Wednesday this week was Quarters. We had 5 different prototypes up and running:
- A light-strip based competition, as seen in previous weeks. For Quarters, we had 2 teams to choose from, and points were earned by answering movie rating trivia.
- An initial WiFi based proximity detection demo. A strip of lights would change color based on whether or not it is within a certain distance of the designated Wifi signal.
- A robotic arm controlled by an Arduino over the internet. We had 2 separate control stations set up, each with different controls. The 2 players had to work together to pick up blocks and drop them into a ring.
- A robotic assistant built entirely on voice recognition and speech synthesis. She can have (unusual) conversations, answer questions, and translate English into other languages.
- A game of checkers influenced by Twitter trends. This was simply a digital simulation, but it showed the potential to influence certain board game elements with real-time data.
Generally, people were most interested in the robotic arm and the board game.
The robotic arm was a fun activity that people really enjoyed playing with. While we enjoy the idea ourselves, it doesn’t quite have the right potential to be worth spending much more time on.
The board game was fairly abstract at this point, with the connections between the data and the game being completely arbitrary. However, people saw a lot of potential in the concept. We plan to explore the idea further.
Click here to see a more in depth video walkthrough of each of the ETC SV teams, including EnterNet.
We are temporarily shifting back into and brainstorming mode, reflecting on the feedback and existing works discussed during Quarters.
Also this week, we have made important progress on the manufacturing side of development. Laura and Vivek went and toured our local TechShop maker space, and Laura now officially has a membership on behalf of the team. Just today, she completed the training class for 3D printing, so we hope to make good use of that soon.