joshbillions.org

MB LABS, my home, in gallery mode.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:39:45 -0600

MB LABS, my home, in gallery mode.

Working on a project to visualize graffiti removal in Chicago....

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 11:58:54 -0500

Working on a project to visualize graffiti removal in Chicago. Just finished up getting the data in from the city.   Not the final product by any means, but it’s nice to see the data getting parsed properly.

Showing off the MapBag on Maker Faire TV!

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:40:00 -0500

Showing off the MapBag on Maker Faire TV!

Sierra Nevada Mountain Drive (69,631 frames) Biggest average...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 02:22:00 -0500

Sierra Nevada Mountain Drive (69,631 frames)

Biggest average yet.

Video

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 18:10:00 -0500

Video

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:56:00 -0500

Pacific Coast Highway, 16,165 frames.

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:54:00 -0500

Pacific Coast Highway, 16,165 frames.

Train video average. 1,457 frames.

Mon, 30 May 2011 06:30:00 -0500

Train video average. 1,457 frames.

Harvey and I speaking at Club Workshop in Denver. Count how many...

Sun, 29 May 2011 13:54:00 -0500

Harvey and I speaking at Club Workshop in Denver. Count how many times I say “Um”!

Derrick Field, California.

Sun, 29 May 2011 06:30:00 -0500

Derrick Field, California.

Made it back to Chicago alive. Working on a few averages from...

Sat, 28 May 2011 21:13:00 -0500

Made it back to Chicago alive. Working on a few averages from all of the video Harvey and I shot along the way. Here’s 4,323 frames from our drive along the Pacific Coast Highway.

Hey everyone. I’m at the Bay Area Maker Faire this...

Thu, 19 May 2011 19:42:00 -0500

Hey everyone. I’m at the Bay Area Maker Faire this weekend!

I’m showing off the Map Bag as part of the eTextiles Showcase. We’ll be showing of eTextiles projects on the stage in the Fiesta Hall on Saturday at 3 PM, and I’ll be giving a talk on Sunday at 12:30 on the Make Live stage.

Come by and say hi! If you’re hitting my site after talking with me at Maker Faire feel free to shoot me an email at joshbillions (at) mac (dot) com

I am taking custom orders for MapBags here at Maker Faire. If you’re interested, stop by and speak with me at entrance of the the Fiesta Hall.

Putting a few frames together to test…

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:34:00 -0500

Putting a few frames together to test…

Differencing and averaging radar data… Only about 140...

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:03:00 -0500

Differencing and averaging radar data… Only about 140 samples so far, but I think it’s coming along nicely. (Going to let it run for about a month straight.)

Conversation Pool is a project I’m working on that listens...

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:44:00 -0500

Conversation Pool is a project I’m working on that listens to web traffic on a network and pulls out images as people browse. The images the analyzed using OpenCV and similar shapes, faces, and colors are picked out of each image. The Conversation Pool software assembles a collage in real time.

The software is nowhere near finished, but it’s analyzing properly, and it doesn’t crash every five minutes now! I’m working on the branching code right now to help create more dynamic compositions (it prefers the center of the screen a little much right now).

Posting something on the internet counts as a ghost of done, so here it is.

MapBag: A Proprioceptive Augmentation Device

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 22:49:00 -0500

Just wanted to show everyone a new project that I’m working on.

I see the MapBag as a solution to two problems:

1) Re-experiencing the city

I find myself often getting locked into a point A to point B commute mode here in Chicago. The city is full of amazing things to experience, but I inevitably settle into the most efficient and comfortable path to and from work / school. My solution to escape A -> B travel has been to take up the Situationist tactic of Dérive. While a Dérive is a great method for rediscovering/remapping the city, it requires the absence of a deadline to be effective. Should I tell myself before wandering, “I need to be home by 10 PM” I end up constantly evaluating my current position in the grid of the city. This constant evaluation can take the magic right out of the process. The MapBag, as Dérive tool, provides a way to more intuitively experience the city.

2) Biking without distraction

Last Summer while biking to work I got doored. My bike was a little messed up, I lost some blood, but the guy who doored me was great and I’m all fixed up. However, I’m much more careful in the city now. Just like performing a Dérive on a time constraint requires constant evaluation of position inside of the City, so does biking. The MapBag allows me to navigate without any kind of visual distraction.

How it works:

The MapBag contains a small microcontroller, a GPS chipset, and a series of 8 vibration motors sewn into the bag. The microcontroller constantly evaluates the wearer’s current heading and the location of magnetic North, or the relative location of a user-defined waypoint (such as home). The microcontroller informs the wearer of compass information through the vibration motors, basically allowing you to read a compass with your body.

After using the MapBag for a few weeks, the slight pulses used to convey heading information have become second nature. Most importantly, I no longer find myself using street signs or depending on landmarks to discern my position in the city’s grid.

Construction:

The MapBag is based on the LilyPad Arduino microcontroller. The LilyPad is a washable, sewable microcontroller designed for eTextile projects.

The LilyPad is sewn directly onto my Chrome messenger bag, and connected to a 2000mA/h battery and charging circuit from SparkFun electronics.

Power is routed through the bag’s lining (thanks to Tania Campos who is a goddess with a sewing machine) and connects to a small perf-board directly opposite the arduino.

This perf-board serves as a breakout for the arduino and contains a 3.3V voltage regulator, a 5V to 3.3V level logic converter, and connections to a GPS chipset and vibration motors.

A small GPS chipset mounted on the arm strap of the bag allows the bag to constantly monitor speed, heading, latitude, and longitude.

Sewn into the back of the bag are a series of 8 shaftless vibration motors. These motors form a circle around your chest, and correspond with the points on a compass.

Debugging and configuration of the MapBag is handled via serial communication with a jailbroken iPhone running minicom.

Videos while under construction:

Same project and same code as before, but with a unified Z-axis....

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 02:51:00 -0600

Same project and same code as before, but with a unified Z-axis. In this mode hosts that are generating a lot of traffic form structures. My machine is the large grey tower.

My NetEnvironment project. Using Processing and the FBI’s...

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 02:05:00 -0600

My NetEnvironment project. Using Processing and the FBI’s Carnivore source code to generate a real time 3D environment that reflects current traffic on a network.

The code sniffs for all TCP/UDP connections and plots machines (cubes) and then draws connections between two machines (curves).

In this version higher port numbers (I had BitTorrent running) are higher in space, and lower port number are lower in space (take a close look when I refresh The New York Times website).

Super basic and super slow at this point, but hey, it works!

Missed

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:32:00 -0600

Missed

Photo

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:08:00 -0600