April 18th, 2013
Micro movement sensing
Use the orientation sensor in a cell phone to monitor small regular movements. For example, the movement due to the heart beat. It might be possible to measure breathing movement. It may also be possible to measure anomalous movements–tremors, the sway due to microadjustments involved in standing.
Also, if the heartbeat moves a phone to a noticeable degree, does this make cell phone photos blurrier? If so, add heartbeat detection to the camera app–have pictures be snapped between heartbeats.
Basically, orientation data would be collected, and a frequency analysis done to detect the freq and amplitude of the movements. I don’t know how fast the orientation can be polled. If it is too slow, it may be possible to use intermittent polling at precise times to identify the frequency of movements.
Shadow boxing
A related use would be as a shadow boxing app. This would clearly be better as a wrist strap standalone device, but might work as an app. Hold the phone in a hand (or strap it firmly to the wrist), and follow the movements of the hand/arm, recording punches and the speed of them. The user would indicate the hand being scored in setup, and then as hands are switched, the punching of the two could be compared. Groups of friends could play together to see who can punch the fastest or do the most punches in 30s.
Spectrophotometer
This app would run simultaneously on two phones. One phone would display bands of pure red, blue, and green. A sample would be placed across one half of the bands. The second phone would take a picture of the first phone. Image analysis would compare the brightness of the control and sample covered regions and calculate absorbance in the three channels. Cell phone displays are either OLED or IMOD. There are a range of displays used in phones, so this would never be super accurate without calibration. The OLED displays seem to have fairly narrow spectrum pure colors while the iphones have broader colors.
This could be used either as an exploration tool–test substances and record spectra, or reference data could be used to make guesses at substances.
Or you could use a diffraction gratings and make a real spec.
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March 14th, 2013
1) Calculate object heights using the orientation sensor. Walk off (or use Google maps, or GPS) the distance to an object, then use the angle of base to top and trig to determine height.
–I checked The Play Store, and there are 2-4 apps that already do this.
2) Cute baby / ugly baby. Have people submit pics of babies, other users score them. A lowbrow app. Mostly used by friends or random passersby taking pictures of babies and submitting them. The app could also show the cutest / ugliest babies locally, by state, by country. Easy to implement. Definitely should be a pay app.
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February 24th, 2013
Upgraded to sdcc 3.2.0 from 2.9.0, and gputils to 1.0.0. The build commands I was using didn’t work, chnages to the .c file and build commands were needed:
Changes to the .c file:
Drop:
__code char __at(__CONFIG1H) __conf1h = _OSC_INTIO67_1H;
__code char __at(__CONFIG2H) __conf2h = _WDT_OFF_2H; //out for p18f4620
__code char __at(__CONFIG2L) __conf2l = _PWRT_OFF_2L & _BOREN_OFF_2L;
__code char __at(__CONFIG3H) __conf3h = _MCLRE_OFF_3H & _PBADEN_OFF_3H; //out for p18f4620
__code char __at(__CONFIG4L) __conf4l = _XINST_OFF_4L & _DEBUG_OFF_4L & _LVP_ON_4L;
Add:
#include "pic18f46k20.h"
#pragma config FOSC=INTIO67, BOREN=OFF, PWRT=OFF, MCLRE=OFF, PBADEN=OFF, XINST=OFF, DEBUG=OFF, LVP=ON, WDTEN=OFF
//Instead of WDT=OFF, see the .inc file
//Instead of OSC, use FOSC, see the .inc file
The CONFIG settings in /usr/local/share/sdcc/non-free/include/pic16/pic18f46k20.h and /usr/local/share/gputils/header/p18f46k20.inc do not match. WDT changes to WDTEN, OSC to FOSC
Command to compile:
/usr/local/bin/sdcc -V -mpic16 --use-non-free -p18f46k20 -c p18_step_control.c -Wl"-s ./18f46k20.lkr"
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February 16th, 2013
Have a game of electronic (or just electric) circuits. Give the player a few parts, as many wires as needed, and a goal. The player attaches the parts until the goal is achieved. The simplest case would be a battery and a light bulb, with the goal being to light the bulb.
Other basic components can be added, resistors, caps, diodes, LEDs, etc. The game would involve only simple circuits, to make it easier and to make modeling the results from the circuits the users make easier.
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February 15th, 2013
Flip it
This game board is an array of tiles. The tiles have letters. The game play involves flipping a pair of letters, as if the two tiles can move through the screen on the axis that connects them. In any case, they move switches them. The goal is to rearrange the tiles to spell words.
Move:
cat --flip c:a--> act
dog ------------> dog
cat --flip c:d--> dat
dog ------------> cog
The game can be played different sized boards, and with boards with cutouts.
Variation 1: Have the tiles have both color and a letter, to distinguish common letters.
Variation 2: Have the tiles be two sided, so that flipping them exposes the other sides.
What is interesting about this is that it is a class of games easy to implement in the computer but which is hard or impossible to implement as a physical game. There is a whole class of variations on pen and pencil or board games that haven’t been tried because of this!
Posted in Books, funny, hobbies, ideas, Software, Uncategorized | No Comments »
