Ha! Got it to work with real data… cheap way out though… ran my Java code and made it spit out the data to a file… then copied the data from the file into C so that I had a “hard coded” array in the source code – no need to figure out how to read a file and parse bytes in C 🙂
Here is the visualization with the real data:

Not very enlightening but if you stretch your imagination you can see when I am more active (riding bike and going up and down stairs). Next step, if I have time, is to sync the data points with the actual time of the readings – just have to figure out what the sample rate of the accelerometer is 🙂

For “Computers for the Rest of You” we have to plot data we recorded from a wearable device and plot it in an interesting way.
I wore an accelerometer that connected to a J2ME application on a phone via Bluetooth… the data was then sent to the computer via Bluetooth again using a Java app to read the serial port. Another Java program then processes the data to convert the bytes into floats.
I then wrote a program to draw a wobbling sphere in C/OpenGL.
Now I just have to port the Java program into C/OpenGL so that I can read the data in the later and display the sphere moving according to real data.
This video shows the movement of the sphere using the keyboard to change its parameters… Not quite what I want but it will do for now.

What I really wanted was to write a program that simulates a sphere with surface tension in zero gravity just like this one:

We did this quick code in Computational Forms today…

One more Computational Forms homework… this one was tricky even though the results look stunningly simple…
Click HERE to the homework.
Bezier curves are quite interesting – check this link out.
This is the video for one of the problems:

For next week I intend to develop the following game in Flash for the kids at Seton.

Introduction

The Tamagotchi game consists of some sort of a virtual pet that requires the user to interact with it in order to keep it happy, entertained or sometimes alive. The user can feed it, pet it, play with it and do anything else the pet allows it to do.

The idea for an Inclusive Tamagotchi pet is that with a simple switch, the users can interact with the virtual pet in a simple and effective manner. The game would be simplified so that the pet never dies and that a single interaction with it produces great and very visible results.

The game will allow the OT to create separate Tamagotchis for each kid so that each kid has their own pet and that the interaction with the pet is a cumulative experience and does not have to be rest each time the game starts. The kids will be able to customize the Tamagotchi’s color and even look and feel.

Objectives

For the kids at Seton, I believe such a game could achieve the following objectives:
• Create a connection between a physical object and the on-screen pet
• Demonstrate causality of action/reaction
• Give the kids something they will feel that they own and that grows with them
• Stimulate the curiosity for computer games
• Have fun!

Proposal

The game will be built using Flash and will use a keyboard emulator to enable the connection of any switch to control the game.
A settings menu will be presented at the start with the list of existing Tamagotchi pets created and the option to create a new one.
Within a Tamagotchi, you can customize its character (3 different pets available) and the general color scheme of the pet and the environment in which he lives in.
The Tamagotchi will always be moving on the screen attempting to grab the user’s attention.
The interactions with the Tamagotchi will be limited to eating, playing, and resting. An on screen button for each option will be presented using the scanning method for selection. Alternatively, the user could be presented with three switches – each representing one of the actions.
Points will be awarded for every interaction the user has with the Tamagotchi. The “age” of the Tamagotchi will also be maintained so that the users can compare which Tamagotchi has been played with for the longest time.

So here is my first attempt at modeling and animating a character… chose a dog… very slow animation and not done very carefully… but here it is:

This time we worked with the superposition of sin and cos waves.
Check it out HERE.

Starting to work on a game for children… a simple tamagochi where the character (a dog) on-screen asks to be petted… a real stuffed animal with switches will then know if the child has petted the right place.
Click HERE to see the first version to test the code and switch… press any key on the keyboar to make it bark and move its mouth 🙂
Now I have to add switches to the rest of the stuffed animal and create a more interesting (and pretty for that matter) dog on screen which will to be petted and point to where it wants to be petted.

And here we go! New version of the Inclusive Pong Flash Game!

Click HERE to play in full screen.

Right-click HERE for the source Flash file.