Meeting Notes and Pictures 03.01-03.11

The past few weeks have been centered around figuring out the who, what, when, where and why for our upcoming participatory design workshop. Monday 3.01 we had an on-the-spot brainstorming session about what kind of workshop activity we could do, and then Monday 3.08 we were handed the assignment of figuring out exactly what we are going to do. Today (3.11) we worked on the details of the event. Pretty fun.

Now to the notes:

03.01.2010

Use this time to start thinking about prototype which is due Thursday 03.04.
DiSalvo has to leave at 3…please arrive on time to set up!

Thursday Task: create a prototype = Develop idea for workshop

Strong idea: hacking with food producers
bring idea in on piece of paper (typed or written)
create lo-fi prototype

Let’s go around the room and brainstorm

Beth’s idea:

Vocab lesson, or

Take apart something

need an object
how do we know what object is a good object and what is a bad object?
What does object do abstractly?
I use scanner
tickle-me elmo – has simple mechanism for emergent behavior
good object = technically simple
bad object = clock. Very little correlation b/t moving parts on inside and outside. Open clock = complicates time
need to be able to take it apart
SO scanner on table might not work, but you could use it to capture image
when you take it apart, it must be interesting
take apart phones – new ones suck (only circuit board), old ones are interesting
once you take it apart, you can still do something interesting
accessability – needs to be an item someone can get / has seen before
Digital cameras are difficult – e.g. how does it go from electrical signal to soundwave

Lady Rogue

Joel’s twitter thing
what do we need to get this done?
Can order twitter kit
workbook? analog model?
Can be a workshop on something else
thought workshop was a brainstroming discussion
improv ideas – what can a machine doing in that space?
prop = image, discussion of how machines see, new framework for thinking about how to build machines
sunglasses that see only 3 pixels?
become like machines workshop

Thomas L

grid glasses
what are tasks that need to happen?
testing soil? so litmus paper gloves?

Anna

How can we understand robots to come up with better grounded ideas?
integrate robotics into garden?
Need: garden boxes, different kinds of sensors
how big are boxes? Some little ones, some big for team thinking. Get them to think about what’s possible
so, if we want boxes … think about logistics, we may need truck
“think like a designer,” you actually have to make this, so how do you make this happen?

Vasudhara

people want help using technology to facilitate community
suitable avenue for understanding usage
involving sensors…or not
what would prop be? What is information would you like to share? So what are common resources?
e.g. one woman wants to make low-sugar jams. She can’t make in her kitchen, b/c then she can’t sell. so what if there were a community space? UGA folks need these spaces…
so how do we discover what it is they want to share?
Mary’s input came up in a story based fashion; so maybe have them create stories
What if…we ask them to bring pics?

DiSalvo

Sunday: permaculture bus came to our neighborhood. Entire bus turned into school room incl. outside of bus – demo for composting, have chickens, model for closed-loop systems props = placards to transform inside of bus into a museum / learning experience
What if we made these placards around farm, revealing some aspect of the space they might not otherwise have thought of?

Delisha

maybe virtual version of farm?
use a panoramic vid
what if we can’t make it out to farm? How do we bring farm to people? Can we bring through video? Can we create immersive type environment?

Ethiopia

Likes museum, box plant
affix everything to plant; need to show what’s going on
so have a kit for plant; disturb the plant to observe its effects
could be a compelling exhibit

Continue to think about these things and what we would bring?

What about order? Need to have experiences with community to define workshops.

Another approach: just say this is an ethnographic type project, incl. interviews, but we want to have something where we make something together; we should learn like how we learn in kindergarten.

Sharing: since raw milk is illegal, some people own parts of cow. This is hack law. How can we own the cow?

Milk co-op: cost of selling milk too high, maybe that would be a resource.

what does a known community think its future will be? That’s an interesting question.

NEXT MONDAY! Need a date!!!

Incl. venue in workshop brainstorm

plant super power…what does it feel like to be dirt?

03.08.2010

Objective:
1. Lady Rogue’s presentation
2. trajectory for the rest of the semester

From here on out:
1. getting dirty / making stuff
2. slip back into readings

IMPERATIVE that we know what we want going into workshop and how to talk about it from a research perspective

Lady Rogue’s Presentation

What do robots see? How do you think that robots see?

First, participants were asked how to draw a picture of how they think a robot sees. Then they are put in groups and asked to create a basic, word-based algorithm for an eggplant picture based on a picture of an eggplant. Then groups swap algorithms to see what might work for their picture (which is distinct from the pictures used by another team).

Participants then engage in exercise where they create a basic algorithm for an apple picking robot, which is a Sally doll (think Nightmare Before Christmas). It’s underneath the box below. Should have taken pics of actual trees (d’oh).

Ethiopia fills out the apple-picking algorithm worksheet.

Close up

Vasudhara’s Expanded Idea

Images
thought bubbles

Could be written on in workshop or incorporated into pictures

Anna: Explanatoids: sticky notes on the world; could be interesting to do on a robot

what if there were sticky notes on the world explaining everything?
expert-generated content

Ethiopia

plant in a clear container
garden sensor from Fry’s
nice way to transport

Talked about last week: idea of a day-long session
allows for eating + session

first half of session = learning activities
Vasudhara + Delisha idea (projected pics on wall)
ask people to bring in pics; take pictures with thought bubbles
end with putting together plant + sensor

afternoon = concept generation

could use projected pics / videos in hallway (might not work due to too-hot projectors, possibility of blinding, etc.)
BUT life-sized photos could be fantastic

Would like to have something done before graduating students leave

consistencies: small scale, urban/suburban, range of food producers

general introduction about building trust + groundwork
so no dependencies between brainstorming and hacking workshop, but a connection would be “helpful but not necessary”

03.11.2010

Today’s meeting was all about putting together the pieces of the design workshop.