Ghosts in the machine

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Well, not literal ghosts, but blank spots. It seems we may be facing our first serious bandwidth issues with 28 cameras installed and plenty of summer visitors. Whatever the reason, we’re getting hiccups in our getalongs – cameras are randomly freezing for a few seconds to several minutes each, losing connection with the system, and generally not behaving correctly.

Today, for example, we were collecting images of ourselves from both the video cameras and a still digital camera for comparison of performance for facial recognition. As Harrison, Mark, and Diana moved from right to left along our touch tanks, only one of three close-up “interaction” cameras that they stopped at actually picked them up. It’s not a case of them actually moving elsewhere, because we see them on the overhead “establishment” cameras. It’s not a case of the cameras not recording due to motion sensing issues (we think), because in one of the two missing shots, there was a family interacting with the touch tank for a few minutes before the staff trio came up behind them.

This morning I also discovered a lot of footage missing from today’s feeds, from cameras that I swear I saw on earlier. I’ve been sitting at the monitoring station pulling clips for upcoming presentations and for the facial recognition testing, and I see the latest footage of some of the octopus tank cameras showing as dimly lit 5 a.m. footage. It’s not a problem with synchronization, either (I think): the corresponding bar image on the viewer that shows a simple map of recording times across multiple cameras shows blanks for those times, when I was watching families on them earlier today. However, when I look at it now, hours later, there don’t seem to be nearly as big of gaps as I saw this morning, meaning this mornings viewing while recording might have just delayed playback for some of the recent-but-not-most-immediately-recent footage at that time, but the system cached it and caught up later.

Is it because some of the cameras are network-powered and some are plugged in? Is it because the motion sensitivity is light-sensitive, wherein some cameras that have too much light have a harder time sensing motion, or the motion sensitivity is based on depth-of-field and the action we want is too far afield? Maybe it’s a combination of trying to view footage while it’s being recorded and bandwidth issues and motion-sensitivity issues, but it ain’t pretty.

From sketch to mock-up

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Summer Sea Grant Scholar Julie catches us up on her prototyping for the climate change exhibit:

“Would you like to take a survey?”  Yes, I have said that very phrase or a variation of it many times this week.  I have talked to more than 50 people and received some good feedback for my exhibit.  I also began working on my exhibit proposal and visuals to go along with it.  This is so fun!  I love that I get to create this, and my proposal will be used to pitch the plan to whatever company they get to make the exhibit program.  How sweet is that?

So, the plan is to have a big multi-touch table – here is what it looks like, from the ideum website:

 

You can’t see very well from that picture but people can grab photos or videos or other digital objects, resize and move them around and place them wherever they want using swipe, pinch, and other gestures as with tablets and multitouch smartphones.  It allows multiple users to surround the table as well and work together or independently. This is a video showing this table tested here at Hatfield- it has a lot of narration about Free Choice Learning, and you can see the table in action a little bit.

People will be able to learn about climate change and then create their own “story” about what they think is important about climate change or global warming.  My concept of the interface for this has gone through a metamorphosis.  Here are the various transformations the interface has gone through:

Stage 1: My initial messy drawing to get my thoughts on paper and make sure I was on the same page with the exhibit team.  At this point I thought we would just have a simple touch screen kiosk.

 

Stage 2: Mock-up made by Allison the graphic designer, using stage 1 as a guide.  I showed this to people as I interviewed them so they’d have an idea of what the heck I was talking about.

 

Stage 3: My own digital version I’m currently working on, now more in sync with the touch table.  The final version will go into my exhibit proposal.

 

Here’s what it looks like with a folder opened – upon touching a file, an animation would show the file opening and spilling the contents on the workspace to end up kind of like this:

 

This is a very exciting project to work on, and I’m glad to get to use and hone my skills in creativity, organization, and attention to detail.  This exhibit proposal will certainly need a lot of all 3 of those things.  It’s also very interesting to interview people- I find my preconceptions dashed often, which is very refreshing.  And it’s great to be able to tailor the exhibit to several different audiences, in hopes that the message will be well received by all, no matter where they currently stand in relation to the issue of climate change/ global warming.  Talking with folks helps me know for sure what kind of material each group wants, so I can maximize the success of the exhibit with that group.  I can’t wait to see this thing in the flesh – I have already decided I will have to take a vacation out here next summer just to check it out!

Freaky Friday? Or, more fun with cameras!

Posted on by | Leave a reply

We started the day with a couple of near-disasters but managed to make some good progress despite. We lost control of a hose while filling the tsunami wave tank and doused one of the controlling computers. Luckily, it was off at the time, but it also shouldn’t have had its case open, and we also should have been more aware of the hose! Ah, live and learn. No visitors were harmed, either.

It did help us identify that our internet is not quite up-to-snuff for the camera system; we’re supposed to have four GB ethernet connections but right now only have one. We went to review the footage to see what happened with the tanks, but the camera that had the right angle completely blanked out during just the time of the accident! Several of the other cameras are losing connection with the server intermittently as well. We’re not at the point of collecting real data, though, so again it’s just part of the learning process.

We also got more cameras installed, so we’re up to almost 30 in operation now. Not all are in their final place, but we’re getting more and more closer and closer as we live with them for a while and see how people interact. We also got the iPad interface set up so we can look at the cameras remotely using the Milestone XProtect app:

 

This will allow us to access the video footage from almost anywhere. It runs amazingly smoothly even on OSU’s finicky wireless network, and even seems to have slightly better image quality than the monitors (or maybe just better than my old laptop).

It’s a pretty powerful app, too, allowing us to choose the time we want to jump to, show picture in picture of the live feed, speed up or slow down playback, and capture snapshots we can email or save to the iPad Photo Library. Laura will install the full remote-viewing software on her laptop, too, to test that part of the operation out. That’s the one downside so far; most of our lab runs on Macs, while the Milestone system and the eyetracker are both on PCs, so we’ll have to buy a couple more laptops. Where’s that credit card?

 

Preparing for crowd management – Tsunami Tank Exhibit

Posted on by | Leave a reply

This follows Nick’s post on “preparing for a different type of Tsunami”, when he discussed initial challenges of the tsunami tank exhibit, especially in terms of the Lego activity and resources used.  Nick pointed out some mechanical/ physical challenges already encountered during initial prototyping but nevertheless said he was confident that the exhibit will be fun, interesting, and popular among Hatfield visitors.

POPULAR without a doubt! I have done some observations and brought in some groups to test the Lego activity at the tank and already can tell you Nick, the tsunami tank will most certainly be very popular. As a consequence, challenges to the exhibit are not only related to the resources used in the activity as you pointed out and whether it works or not, but also brings up issues of crowd management, flow and accessibility to the tank area and interactions among visitors.

 

In sum, here are some main points that surfaced from my short prototype:

a) The Lego activity and concept for the tank seem to generally work, apart from a few glitches already being addressed such as computer malfunctions and the sanding of Lego blocks so that they don’t stick so strongly together causing poorly constructed structures to stay firm after a potentially strong tsunami wave.

b) There is a need for establishing some rules for building structures so that participants won’t just build a solid square block that will stand still no matter what. The rules during the prototype were that each participant gets a cup full of Legos and have to build a structure of whatever shape but that will not surpass eight blocks tall to survive a tsunami wave. However, a few malfunctions were observed. As an example, the cup idea did not work well as most groups will go to the activity table and search for parts they want to use that were not in their cups.

c) Groups, especially children will spend a long…long time at the tank, which is good and challenging at the same time since crowds accumulate around and things can get really chaotic pretty fast. Creating clearly defined stations for building structures, providing a set of steps to be followed (through a facilitator or signage) and reinforcing time management can address the issue. Although I am afraid there isn’t really a definite solution for that, and at some degree we will have to rely on the visitors themselves (especially parents) to make good judgments and facilitate the process.

d) Visitors have LOTS OF FUN, interact and participate in shared learning.  After all, isn’t that the important aspects to cultivate if we are trying to facilitate learning?

Other subsequent observations were also made when the tank was opened to the public for a day with no facilitator and all my initial speculations were confirmed that crowd management will pose a huge issue, and while some creative solutions are on the making, the exhibit will need constant prototyping through time and even after it is completely opened to the public in order to minimize the problem.  Should I even call it a problem in the very sense of the word? Maybe I should say it is a good problem to have.

The exhibit has all the potential to foster active prolonged engagement (APE) and promote meaningful interactions. Humphrey and Gutwill (2005) importantly point out that APE exhibits are empowering to visitors as they can take pleasure in “observing, playing, investigating, exploring, collaborating, searching and speculating”. That is what I just saw groups starting to do at the tsunami tank.

(Humphrey, T., Gutwill, J. P., & Exploratorium (Organization). (2005). Fostering active prolonged engagement: The art of creating APE exhibits. San Francisco: Exploratorium).

 

 

 

Wave energy device progress report

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Since we last heard from him, Summer Scholar Brian has made progress on his wave energy device model, but that progress has in turn revealed more work to be done:

“With the successful design of the ”Pelamis” prototype it’s now time to reconstruct it using materials that are more durable and can stand up to the wear and tear of public use.  The next step for me is to actually incorporate a working public-friendly version of the Pelamis into the wave tank.  The first design used wood to attach the hinges to and after a few weeks in the water the wood has started to mold and disintegrate.  This upcoming Tuesday I hope to find a replacement material such as PVC or aluminum that won’t corrode in water.  Another material that I have to replace is the pipe insulation foam inside the PVC that keeps the whole thing afloat.  I have noticed that the foam is getting more and more saturated with water so the buoyancy of the entire device is decreasing.  Luckily for me ping pong balls bit perfectly in the 1 ½ in pipe so I am going to try and use those for floatation because they will hopefully never lose their buoyancy.

I am really impressed with the way the model moves in the water right now and I am hoping that the new materials won’t impede or hinder the movements seen with the first prototype.  This model does not actually create any energy from the motion of waves. The idea behind the whole design is that the public will be able to create waves in the tank and see how this particular WEC captures the energy of the waves through the snake-like movement.  As long as the motion is consistent, it should be fairly simple for anyone to understand how energy is captured.”

You take the good, you take the bad …

Posted on by | 2 Replies

(Yes, your host is a child of the 80’s and “The Facts of Life”)

Diana is learning the back and forth, up and down, of life as an interpreter and exhibit developer at the VC:

“Over the past couple of weeks, some interesting things have happened at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.  Not only have people been rude, but they have also been spectacular.  My faith in the human race is always moving back and forth like a wave.  First of all, there is my erosion wave tank.  We have had some great success and devastation in the wave erosion tank.  The wave tank was first somewhat of a chaos area with children walking on the edges of the prototype wooden table, sand volcanoes in the middle of the tank, and water everywhere you can think of around the tank area. Then we made a beach erosion challenge, with signs that gave very simple directions on what visitors were challenged to do. That made a significant difference between the actions taken around the tank area.  We saw a significant increase in families using the wave tank area as opposed to children creating sandcastles on their own as well as an increase in people reading the signs and trying to do the beach erosion challenge instead of just creating waves.  While the increase was promising, I still saw some problems.

One of the main problems of the wave tank that all of us in the VC are seeing is that the water needs to be changed constantly. I have changed the water about 3 times a week and each time there is something new in the water.  I have found potato chips, granola bars, and hair in the wave tank.  A spring broke on the wave creator, and the aluminum is oxidizing from the fresh water, which will lead to more problems later on.  Yet, out of all of these the ongoing problem that is really hard to find a solution for is the amount of water on the floor.  This problem has not only seemed to stump me, but my coworkers and advisors as well.

Out of all of these problems that my project has had, many amazing things have happened as well.  I have had some spectacular conversations with visitors.  This older couple one day came on my estuary tour and first asked some highly intelligent questions that tested my knowledge to the limit.  Then, once the tour was over, I was able to have them stay until closing with our eye level tank feeding, ocean quest and exhibits in general.  They would call me and McKenzie out by name just to ask us questions.  The older man told me he had no previous knowledge about marine science or biology for that matter, so he had many questions.  Oh he did and we had plenty of answers.  The visitors who are rude sometimes make me very upset, but then there are people like this older couple for example and most children, especially the ones that ask tons questions, that make my job totally worth it!”