Exhibition day at Hyper Island.

Think I have written to much in this blog, since Im a sucker for english.
This is almost the last blogg we will write and surely the last one for me. Today was Exhibition day and it was really special.

This morning about 8:50 am we were not totally ready, since the technology were failing we had to check everything all over again. We got it to work and people liked it even thou some didnt even want to go in at first, since they was to scare it might have been because of the text outside the box. here it is.

"Welcome to the monsterbox, the most terrifying room in the whole Experience Technology Exhibition. We give you a flashlight and the opportunity to step into a whole new environment, far away from the exhibition. Do you see the eyes in the dark, then look them up, see what it is. Give them light and they shall give you a pleasent welcome."

The screaming of our monsters were loud in the exhibition area, pretty funny.

I would also like to give a second to say a few things about our group. We have had our up's and down's but I think we managed well with all our tasks, the project plan, the article, the prototype and the exhibition. Even the blog has been interesting to read every day.
Feedback to my colleagues in the group, see it as "post it" notes but digital form.
This is only positivt feedback since all things that is negative is to hard to put up on the internet.



To all off you, thank you for a lot of good laughs.

Also some feedback to "Lille pojken", "Snuttan", "Svarta mannen" and "Gröna gubben" great work even if you were not that scary.

Now its time to drink some and just relax. The perfect ending of a very special project.
Hope to work with you guys some more. It has been really great.

Best regards,
Patric

judgement day

The moment of the trouth is getting near us, we from the group one, let us get together, lets hold our hands together, make a positive circle - the circle of friendship and let the mighty mighty MAX/MSP hears our song:

Judgement day has come -all the other groups are done
Smiles on their faces, make our calm turn to unpatience

It's time for monster box to be ready- to turn a meeting room into a kruger freddy
It's not cool when it goes bad, you make us becaome very sad

Please our little MAX, let the sound work as good as on wax
Max, the lord of the lords, the king of the kings, hear our single-lingle-lings
------
we have finaly put everything into the darkroom and made the prototype actually work. I felt a great reliefe when Axel and Martin made the mix bord separate pack two differtent sounds into one output chanel and solve the problem we have been working on this whole week, while Patric is saving my lazybloggers ass on his own initiative and put great inläggs online, and Niklas is struggeling with the exhibition group and make our visitors understand why we have been sitting and banging our heads with technology... great job mates! We kick ass! Yeah

Last day before Prototype deadline.

We have everything set up for tomorrow,
now we just have to take the bits and pieces and put them together.

We have totally black room.
We have a working arudino chip and Max msp code.
We have an exhibition coming up.
We have had a lot of fun,
so now lets do this.

We are not as dramatic as this
hamster but tomorrow will be war against the time, but we will make it anyway.

I promise you.
/ Patric

Enduring Technology

Close your eyes. Imagine you are once again in front of the arduino. It’s early Saturday morning, and the fog have set in for the day. Whatever toy you reach for it will have to entertain you for a long time. That is for your desire to be stimulated, for the beauty in electricity logics or for the completely easily understood java-syntax. Maybe it is an erector set, an arduino bord or legos. Whatever it is chances are it has a lot of fascinating widgets that will keep you immersed in building a world in which your imagination is king. Or not.

The truth so far would have to be modified from the prologue. The fantasies are interrupted and fragmented by the technological fence. Technology is not the friend you prepare your dreams with, not the brother you risk your life for - it is in its signification the biatch that you will have to learn to live with. Adapt and concur.

Although the striving has been an every day companion I would like to give my appreciation to the group members. Axel – for your input of structure and your concern for the groups overall enthusiasm. Patrik – for your ease to collaborate and trustfully approach to deliver tasks. Niklas – for finding your own way to contribute with the issues concerning the exhibition. Nemo – for your patience with my fantasies of licking the resistors. It is because of this group symmetry, I believe we will make it to the exhibition.

In the creation of the exciting sound and light installation, the very essence of the fucked up technology will be presented in the most serious of work. Imagination is king.

Love

Martin Brolin

Feedback friday

It was feedback friday today so we are all a bit tired.
We also decided new guidelines for the last week of the project.
Tell you more about this later on.

best regards patric sundling

Max MSP?

This is Axel behind the keyboard. Today hasn't seen a whole lot of things happening, although the few things that have happened are quite good.

A big part of the day was spent listening to a lecture, with an equally big part of the afternoon being rather hard to work in due to the preparations for the party this evening. However, we've managed to get some help with both the Arduino chip (from our module leader in London) and Max MSP, an application for sound and light hardware programming through a graphical UI.

The help with Max especially could turn out to be very useful. A classmate of us showed us a few basic patches that a friend of him had put together, and it seemed to us that these, with some tweaking, could be used for what we have in mind. Of course, this does't change our lingering feedback issues with the Arduino; it still acts quite unreliable, and we still have trouble determining the source of the problem.

Through diligence and preserverance, we shall triumph.

/Axel & Group 1

wednesday! words from Niklas

hey blogg readers!
so now 1.5 weeks later we are going forward in slow speed.. we where on stage one again but amrtin and nemo is crackin the codes to the chip and we are hoping everything will turn out well. they are doing a real hard work for the group and im very impressed of their lack of patience.

so any way i have been doing some illustrations for the blogg and logo with patrik and very nice monsters made by axel widen. today me and patrick went down to the city and bought some more electric stuff so we can experience more and make everything easyer for the crackers.

I also was put in the exhibition group to present the project for the outside world. we are one member from each group and our main task is to present and invite people to see our projects. we also have to put all briefs together and make a paper.
its going slow there too but kinda good. all flyers and posters are sent to print and we are gonna put them up in schools and coffe shops.

ME AXel and oskar took the task to make posters and flyers and we also gonna try and make monters to all groups in one black and white theme. and also see if we get cash for that.
anyway everything is going slow but steady and we are positive on our project and it will be great when its finished. so hold your thumbs and we will succeed!!!


The End!

A bit sick, some trouble but we will make it.

This is my second post in our blog.
Last time I wrote it wasn't that much but I think this time I have more things on my mind that I want you to take part in.

This day has been a mess, I have felt pretty sick and my ambition to take care of things hasn't been were high, even thou that fact today has been a good day in a bad way.
We know have good control of the situation, our kinda problematic situation where we don't know what program we shall work in when we code the arduino chip and how we shall make our prototype to work. we have a few suggestions which Martin and Nemo told us about in our latest meeting a couple of hours ago and it feels like we know where we are but we really dosen't know yet how to solve everything.
Anyhow I have to give so much good feedback to Martin and Nemo, how hard they are working with the chip and how much the right now meen for the group. If they make it we will make it and I like to say that I think its so strong of them to keep up a good spirit with the technical part.

Tomorrow is a new day full of suprises and I look forward to meet it in a better mood than today.
Until then.
best regards,
Patric

Group Dynamics 666

Hi, Axel here. First entry for me! I'd like to adress two different topics here, the first being a very short description of what we're doing, the second being my experiences of group dynamics during this particular project.

Let's start with what we're actually working on, from the user's point of view. We've decided to make something we've dubbed the MonsterBox. This is a small, completely dark room you step into. Eyes glare menacingly at you from the dark, and all you have to discover this new environment with is a flashlight. When shining towards the potentially threatening eyes, you discover that they belong to a multitude of terrifying/cute/confusing monsters! These monsters react to you shining on them by emitting unique shrieks and sounds. How you interact with this environment is now up to you. Will you use your flashlight to produce a symphony of monstous screams? Will you compete with your friends to see who can trigger most monsters in the shortest time? You decide.

That's the surface. That's what we're working on. Now, I'm going to move on and talk about what I've experienced in terms of group dynamics during this project.

The main thing here, for me, has been a new insight in what it means to make sure everyone gets their ideas across. The MonsterBox was an idea that we didn't really discuss. Rather, it was a sudden idea that hit me and that I enthusiastically "sold" to the group. Although there was general agreement on the idea being fun and something we should work towards, concern was later raised about the resulting lack of a brainstorming session where different ideas could have been discussed and idea-generating techniques put to practice. For me, this was a humbling experience and something I'll take with me. Enthusiastic as I might be over one particular idea, I should always make sure that different options are considered and evaluated.

Another insight related to this phenomenon is something I've labeled "nodding-syndrome". Nodding-syndrome is what you get in a new group when people go out of their way to agree and strive towards a common goal. Someone brings something up, but instead of thouroughly discussing this topic, everyone nods, agrees, and moves forward. The problem with this is that there's no way of making sure everyone has understood what, exactly, the person who brought up the topic had in mind. Agreement and maintaining a positive atmosphere becomes more important. My theory about this is that the group members are too careful, afraid to find flaws or point out problems in each other's suggestions. The downside is, of course, that the person pitching the idea in question feels like he doesn't get heard or understood. Eventually the idea just dissapears because no one really got it the first time around, even though everyone nodded and mumbled! One way for you as an individual to counter this on a group level, I think, is to make sure you're 100% certain of what someone means and what he wants to achieve with an idea that he brings up. This should be done with well-meaning, curious questions, not with questions worded as skeptical criticism. If you start being curious, then most likely others will follow and you'll get a proper discussion about the idea.

As for the more mundane side of our project, today has seen Patric and Niklas doing wonders with the blog design and group logo, featuring cutez0r monsters by yours truly. Though Nemo made a heroic effort at putting in some hours here, the fever outmanouvered him and he was firmly ordered back home. Martin has been hard at work with graphical UI software for the Arduino, and me, well, I've been here, being abstract and noisy.

Yours truly,

/Axel & G1