Below is a small experiment I’m currently running; very informally I’m updating a pachube feed (‘cups of coffee today’) with the current location data. It’s a bit of an odd experiment – I’m not really always drinking coffee, but once I set it up (using the pachube iphone app, which is pretty simple to use) I discovered that it logged the location of each coffee cup consumed. Not so exciting I know, but I’m interested in the notion that my daily activities and movements can be logged, tracked in some sense and collected to form an image – be that automatically or manually logged data. It’s by no means new territory, but I’m keen to see how it all works out. There’s a chance that the ‘update feed by twitter’ tool will come in handy, but who knows at this point.
So as I said, It’s a bit of a mish-mash, however there are a few things of interest. 1. I can log 0 cups of coffee, which will update the location but keep my caffeine intake low. 2. When i do have a cup of coffee the daily tally will increase and I’ll be able to see where and when it all happens (at work, that’s a no brainer..). 3. Along comes this openstreetmap based project from the pachube apps page – Trails.Have a look for yourself, just how well or unwell my coffee consumption is going over the last 24 hours.. Hopefully, if you’re reading this you’ll see a map below, with a gps overlay of location (x,y) and consumption (z) data. If not, then perhaps I’ve not updated in a while. Nonetheless, it’s got me thinking about these new consumer (no pun intended) tools which are now readily available – and free.Not sure where this will go, not exactly sure where it belongs, but it’s worth mentioning at least.Drink up!
Tag Archive for opensource
pachube coffee and gps
simple metro
For students in the 11217 introduction to construction class;Here is an example of a simple metronome counter which moves a line up and down a sketch window over a period of time. You should be able to follow the comments included to see how you might plug your sensors and motors into this sketch to easily arrange for your motors to move a) automatically left/right over a period of time and b) increasing in intensity based on a reading from your slider/light/proximity sensors.For the purposes of instruction and demonstration, i’ve connected the line movement to simple mouse input – move the mouse left/right to influence up/down motion – so you can see how your sensors might influence pre-programmed movement.Give this sketch a try… Read more
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Phidget Interface Kit + Processing
Here’s a simple example for connecting a PhidgetInterfaceKit 8/8/8 to a computer, using Processing.
You will need to download the phidget21.jar package from the phidgets website, find it in the ‘Programming’ section in the java examples section. Once downloaded, just use Sketch>Add File… to add the file to your sketch. Connect via USB and you’re ready to go. I’ve labelled variables based on the sensors I was using, feel free to reassign and use as you will;… Read more
