090909, HKU

It was 09.09 in the morning of 090909 when I took the train to the Hague. It is a 20 minutes journey from Schiedam to Holland Spoor and I usually take a walk to the office from there.

There was nobody when I arrived. I opened the door for the first time with my own key and started working. In a few minutes Graham and his partner Robbert appeared too. I got the sources from Robbert and directly begun to study them.

The sources are written in Java by Tim. The source is based on Java4Skype API. Java4Skype is a project started by a Japanese and a Dutch guy. It gives possibility to write plugins for Skype in Java. The source contains about 10 classes. Some of them are the user interfaces and others are for other reasons. This plugin is made to control the movable WebCam remotely when Skype is running. It can turn the camera to right, left, up and down. It can also zoom in or out. The plugin uses the very well-known serial communication Serial Port COM. In order to get that, a usb-serial converter is needed on a mac mini.
Well, I got a converter and a bunch of cables from Graham with a WebCam and I started my trial to understand the code. After a few hours trying, I could finally get the software work and be able to move the camera around. The Extention from Comport to the Webcam jack was eventually damaged. But we succeeded to get a result. Well, to be honest, the extension was not the only problem. Some Jar libraries were also missing when I got the source from Robbert. So I had to google and find the right ones.

It was about two hours in the afternoon when I went for a break with my colleague Annelies. After finding the sandwich shop, we got two sandwiches. One for her and one for Robbert. They seemed deliciouse ;) and after the break the work continued.

I continued studying the code and at the end of the day I made an appointment with my traineeship coach Mr. Abdel Ghany for friday to sign the contract with Graham.

The next day I, Graham, Christina and Annelies went to HKU for the kick off. HKU is the Utrecht School of the Arts in Utrecht. Graham has thaught for a few years there. We met a new group there who also work on the CyberCity project. Rick, Rene, Nick, Klara, Julien, Martha, Nicolo and Daniele are the members of the new group from HKU. We all introduced ourselves and the kick was off ;). Many things were discussed. It helped me to get a better image of the project on which we work.
The team is very energetic and enthausiast about the project. I hope it will continue that way, and I as see Christina and Graham, they keep up the spirit of the group.

On the way back to the Hague Christina told us that we might be sponsored to go Essen to see the exhibition hall. It seems very interesting as Essen is the cultural capital of 2010. Well, until then... let's wait :)

The CyberCity and it's "people"

CyberCity is a model. It can be described as the imitatioin of our future robotic lives. It is a model of a city with builduings, roads and crossings. It definitly also has people who live in there, the robots. There are mainly 3 kinds of robots. The cable robot, the Internet robot and the Display robot.

Cable robot is a simple robot which is made of wires, a control unit with a few buttons and the engine part with wheels. It is meant for the beginners, mostly children between 8-18, to build their first own robot and get an impression of how things work.

The Internet robots is actually the macMini equipped with webcams, wheels and other sensors. It is a standalone robots which can be controlled wireless. These robots can be controlled over cities, countries and even continents. It is locally connected via wifi and it is further connected via Skype to it's destination.

The Display robot is a high quality audio video robot which works only loaclly. The audio and video are HD.

The Cybercity will be put into show and use in two large exhibitions at Essen and Shanghai which both will take place in 2010. So until then the project should be succesfully done.

Different people will be workig on the project.

Annelies Wisse is a student at the university of TU Delft. She is doing her masters on Industerial Design. She will be working on the interface of the robots and other design/interface aspects. This is her thesis project. I met her, Stella Boess and Aadjan van Helm at the Univerysity of TU Delft at the kick off on monday the 7th of september. Aadjan is Annelies' mentor and Stella is the chair at the university.

There are also two other students from the HKU(Hogeschool voor Kunsten Utrecht) who will be working with us.

My main function in this project is to program and adapt the existing code of WebChair project which is written in Java. Robbert Smit will supervise me during my stay at WebChair/Presence Displays.

At the moment I am looking how to solve the problem of managing of the robots. Momentarily, if anyone logs int the robot, he will be controlling it unlimited. So this should be solved in a way to limit it so more people will be able to use it. I think I am going to put a loging system before the control unit which will control the program in a new Thread upto the given time.