Live Radio –Phew!

OK, so I have been developing the work around the live radio over the last month. When I say last “month”, you assume that I am now done with three radio projects instead of one, but unfortunately, that’s not quite the case. My main interest in this project is to create a complete system composed of sound transmitters and receivers that are mobile and work efficiently together.

I have been following the checklist I set for myself on the last post, which starts by shrinking the circuit. Before I start, I should tell you that I did a lot of miles in this project. Distance miles. Went to the airport twice to pick up my DHL shipments, where in theory I paid for a door to door delivery, then ended up skateboarding between airport terminals. :)

Back to shrinking the circuit, I ordered AtTiney84 from Farnell (and picked it up from UPS office in Hospitalet!). The pieces are really tiny as you see on the left of the right picture, but they don’t support all arduino functions, which is what I discovered after getting them. Of course! So my other alternative was to use the Atmega328P, which is the same chip of the arduino.

uploading sketch to standalone chip

Board and shield I don’t have enough expertise in any of these details, but the web is a blessing. Check MIT references here and and arduio pages. So, I burnt the bootloader for the new chips using 2 arduinos, then wired the chip on a breadboard and uploaded sketches using arduino as ISP. Those are very interesting and cheap methods (since we don’t use and external programmer) for programming the chips. Then I tested the transmission pieces with the receiver pieces and they work together perfectly. For a newbie, that was a lot of learning and loots of troubleshooting! But awesome, now I can save size and money (the chip is 2.5 EUR while an arduino is 25 EUR! –big difference) and run the piece independently using 2 (3V) batteries. So that operation is done and tested, I needed to complete soldering the standalone board with the FM shield, and pack this is a nice 3D printed casing.

Quick render of the case


The printing thing took me over a couple of days of troubleshoot, and logistic problems, and other random stuff, so for the final presentation, realistically, I don’t think I will be able to finish those pieces (still need to solder the boards as well!), but I made a quick up mock up using polypropene, to give an idea of how this should look like notice the parabola at the microphone outlet, I would like to test this idea in the future using different geometries and materials.

Unfinished 3d prints

So for the demo, I guess, I will build a unit for the receiver, and keep the transmission units arduino dependent, just to illustrate the idea. I would have loved to finish everything . . . but time is fast. :)

Reception unit

Posted in Int Programming, Moushira Elamrawy | Comments closed

Beat Glove Proto_2- Wifly Osc

P1015305 from rafael vargas on Vimeo.

P1015315 from rafael vargas on Vimeo.

Glove osc Update from rafael vargas on Vimeo.

The drum gloves comes from the idea of converting movements and sounds from physical and electronic instruments into a portable ‘surface free’ sound producer. Instead of hitting a specific surface with your fingers that outcomes in some type of sound, the  drum gloves will provide you with surfaces will be on your fingers. The concept is that when you wear the gloves, you can hit any surface and produce midi signals that can be sent to your mobile phone, tablet or computer and use any virtual instrument. Assign some instruments and start playing.

Changes made for the final

Smaller components were needed. Also to get rid of the cable that goes to the computer. Arduino Fio solves those problems. It’s small and you can connect a 3v lithium battery to it. The wi-fly adds the capability of communication via Osc Protocols with any device that can handle it: Computers, tablets, mobiles. . .

Now, this time the prototype needed a smaller circuit board because the glove is smaller. A custom circuit board was milled @ the fablab for that.

The code got a lot more complicated than with the waveshield. Osc packets had to be send via wifi using the ip addres of the device that was going to be targeted. To test messages were sent to max msp. These messages  had to be activated  by the pressure in the finger sensors.

Posted in Int Programming, Rafael Vargas | Comments closed

2012 12 21

Well, the world didn’t end just because someone has good connections up there.

In fact the last Friday before holidays we were testing sound recording possibilities in sound design studio together with Carlos Gomez. Carlos brought umbrella and couple of microphones. Microphones placed on the rod and pointed to umbrella’s inner hood made it work as reflecting instrument. It helped to direct and control sound dispersion and record it. This experiment revealed main principles of sound reflection and possibilities of creating simple sound managing  tools.
And finally using this weird apparatus we had good time watching frightened faces of passers by. Happy holidays!

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Intelligence, disabilities and health.

Applications, benefits and relations between: 1/Intelligence,
2/Disabilities and 3/Health.

Smart citizen platform/system could convert in a way of
relevant information. It could improve the quality of life as
well as the citizen security.

1/Smart citizen platform could be assistant tool for police and
intelligence services.
It could convert in a special data capture
for solving criminal acts and robberies. In this sense, smart
citizen platform could become in an accurate tool. It could
inform about temperature changes, moisture changes or light
changes.

2/Smart citizen platform could be assistant tool for people with
disabilities.
A symbolic examples could be: A person with a
visual disabilities could Know the weather in your neighborhood
using the smart citizen platform.
Somebody with an olfactory handicap could not detect some
strange smell as well as a strange situation. The fire smell could
be detected by the smart citizen sensors. In this way, it would
be a skillful informative tool for people with disabilities.

3/Smart citizen platform could be assistant tool for nurses and
doctors.
They could know the moisture, temperature and other
city-life concepts. Then nurses and doctors could advise about
life habits, life behaviour or adequate travels.

Posted in Nazaret Cano, Smart Net | Comments closed

Smart-Citizen-Research-What is Smart in Smart City

Smart City is a term that has sprang up  in the last few decades. This blog deals with the question and the idea of being smart and  What makes a city smart? is it it’s inhabitant or it’s technological advanced services, and how do these services contribute to our overall urban life.

Before reading futher watch these video or this video

The most surprising thing among many  in this video was that “31 billion questions are asked to google every month. In 2006 it was only 2.7 billion” . This clearly tells us to what extent and at what speed the internet is become a mecca of data. The desire to gather quick and meaningful answer to our questions has become the new success and a  major culmination point in our daily life.

This is were the idea or the concept of being smart means.  Many cities, companies or communities are coming up with ever more smart  and intelligent ways to provide answers to the people (over the internet) at a quick and easy to understand manner. so that the person viewing the information can come to a conclusion. Since these conclusions shape up our daily  life, hence it is ok to  related it with the  concept of smart city.There are six catogorise.

There is a ranking system of cities that provides it’s citizen such smart service (link). In this link you can check out which city is where in ranking, and the services that it provides to its inhabitant. These service  basically revolve around six categories.

link

Many companies like IBM, Cisco and etc are using this arrangements. IBM is a good example to quote. It provides many interesting smart solution to people ranging from banking to risk management. Here is the link to it site.

Here are couples of example on video

IBM SMART ANALYTICS

IBM SMARTER CLOUD

SANGDO CISCO CONNECTED CITY

So now we return to our question “What is Smart in a Smart City” . There is a nicely written article  on this topic (link)  and the urban revolution that it would bring with it (link).

There is also a not so smart side to this smart city(link).

Conclusion & Proposal:

  • Since there are going to be alot and alot of date. It is very impotent to translate these data into a productive action of our life.
  • People could make their own tools that gathers information.
Posted in Furqan Habib, Smart Net | Comments closed