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Visual programming for environmental research with UAVs
I’ve recently begun a new project with Karen Anderson who runs the UAV research group at the Exeter University Environment and Sustainability Institute. We’re looking at using commodity technology like android phones for environmental research with drones. Ecology research groups and environmental agencies have started using drones as a replacement for expensive and risky light…
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Adventures with i2c
In order to design the next version of the flotsam hardware I need to make it cheaper and easier to build. The existing hardware was very cheap in terms of components but expensive in terms of time it took to construct! With this lesson learned and with a commission on the horizon I need to…
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Tangible weavecoding at the Makernow Fablab
Demoing the flotsam tangible livecoding device at the Makernow Fablab in Penryn. Future revisions of the hardware will need to fix some of the problems identified in testing as well as work in gallery exhibitions we have planned for next year.
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Tangible livecoding tests in the wild, and material as type in programming
Last week I took the flotsam tangible livecoding system to my programming tutoring lesson for some first tests with the real experts. To provide some background, we started a while back with Raspberry Pi, messing around with the Minecraft API and python and we’ve recently moved on to laptops and pygame. I arrived with the…
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Weaving notations
I’ve collected images from our workshops in Leeds and Sheffield as we attempted to understand the intricacies of weaving, particularly ancient looms from antiquity. A simple visualisation of a loom. Attempting to understand the relationship between lift plans and heddles. The connection between tablet woven bands, whose weft form the warp of the warp-weighted loom.…
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Learning about thinking and weaving in Leeds and Sheffield
The second week of intense work on weavingcodes/codingweaves took place in the north of England, and began with a talk at the New Mechanics Institute show and tell meeting in Leeds. This was a good place to pick up from the previous week in Denmark as it included a talk on pixel art from the…
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Flotsam: A prototype screenless livecoding language
Two languages are working with Flotsam, the new name for the prototype screenless tangible programming language I’ve been building (which comes from the fact it’s largely made from driftwood). It’s somehow already been featured on the Adafruit blog! The circuit seems to be fully debugged now, with short circuits fixed – which took a little…
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Farm Crap App wins Soil Association Innovation Award 2014
Very proud of this, and congrats to the Duchy College’s Swarm Hub and Nicholas Outram who built the iOS version. With presentations like these, you can’t lose! Read more about it here. Photo via the Organic Research Centre.
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Learning to read, notate and compute textiles in Aarhus
Setting off from Copenhagen, the weaving codes tour continued as Emma Cocker, Alex McLean, Ellen Harlizius-Klück and I sped across the Danish countryside on the train. We were heading for Aarhus to spend some time working with people at the other end of the technology spectrum – The Center for Participatory IT in Aarhus University.…
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Unravelling technology in Copenhagen
Last week the weavingcodes/codingweaves project started with a trip to Denmark, our first stop was the Centre for Textiles Research in Copenhagen where we presented the project and gathered as much feedback as possible right at the beginning. The CTR was introduced to us by Eva Andersson Strand, and is an interdisciplinary centre which focuses…