mobile hardware + guest lecture

Just a short update this time about last weeks meeting. Most of the day was devoted to exploring and getting to know the Arduino and the SUN Spot. Both are independent microprocessors with the latter even being able to wirelessly connect to remote computer. Both bring new possibilities to the table when it comes to prototype building. Obviously prototypes can be made much more interesting when they dont have to be connected to a desktop computer by wire.

Another part of the day was devoted to a guest lecture from a professor from Germany who gave a guest lecture. In my opinion this wasn't that interesting because it was basically a slideshow of examples of interaction design without really going into depth on one of them. I think this lecture might have been more useful to us when we would have had it at the beginning of the course. Also it might have been better to treat a few less examples and just dive into a few of them in more detail.

As far as the big project is concerned. We are planning to stick with our initial idea of making a a shoe that motivates kids to exercise more. During the next meeting we will further crystalize our ideas into a workable planning that will lead to a working product. Our group is still working very well and I think our succes will mainly lie in our diverse backgrounds. During the next post I will probably be able to show our planning and to-do-list for the meetings still te come.