Festival2012/Submit/A Simple Building Block for the Physical Web
A Simple Building Block for the Physical Web
- Title of session: A Simple Building Block for the Physical Web
- Name and affiliation: Dan Wigglesworth
- Session format: Learning Lab
What will your session or activity allow people to make, learn or do?
- Learn: About web "pages" that are written for machines, not people (for example, "Open Data" for Public Transport next vehicle information, published as XML)
- Do: Brainstorm ideas for a very simple machine that will read and (highly selectively) display information from the web. This activity requires understanding the implications of the available data but also allows a lot of creativity in the output presentation which might include any of the following: LEDs, simple sounds (beeps), or moving parts (via a small stepper motor)
- Make: A physical "web page" (using arduino) that displays public transport next-vehicle information
How do you see that working?
Participants will bring or share a computer that they will use to browse open data sources including for example, public transport next vehicle information sources. They will share their findings including code snippets for interesting nuggets of information -- some big white-boards might be useful for this. Participants will also have an opportunity to examine a simple, functioning information display device that can access and display next vehicle information from the Web -- lots of tables/workbenches will be required. Some electronics including a few arduinos and prototyping "breadboards" (or pre-fabbed arduino shields) (or both) will be required. The display device will be available in each of several forms:
- Complete and functioning,
- Complete but unprogrammed,
- Disassembled.
Participants will have an opportunity to assemble the display device and to program the display device using their computers.
How will you deal with 5, 15, 50 participants?
There is a lot of opportunity for learning so a small group of 5 is ideal. A larger group of 15 will of course simply work in small groups -- the material lends itself naturally to multiple groups working in parallel with or without collaboration. More than 15 participants will have to be managed by spreading out participation over several hours (days?). Maybe it can be a drop in where participants will come and go as the days unfold. Many volunteers would be necessary. As it happens, by relying on the arduino, participants can spend time writing code (to gather data from the web) and spend even more time writing code to program the arduino's functionality. Writing code facilitates coming and going (since participants can take unfinished code with them so they might easily pick up where they left off later on).
How long within your session before someone else can teach this?
- Some participants might need less than an hour before they are ready to show the ropes to somebody else.
What do you see as outcomes after the festival?
- Some participants who have never even heard of the arduino before might rush out right away to buy their own and get straight to work
- If this is a continuous learning lab and if it is well funded, there could be some very surprising results. For example, Ravenbourne itself or a local cafe or pub might, as a legacy of this Mozilla Festival, be permanently adorned by a novel, beautiful, practical, physical manifestation of the web
