The expectation of our desired solution is easy to say, but extremely difficult to implement.

We inevitably want to introduce an intermediary layer between the Ushahidi platform and the dissemination of information to aid workers. We need a way to verify information that has been input as well as efficiently distributing aid to where it is needed.

Our initial thoughts were to disseminate a team of workers who’s sole responsibility is to verify the accuracy of reports submitted. I was NERT (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team) certified by SFPD while I was living in San Francisco. One NERT tactic that I think would be translatable to the Haiti crisis response is the use of color-coding victims. NERT volunteers would tie different colored ribbons to the victims in order to categorize based on medical emergency. (yellow

Figure 1: Ushahidi’s current platform for Haiti crisis map