Jan 29th - Jan 30th 2014

Instead using the conductive fabric, I suggested using Conductive Pen or ink to paint on the glove so that the wire won't tie a knot, just like the image below. 

However, the price of the pen is expensive and we don't know whether is it available in Malaysia. But due to time limitation, we don't have the time to wait for shipping and the ink can't stay on the wool. To connect the Arduino Gemma,  I found a long cable in my house which is half of my body length. My teammates was very kind to help me to find codes and test out. Charissa helped me to connect the Arduino Gemma to Arduino Software, Abu helped me to code the camera whereas Estee sewing the glove for testing the sensor. 

Jan 28th 2014

Since we having CNY holiday on Thursday until next Tuesday (30 Jan - 4 Feb) and our alpha test falls on the next wednesday, 5 Feb, we done some testing in the IIS. Estee and Abu was measuring the thickness of our board and testing the camera placement. I was doing the technical part, the coding and Charissa was designing the graphics.

To start the coding part, I have a clear direction on what I should do. So that I had listed down the steps for myself to follow.

1. To code the health bar,  using keyCode as a click. In this case I had set two keyCode which are spacebar and arrow down. Once we tap on the spacebar the yellow field will increase until it reach the limits. The same goest with the green bar.

2. Need to find out how to store the content of the sliding words. Perhaps I will use Array and switch case to do it . Array, to store the content while switch case is to identify which word is true and which is false. The correct words the user tap on so the healthbar will increase while the wrong word that they tap on the healthbar will decline.

3. Put in the time limit. Once Time's up then I will addchild another scene for them to capture their picture.

4. Connect the flash to processing and arduino.

5. Store the input of category that user has hashtag, connects the camera and capture user image then save in a file.

The progress of the coding was around 15% , I had discussed with my content leader as how many user tap on to reach the category of bad, middle and best. So that we came out the overall is 50 taps. Within 10 taps is the bad category; within 11-31 is the middle category which 32-50 is the best category. Then I also try to input the graphic UI which Charissa has design. The challenge was this is the gradient health bar which I had no idea how to do it. So that I came out an idea, I will place a box on top of the gradient health bar so that every user tap, the box will decrease and it showing the health bar increasing.

Jan 27th 2014

A day that I had received the Adafruit Flora Arduino. The shipping was earlier than our expectation and it is small and light which fulfill our needs. In the next severals days, before the alpha test , we will test out the arduino code and connect it to the foil paper as we haven't found a suitable conductive sensor which conductive fabric that had to find in Malaysia.

We also need to buy a suitable  long and blackUSB wire to connects the arduino. However, I can test out the arduino with my temporary cable. I suggest my groupmates that we could buy a normal USB wire and an extension one. 

Jan 26th 2014

A day we had discussed our content image of our game play. First, we had listed down all the general items or object which everyone know about it. Then we choose 5 among them.

We had chosen Nasi Lemak, Michael Jackson,Cat, Coffee Art and Mona Lisa. Then we list down the right and wrong hashtag.

Jan 24th 2014

A day that Charissa helped me to consult Yi Wei for the timer code. Very appreciated that Yi Wei has provided this code for us. However, I have to figure out how to execute on the other codes.

Jan 23th 2014

A day that I found online tutorial which provided codes for connects PS eye camera to processing. I have no PS eye camera at now but I plan to test it in the next meeting in IIS.

Link: http://www.cleoag.ru/2009/11/23/ps3-eye-processing-library/

Quite simple and direct code. Other that, I also found a useful flash file that the website had provided. This photo booth is very useful that able to take photos by using flash then to store the photos in a file.

Link : http://vamapaull.com/photo-booth-flash-webcam-image-capture/

Some test out I had done.

Jan 22th 2014

A day that we had updated our project plan and submit to the server. We had consult Shahnim and Jazmi and showing our video documentation. The feedbacks from Lecturers were our value of hashtag is not strong enough. Therefore after discussion, we consulted Lecturers again that we changed our game play to putting image and relevant hashtag random words which user have to hashtag the relevent words within 15 seconds. The right words they hashtag, the healthbar will increase while the wrong words they hashtag, their categories of them in the healthbar will decline. We will categories the player according to the stage of bad, good and best. Therefore capture their image with the hashtag post then upload to our instagram, hashtag_amace.

Therefore, as a technical leader, I have to figure out how metadata works and storing words in Adobe Flash. So that , I have to start the prototype of the our game play.

Jan 20th 2014

-Today we had done our video shooting in the recording room.

-In the morning at 10 am, Abu, Charissa and Estee went to recording room to set up, while I went to consult Chuan Zui for consulting how to render the 3D objects to After Effect to edit.

- After we done the video shooting in 3 to 4 hours, we went to library to continue to edit our video and audio.

-I continue to refine the 3D object and render as a video

-We continue shooting indoor scenes in library.

- We had completed our video at the time of 6 pm.

Jan 18th 2014

A day I had done some prototype of the kiosk in 3D model by using Cinema 4D.

This 3D models will be used in our video documentation for introducing the overall project outlook.

Jan 17th 2014

We had done online discussion about the sequence of video and continue to write out our script.

and here is our scripts:

INT White background

Fade in abu , fade in name ,and position, fade out name & position , zoom in face to shoulder length , fade out.

SHABU:

Hashtagging, why do people now

are so obsessed with #s in social

media?

Shows video of Estee hashtagging a lot, over food, ootd, drinks, selfie (over the shoulder)

Sometimes, users overuse and misuse

the hashta, affecting the victims which are in the same circles of social media.

Shows video of victims being insulted/hashtag abused in social media.(show as sad as possible to make it a big impact)

And even worse, they’re done in

real life by this gesture.

(Abu does the gesture)

Video of people using hashtags in real life. The annoying kind.

But what if I told you that we could

turn it around,and make it bearable or change  your thinking on life? Positive words go far in effecting people. And for those of you who are shy, we have created the perfect excuse for you to approach strangers in a positive light!  

Video of shy people.

Introducing Live Tags. Live Tags is a standalone artefact which is an interactive hashtag game kiosk through wearable media.

With Live tags , all the misuse of hashtag will be ECLIPSED by the good uses of it. Spreading positivity and making a person smile just by a simple hashtag.

Fade in Charissa, fade in name and position.

CHARISSA:

The look we try to achieve with Live Tags

would be relevant, trendy and clean. That’s

why, we are implementing flat design into

3d rotation from near to far, fade out the 3d.

the Kiosk making it easy to understand, simple

and pleasing to the eyes to both young and old.

We are greatly inspired by social media interfaces.

Namely Instagram and Vine.

Fade in melissa, fade in name and position, change scene to how to play the game(people wearing glove), fade in melissa, put the prototype video.

MELISSA:

Our main platform for coding Live Tags would

be Flash and Processing.

Show people wearing glove,zoom in the where the adafruit flora arduino sew on, show how conductive thread connect to the touch sensor.

The way Live Tag works is, we are going to sew Adafruit Flora arduino onto the back of the glove with conductive thread. The thread connects to a touch sensor which is the conductive fabric. This fabric is sewn onto the finger area.

Change scene to show the kiosk ps eye camera placement, the procedure of playing the game.

Other that, we are using a PS eye camera to capture players and presence their absence to the interface.

To play; first, two players are needed to wear one glove each which has been provided. To start the game, players able to do hashtag gesture by double tapping on the glove.  The camera will capture the motions and will generate interactable falling elements each time players hashtag.

Show the rules of the game,the placement of health bar, the obstacles and how to win.

To win the game, the players have to keep hashtagging to reach the hashtag limit. The more the player hashtags, the higher their health bar is filled. To make the game more interesting, there will be obstacles in the game, as different words will keep sliding into the frame. Players are not allowed to hashtag when they see red color words but players could hashtag as fast as possible when they see the green words sliding in.

Show graphics of hashtags sliding out, red and green. If players hashtag while red words slides in, the health bar will be slightly decline.

Play the sounds while players hashtagging.

Every Time the players hashtag, the kiosk would play some random hashtag words.

Showing hologram that placing beside the kiosk.

In additional to this, we will place a hologram description beside it just to display animatic info and videos.

ESTEE:

Livetags kiosk with 180 cm height and 102 cm

width, will be placed diagonally in exhibition

for more space. When audience walk in, they would

already have a partial view of the game kiosk.

Showing the placement of the kiosk.

A projector will be placed on a small table with the distance of 1 meter  behind the kiosk. We are going to hide the computer under the table by using a cloth to cover it. A border will also be made on the Kiosk to hide the PS Eye camera and wires.

Collage style

Behind the players, a background will be placed so that the PS eye camera does not get affected. Meanwhile, we will also set two markers as a guide for both users to stand on and a border will be placed on the Kiosk to hide the wiring as well as increase the user experience.

Abu fade in with conclusion.

ABU:

So what do we want to achieve with Live Tags?

We’d like to encourage positivity and help people gain confidence. We’d also like to let people know about the good uses of hashtagging in real life.

Fade in Live tags, Fade Out.

Fade in By Amace . Fade Out.

Jan 16th 2014

A day we do video documentation discussion. Charissa suggested to do our video documentation into something like introducing the new iphone video. We found that is a good idea somehow is fun and messages can bring out directly by speaking so that to grab audience attention easily.

Other that we changed our content to support the user to hashtag instead of giving awareness as how hashtag is bad in nowadays. We had discussed our game name which we call it Livetags.

We had type out our video documentation script. Charissa and I was discussing how to code in the technical part.

Jan 15th 2014

Today we done our rehearsal on library student lounge at 10a.m until 3pm, we started our presentation. The feedbacks from lecturer and our little "clients" has enrich information to us to improve on our subject. Some of the students was suggest how the codes works and teaches us how to avoid risk and reduce our work since we has time limitation, I really appreciate it. 

Jan 12th - 14th 2014

We meeting in the library to prepared the presentation slides for our hashtag project. We had done some prototype video to let our "clients" know how our game works so that they can have a clear idea of what we are going to do.

Below are the presentation slides that we had prepared.

In additional, we had discussed the method on how we are going to cover the cost of our budget.

We also wrote out our presentation script then we do several rehears for our presentation.

This is our presentation script and some FAQ:

Presentation Script

Shabu:  

Good Morning everyone! We are from the Amace group and I am Kah Suit, #ContentandLearnerLeader

Charissa:

I am Charissa, #Graphics

Melissa:

I am Melissa, #Technical

Estee:

I am Estee, #Logistics

Abu : We will like to present you our project plan for our Installation Project, ‘Senses’.

(Slides1-10) Shabu:

Alright , but before I start, I would like to ask anyone here uses Instagram?

OK great! here’s a picture. Could you throw me a couple of tags for it?

(lazha’s pic)

Nice ! Thank you... and that was a Great example of tags that our classmates had given. It was just an example that we are trying to show people nowadays use tags to describe what they see on a picture.

s3;

And Now , What is a hashtag?   Hashtag was initially used as a Pound sign, a sharp in piano and tic tac toe before Twitter started using it in 2007.

But What is the Main function of a hashtag in Social media?

-Hashtag has the same function as label/tag

-It is used “To categorize a person’s content to other contents which are similar to theirs. For easy viewing.”

Besides, hashtags are used in different  popular social platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

s4; Here are Hashtag examples

1. In Twitter, hashtags are commonly used for #events , so people can easily join the conversations concerning the same topic.

2. Followed by, other social platform like Facebook and Instagram also used Hashtags.

3. And later on, Hashtags are even used as a marketing tool to promote brands. This promotional style involves the interactivity among users with branding companies like Mcd. ( used #mcdstories for people to share their experience in mcd),

4. Astro (used #urMalaysianIsshowing) and  

5. Even brands like Wendy and Coca cola turned hashtags into a contest on social media. Users have to share and tag their product name in order to win the contest. and Coca Cola is the first brand that uses # in their product.

6. At this point, we can see that Hashtags are slowly becoming a trend in social media. But but but ..there are some people who misuse hashtags on instagram for instance..

Some of them use tag every single words in a the sentence. and

7. Hashtags are even used in the controversial Blurred lines music video.

8. It comes across as annoying, and disturbing for other users on social media who do not misuse them.

9. Out of all these misuses, a parody by Justin timberlake showing how people use hashtag in real life came about and went viral on the JImmy Fallon show!

10. Hashtag is everywhere and overloaded.we get our inspiration from the hashtag gesture  from the parody video, for our project.

s5;

WHY HASHTAG ??? ! As i mentioned just now .

We are living in a Hashtag era  . it is a #Social media trend now .

and it #Available across marketing platforms and used for advertising

And #incorporating hashtags in their daily verbal communication.

but the bad was Overuse of Hashtagging to promote oneself.

like in instagram , #tagsforlikes #followme #tagsforfollowers to get more likes and followers.

s6;

Therefore,our project name is #ashtag.

s7;

To build an informative installation that would attract users that are both

digital immigrants and natives to provide information on this norm of ‘hashtagging’ parallel to

its relevance to it’s current trends today. To increase the sense of humor and positivity.

s8; Mission

The aim of this project is to increase awareness about increasing the quality of content rather than misusing  hashtags that are irrelevant to content uploaded online.

“QUALITY IS BETTER THAN QUANTITY”

s9;

Our installation will contain interactive components both analog and digital,

where users could interact by taking pictures with the provided # Photo ops,

and  the standalone artefact which is an interactive hashtag game kiosk through wearable media.

s10; target audience

(Slides 11- 16) Charissa:

Thank you abu, as you can see, this is the #’s milestone, Right now we are at Week 9, which leaves us four more weeks to our 100% goal for the Alpha Test on week 12.

We plan to complete the graphics in the following two weeks while executing the codes from this week onwards.

Next would be our Moodboard, where we brainstormed for Ideas and Information we can put into the project. One of our ideas would be the # sticky notes where we would encourage the audience to take them and stick positive hashtags wherever they liked.

The idea of the photo op, as Abu mentioned, play a great deal in advertising our project. We planned to place a large hashtag where people could take pictures with and share them on social media sites.

The Artstyle for our project would be flat, simple and easy to understand much like current trend today.

Our colors will mostly be monochromatic, to complement the Icon.

Next would be the benchmarks, Finger tap is a simple multiplayer game available on mobiles where users are invited to tap as fast as they can to increase the surface areas of their colors. Once the color that covers and eliminates the opponent’s color, they win.

Tap Fast is a single player game here where users have to tap as many times as they could under a designated time.

Right now, I’d hand you over to Melissa to explain how exactly we are going to implement these benchmarks into our installation, making it a reality.

(Slides 26-29) Melissa:

We are using Ai and Ps to create the graphics components. Processing and Flash will be used for coding.

We are going to create a simple hashtag game, whereby users are able to do the hashtag gestures by double tapping on a glove built in with touch sensors to a time limit.

We are going to sew Adafruit Flora arduino onto the back of the glove with conductive thread. The thread connects them to the conductive fabric which acts like touch sensors which are sewn onto the glove at the fingers. To identify single or multiplayer modes, the sensor at each fingertip of the glove that is worn will send a signal to the arduino that the glove is active.

The PS eye camera will capture the users presence, and they are able to view themselves in front of the camera.There will be two players head to head or Single Player. They will start to play the game by doing the hashtag gesture, the camera capture the motion then will generated elements falling with each time they hashtagging.

Sound will be play in the form of hashtags. At the end of the game,  they will be asked to guess the number of hashtags they did; the player closest to their number wins.

The input will be the PS eye camera, the Adafruit Flora arduino and the glove, then will send the signal to processing then later to transmit to Adobe Flash for the game component.

In additional to this, we will place a hologram beside it for the description.

(Slides 21-23) Charissa:

Alright for the graphics, it will mostly contain simple icons and understandable gestures. This is the first version, to be improved. The next slide here shows the rough placement of buttons and size on the user interface.

(slides 22-25, 30-32) Estee:

22: This is the IIS Lab floor plan where we will exhibit our hashtag installation. It will be placed diagonally opposite to the locker for more space. Also, when the audience comes into our area, they would already have a partial view of the game kiosk.

23: Here are the list of equipments that we use in this installation.

We will be using: 1- Panasonic projector , To project our game onto the Kiosk,

1-Computer, To run the game

1- colourful table and large box to mount the projector

A kiosk based glass top

Ps eye camera, to capture the players’ movements

Mobile/tablet devices, to project our holographic images onto the

Holographic triangle description.

24:We will place a holographic description beside our installation to show animatic info  and videos. That way, our description will be dynamic.

25: Here is another image to show the placements of our installation. A projector will be placed on a small table with the distance of 1 meter  behind the kiosk. A border on the Kiosk will be made to hide the PS Eye camera and wires.

Our installation will be reflecting to instagram interface.So the camera will be place as same as the position of the camera icon.And the computer will be hidden by a cloth. Meanwhile, we will also set two markers as a guide for both users to stand on. A background will be placed behind the users ,so that it will not confuse the camera.

30): Our overall budget is around RM300. We plan to purchase the Arduino Flora,Conductive Thread and Conductive Fabric online if we could not find these equipments in Malaysia. The remaining budget are used for decorations and capital to cover costs.

31: To cover the budget that we showed just now, we might earn our profit by partnership with GD’s exhibition and direct sales/opening stall to sell our products.Buyers can get for discounted prices if they can wage a hashtag war with the member of AMACE but they cannot use filter words like UH, UMM, EH  for 1 min.

30: We might selling handmade sketchbook, badges,stickers, bookmarks, and accessories to increase our profit.

(Slides 33- 34) Shabu:  

Future+Thank you.

ABU: 1-10, 31-end

Charisa:  12-20

Melissa: 26-29

Estee: 22-25 , 30-32

FAQ:

1. Why would you want to use holograms?

- It would be hard to read in dim light if it were on paper

- To attract user’s attention

- Give more interest to reading of descriptions, and play videos

- Preview to how our installation works.

2. Are you encouraging people to do more hashtag or what?

We are encouraging them to use it wisely.

3. What if they hashtag too fast the the sound lag?

- Intervals of 3 hashtags generated will only trigger the sounds. That way, it can give the program some time to load and unload the sound.

4. What if the users get really excited and disconnect the USB from the glove?

5. Wouldn’t it be unsanitary?

We bought 100 plastic glove sheets to put in the gloves before they start playing. Hand sanitizers will be provided too.