Arduino Riders

Time to dance!

2009-10-24T01:02:00.000-07:00

One hour until launch now.

The group has worked intensely this passed week and although we are very excited about our project we are starting to long for the exhibition to be over so that we can relax and have a long night sleep.

Yesterday the judging panel went around to look at everyones projects. At that time we hadn't got everything working and we hurried to set things up. to our frustration when it was our time to show that we had done we couldn't get the speaker to work, not the lights and in one of the three soles the button got stuck. We felt quite brought down after that.

We went for lunch and did some shopping, and then we came back and started working on getting things to work. It was like a miracle; in just an hour we managed to solve the problem with the buttons getting stuck, we manage to hook up the speaker, a fourth sole and finally the lights worked. I can't fully explain out relief.

Showtime!

/Annica

Let's do this!

2009-10-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

23h until D-day. This is it, we have to make everything work and look good before we leave Hyper tonight. We'll get some time tomorrow for micro management, but it feels like we can't really count that as anything, honestly.

The group's really tired.

I've lately felt like there's a huge burden on the shoulders of me and Robin since we're the developers, every problem encountered was up to us to solve. One of the major problems we've had was the "double beat". When we pressed the button on the backside of the Sole, there were sometimes two beats (or even three), instead of the one beat that was intended. Trouble shooting for this problem was a nightmare since we had no idea whether there was a hardware malfunction, if we hadn't connected the wires properly or if there were problems with the code.

This issue would take down the whole project if not solved. And as I said before. That was up to us.

After consulting the tech. god Niklas Bivald - we figured it out. And it wasn't our fault actually. There was a bug in "Processing".

We'd done noting wrong, still, hours of trouble shooting had gone to waste.

Anyway...

Due to the lack of energy I can sense some unnecessary irritation sometimes, but most of the time we're laughing as usual. There's stress, but excitement as well. Every one's eager to try the final product. We're very good at dividing the tasks among us, and therefore I have no doubt we'll pull everything together in these final hours of creation.

Blood, sweat and tears.

But also lots of NOT blood, perfume and laughter.

Let's do this!

// Joacim Svedlund

Reflections of love

2009-10-22T02:27:00.001-07:00

I want to dedicate this post to my wonderful team members to explain the work they have been doing as well as show them my appreciation. So here they are, in no specific order, and with me included.

Project manager Robert

Robert has been responsible for gathering the group for meetings, making sure everyone is involved in the project and keeping up the spirit. He is also responsible for the projects logo as well as the logo for the entire exhibition. As people realized how amazing he is they stole his attention and sucked him in to work with the exhibition magazine. But he has still managed to keep his pretty brown eyes on the team and the project and help with the soldering.

Communication manager Linnéa

Linnéa has been responsible for communication between our team and the exhibition team- something made simpler as Linnéa volunteered to be one of the four project managers for the exhibition dealing with the venue, the invitations, website, sponsors and other things in favor for everyone. And she has been the one who has kept us informed on how things will work once we go live. But then she like us all has tried out soldering, logo-placement and building.

Art director & Developer Joacim

Joacim together with Robin has been responsible for working with the actual technology in this project; a major responsibility as none of us knew anything about coding or programing at the start of the project. Joacim is also responsible for our teaser trailer. The pice of technology that was handed to us was the multifunctional Aurdino, and Joacim had been very impressive in his persistence not to ease up on our goals or settle for less.

Art director & Developer Robin

As mentioned Robin and Joacim has been working with the code for our project and without their major effort in this we wouldn't have anything to show tomorrow. If nothing goes wrong, by the end of today we will have 8 soles controlling 8 different sounds and 4 different lights to create a true disco experience. I am in awe that we got this far starting from zero. Robin also managed to set us up with a set of vinyl stickers with our logo which we feel are great for the overall experience that we want to give.

Construction manager Annica

That is me. And my core task in this project has been managing the physical material needed, such as the actual soles, all the wiring, lights and other parts needed for the project. I have by no means done this myself, but it has been my main focus. I also brought the licensed electrician Stig Edberg into the project which has been a major help both when getting materials and making sure the things we have built are secure. Stig is also this groups sponsor.

with love

/Annica

Den enes löd den andres död (One man's solder the other man's death)

2009-10-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

In the early beginning of this project, all the Riders had was a simple switch connected to this wierd microchip thing. We sang out loud once we got that little led-light to shine. The group was exited but very nervous at this point. How on earth could we build something innovative and exiting with this pile of junk? Loaded with uncertain smiles and great visions we began the most amazing journey.

We had our ups and down. Here's a short summary of our process:
UP: Great Idea was born
DOWN: Found out that this actually would include coding.
UP: Got going with a little help from Max Werner.
DOWN: We created a Magnetic Field Wireless Sound Experience. Very cool but not right.
UP: We made "the shit" to play with sound. (Thanks to Niklas, the Tech dude).
DOWN: We realized that this will cost us like. A lot.
UP: Stig join the game and solved almost every hardware issue.
DOWN: Soldering phone cords was way harder then expected.
UP: It actually worked

Today we're exhausted. But happy. Very happy. Eight pairs of S.O.L.E.S were to be completed today. Now, less then 48 hours to launch.

/Robert Lindgren

problems and problem solution

2009-10-21T05:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a long day. The Arduino Riders went to Stigs garage to do some "masculine" handcraft. Unfortunately the camera was out of battery so we don't have any nice pictures to show you... We tried soldering our phone cables with the buttons and connect them to the arduino. After a few attempts we managed to make it work. But our buttons and cables are soo tiny and fragile so we are kind of worried now, what if a really fat person like Robert comes in?

We are trying to solve that, and not by having a scale in our exhibition space but making the soles even more solid. Stig taught us how to use the "shrinking cable" for that. We are also tapeing a lot which is good.

This is the recipie for the soles:
- 1 swedish crown
- 1 phonecable (6 m)
- "Shrinking cable"
- Tape
- Switch buttons (4,3 mm)
- Silicon pads (party feet)

This is our schedule for the remining time:
21/10 Wednesday
- Complete the Soles
- Finalize sound
- Buy light and other stuff
- Make sure that everyone has control over the blogg posts that needs to be made for Thursday
- Mount the stuff to the sealing, lamps and discoball

- Speakers

22/10 Thursday

- Finalize blog
- Finalize the article
- Testing
- Exhibition logos and banners

23/10 Friday
- Exhibition presentations at 10AM

To be continued.

/Linnéa Becker

This is twisted!

2009-10-20T02:10:00.001-07:00

Our dreams have come true, we will be able to use phone cables instead of boring straight cable from the sole to the arduino, it's going to look awesome! We even plan to connect the phone cable to the sole with a regular phone-jack . If and how we can do this I will investigate during the day. This is the mornings great news. We are so excited, we eat cables for breakfast!

After some consulting with the tech-aid Nicklas we are now fairly sure it is not the button that is causing the double sound problem, but rather it might be the code program: Processing. Our developers Joacim and Robin are working hard on investigating this and might move to try out Flash and see if the same code works better in that program.

We expect this day to be a day of problem solving, decisions and building. Below is our very own soldering-hen!

The exhibition magazine is now finished witch means that Robert can turn his focus back to the group. Linnéa is deeply involved in the Exhibition group and we are very proud of the work she is doing there as well as the energy and ideas she brings to us; The Arduino Riders!

love and lust

/Annica

Arduino Ridaz fo sho

2009-10-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

Black carpet

2009-10-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

Today the carpet were delivered. The carpet were transparent so we had a mission to make it black. With some spraypaint and some ol'school graff artist we went outside...

...we realized that one spraycan wasn't enough, so tomorrow Annica is coming with some new cans and we will finish it up. Our sticker that Petter Söderberg from Jenå Reklam hooked us up with is working really nice, thanks Petter!

Stay tuned for the final result!

Big love

Robin

Finish line in sight

2009-10-19T04:07:00.000-07:00

Final week and time for the Project Manager to step up his game! Exiting times. These four coming days will probably be a lot about planning, managing and distributing time, since in this stage, all we got is an early prototype, some first ideas on a case film and one hell of a To Do-list. Basically we have this week to build, test and finalize our project. Something a normal group of humans would need about six months to manage. Us on the other hand, we are pretty fucking far from average. We are the Arduino Riders.

/Robert Lindgren, father of four and project manager.

Sole™ Teaser Trailer

2009-10-16T06:47:00.001-07:00

SOLE - Teaser Trailer from Joacim Svedlund on Vimeo.

Lull in the duck pond

2009-10-16T05:58:00.000-07:00

We Love Stig

2009-10-16T04:58:00.000-07:00

Soldering, cutting and taping NO SKETCHING.

2009-10-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

Thursday 15 th of October - The day we really started to build things!

It's very easy to do a lot of sketches and talk about how you picture the solution...
But this is over and done for the Arduino Riders. This will be the last one (maybe):

Today we went to Elfa to by some:

And we also found an amazing person named Stig Edberg that really liked our idea and payed for everything! We also bought some soles (quite important for our project), mouse pads, party feet, tape, cable and some other stuff... When the other 3 Riders was out shopping, I was working with getting the out the pressrelease that you can find here: www.eat09.com
This is our site for the exhibition! Don't forget to watch the exhibition movie that Karlskrona made and if your not personally invited you can always get the invitation at the site and come uninvited ;) .......... JUST COME!

Right now we are soldering our cables to the button that are going to give you an amazing erperience. The plan is to have a prototype ready for tomorrow morning when we have a smaller presentation and peer review, and if we are really lucky we'll have a short case film too.
The exhibition group hade a meeting down in the venue today and devided the area into 23 spaces. I hope it's not going to be a war.
Here is some more pictures from today:

multitasking; speaking in the phone, skyping and cutting Soles
It's not easy being a project manager for the exhibition and a Sole maker...

THIS IS THE MAGNETIC FIELD SNARE:

To be continued
/Linnéa Becker

From above

2009-10-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Wednesday the 14th of October, The day it all happend!

Today has been a great day in terms of progress. The Arduino Riders have managed to get the sound working with the sensors! We hade a check in this morning and the energi was quite low because of the "technical breakdown" last night when nothing seemed to work. BUT we are back on track and the developers have been singing "Just Dance" with Lady Gaga all day.

As I'm a project manager for the exhibition the 24th (Be there!) I'm not as involved in the Sole Music project as the others in the group right now. I kind of see everything from above. Feelings of guilt washes over me a cupple of times during the day but I totally trust them and I'm always with them when I have time.

The role as Project manager for the exhibition is shared with Oskar from Stockholm and Nina and Sam from Karlskrona. It's a very interesting role with much responsibility and a real learning experience.

This post is getting quite cheezy now as you see, so I think I'll just stop now.
Here's some pictures from today.

P.S. If you wonder why we are soo cute in this group, or more specificly Joacim? The picture above is the answer.

To be continued...

/Linnéa Becker

Tuesday Tinkerers

2009-10-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

To up the energy-level this tuesday I brought gifflar (small cinnamon buns) to our morning meeting. Buns or not though, the group bubbled with energy and laughter sipped through the door of our red meeting room.

The plans for today was for Linnéa and Robert to continue with our article for the exhibition magazine, Robert was also to work with the layout for the magazine. Yesterday we had gotten some aid from the irish word-wizard Rudhraigh to pif up our inspiration text for our article, thanks Rudhraigh!

Joacim and Robin had now gotten the sensors so they here eager to get to work and try them out. By the end of the day the mood was a bit wobbly- the code seems to work but the sound quality is still not great and the sensors seem to be TOO sensitive. It looks like it's going to be a late night at Hyper...

My task for today was to try and find a sponsor for our group. I had started working on a list of suitable companies yesterday and compiled a document with information about our group and project and what we could offer a possible sponsor. So after our morning meeting I started calling. As things tend to be it was hard to get hold of the right person to talk to, but after lunch my luck turned and I dare to hope for good news tomorrow.

Over and out

/Annica

The Arduino Family

2009-10-13T03:18:00.000-07:00

New week, new challenges

2009-10-12T05:27:00.000-07:00

Thought I would wright a little bit about our concept in this post.

We want to create a visual/audio-mental experience based on the visitors movement. We'll attach sensors/switches on soles and when stepped on, the sensors will trigger different sounds and lights. Our vision is to make a group of visitors interact with each other by connecting different sounds/lights on each pair of soles. Every person represent an instrument and a color of the light. By interacting witch each other the group creates the experience. The visitors will be able to experiment and effect the result depending on how they work together.

A brand new logo is also being published. Robert did the main sketch and all that was left was just to finish it up a bit.

And this is the final result:

The next thing is to get our sensors for the Arduino, because all the programming codes are already done. We are really pumped to get started and hopefully they will arrive tomorrow so we can start build.

Were also trying to get a sponsorship for this project, Annica has been working on a spredsheet to send out to different companys to let them know more about our project and who we are.

Stay tuned!

Big love

Robin

We're on track!

2009-10-09T07:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a real low. But at the way back home - BAM - From nowhere came:

Emelie Pettersson (http://www.facebook.com/emeleesha)

She gave us an idea of how to solve the biggest problem of all time, and this gave the whole group new inspiration and energy.

This resulted in finally deciding exactly what components to use, and now, they are ordered:

(click to enlarge)

They'll probably arrive on monday, and then the CREATION MAY BEGIN!

I feel so good right now, we have the whole next week to build our prototype, and I really think we're gonna pull it off.

Oh, and also, Max Werner (http://www.facebook.com/max.werner) held a works shop today, practically showing us what code to use in our project.

And you know what? It's friday.

Life's good.

// Joacim Svedlund

Kungens kurva here we come...

2009-10-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

After a long busride from telefonplan we made it to kungens kurva in hope to find ELFA.

And yes we found it, but with no success...

Robert - "Do you know anything about Arduino?"

ELFA guy - "Nope..."

Robert - "Ok"

// Robin Karlsson

Setback.

2009-10-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

Okay. So we decided to go out in the field, asking some nerds 'bout the tech we'd need and hopefully buy some sensors. This trip would give the project a push through the arrival of the actual hardware.

But...

Disaster.

Eager to make progress, we totally forgot to make proper research before leaving the school. We made quite the long trip just to find... nothing. None of the stores could help us and all this time was wasted.

Failure. I feel the spirit of the team have sunk to dangerously low levels.

We've regrouped and started to send out some e-mails which hopefully will result in some expert advice.

My head is hurting.

// Joacim

We're in EVEN MORE control!

2009-10-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

The problem in the last post is now solved:

We re-routed the power source to make the button connect the circuits instead of disconnecting them.

// Robin & Jocke

A new day has come for the Arduino Riders

2009-10-07T03:20:00.000-07:00

We started the day with summing-up from yesterday, what our thoughts was and also what we wanted to achive with this day. Our main goals for today is:

• Have the Arduino to make sounds based on analog input

• Buy Sensors/Switches for Arduino

• Improve our projectplan

• Prepare for the group presentation

• Blog

Personal thoughts:

I think that our group is making great progress every day. Me and Jocke are learning more and more about the Arduino and are stepping closer to reaching our goal, but...

...a problem has occured with the Arduino that were trying to solve. The problem is that our LED should glow when we press the button and not the way around. Were now putting our smart heads together to solve this problem and I will keep you updated with the result.

My role as an Art Director/Developer is hard but really fun. I've never done any programming or worked with Arduino, so just by looking at the different things and playing around with it is a great learning experience for me. And I see the process in what we are learning.

Our project is moving forward and i'm very pumped to see what extraordinary artificial sound experience our group will bring to you.

Big love

Robin Karlsson

We're in CONTROL!

2009-10-07T02:39:00.000-07:00

Even more progress!

2009-10-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Progress!

2009-10-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

When we went home yesterday, we had two ideas. Both had their strengths and weaknesses, but we had to decide which to go for. It was a real dilemma.

When I woke up this morning, nothing which could help us solve the task at hand had come to my mind. The solution seemed so far away...

When we all gathered in school at last, we started by watching this vid. of us having a negative brainstorming session yesterday:

(since we're all swedes in the group we're speaking swedish - sry)

Arduino Riders - what really happened from Joacim Svedlund on Vimeo.

After this, we were a little bit happier. We made a chart of goals for the day which included:

Decide upon ONE idea

Try the Arduino

Have a brand name

Start working on a Logo

It seemed like the plan for the day was a little bit to optimistic. But two hours later - the list was done.

This is us making tremendous progress with the Arduino:

This is a Beta of the Logotype:

And here we are, working like slaves:

Stay Tuned!

// Joacim Svedlund

Day 1: Idea development resulted in lots of laughter

2009-10-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

Since we missed two Arduino riders last week we started the idea development today. It has been an important day and lots of good stuff has been accomplished. We started with making a project plan and devided us into different roles:

Me (Linnéa Becker): Exhibition Director / Head of Communication
Joacim Svedlund: Art Director / Developer
Robin Karlsson: Art Director / Developer
Annica Strand: Production / Construction Manager
Robert Lindgren: Project Manager / Catering / Play coach

Using ten different categories we generated lots of ideas and clustred them. Then we threw away the shitty ones, including my interactive play gantry (buhu!). But that didn't really result in an idea that we loved, so we hade a negative brainstorming based on the focus question how to make the worst experience ever. After a long session we decided not to go with the anal focus or Anna Anka...
We now have 2 ideas that we love. What to do?
To be continued...

/Linnéa Becker