BereaHCI

Yesterday was an exciting day. Our team's project was accepted for the International Symposium on Academic Makerspaces 2022(ISAM) conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This acceptance brings me much joy because this is my first research. Coming into this research, I did not know what to expect but still, my teammates and I worked hard to complete our objectives. We faced stepbacks but overcame them. I became nervous when my teammate showed me previous submissions from last year. I thought we did not have a chance because people of all backgrounds were among the participants. As our project progressed, my confidence gradually started to restore daily. Even though this conference is competition-focused, I began to believe that our project had a fighting chance.

When we got our altar to work correctly, I would post snippets of it working on Snapchat. My snaps generated a lot of conversions, mainly questions about what the altar was and how it worked. Other people would just leave messages expressing how cool our altar is. These replies increased my confidence in this project and my belief that the ISAM committee will accept it for the conference. My hope now is that we fulfill all requirements needed so that we can attend the conference. I believe that this admission means that our paper gets to be published. If my belief is true, then I have a reason to celebrate. I have been considering attending grad school after graduation with my bachelor's degree. A publication will give me a good look at my CV and resume.

Today, I continued to work on a circuit tutorial for the ThanatoFenestra. I am using google slides to create this tutorial. I think that using google Slides is a good idea because I do not feel that I have to explain what each component does. After all, those descriptions are found in our paper’s Design and Implementation portion. A slide makes me more precise with my words as it’s picture focused. I set up the tutorial in two sections. I have a condensed section headlined by the schematic and connections. This section is for those that have experience with building circuits. They can look at a schematic and be able to build it without explanations. I have another section that goes step by step. This section is for people who have minimal to no skills with circuit-building.

I finished a rough tutorial draft, but it had to be improved. My advisor left comments on the slides file that I was working on, and one key suggestion was to use the correct colors in the circuit. Red for power and black or grey for ground are the colors generally associated with each term. I used Red for power and Blue for ground in my circuit, so I needed to change the blue wires to black. Making this modification is not much work, but I did not want to take new pictures, so I colored over the blue wires. I think that I did a good job with this tutorial.

As we approach the last week of our program, there are objectives we still need to finalize in order to have a proper Open-Source DIY altar. Our goals include: 1) progressing beyond a breadboard circuit, 2) explore paper structures/origami for the altar’s hood, 3) cement a DIY friendly documentation , 4) academic poster revision for future presentations, and 5) staging the altar for a different cultural context. These objectives were defined on Friday, July 29. With this list before us, I began working on the DIY documentation by first taking the dimensional placement of all the inner components. Starting with the projector, I measured the distance from the projector’s side to the inner wall of the component box. I did this around all four sides to define the precise placement of the projector. I repeated these steps with each internal component. 

With these measurements my intention was to include the hardware into the altar’s 3D model. As soon as I began drafting these measurements up in Inventor, I realized I also need the measurements of the components themselves, not just the placement dimensions. So, I returned to the physical altar and made note of the hardware’s dimensions. From there, I continued drafting the 3D model in Inventor. This job took up the entirety of the Friday work day with some to spare for next week. I wish to note that the most challenging components to draft was certainly the Mirror and its easel. I had drafted an easel, previously, in a separate file. However, I drafted it specifically for making a cardboard print using the laser machine and not my for the current 3D model. This, combined with my limited 3D modeling experience I couldn’t import the easel file, so I had to remake it inside the current model. Making this 3D overhaul a long session of trial and error.

July 28, Thursday morning, upon arrival at the MakerSpace I spoke with Dr. Jone’s about our presentation from the previous day. During the conversation, it was suggested that at some point in the day we document the deployment of the altar during the presentation. In this context, Deployment is when the piece of technology that is being worked on is taken out of the laboratory for some “real world” testing and feedback. Outstanding, that even in the technological world, the concept does not stray far from the dictionary explanation of the term. In this post, I will detail the altar’s deployment from my observational lens. 

The day was Wednesday, July 27, approximately 30 minutes prior to our URCPP presentation at 4pm. The team was readying the altar for deployment. Considering our upcoming demonstration, we were aware the altar functionality has a tendency to be temperamental if the candle’s flame doesn’t glow just right. With this in mind, we packed two tea candles for self assurance. One gently used candle (the altar’s favorite) and a fresh candle, in case the altar doesn’t  fancy leftovers. As we entered room 356/357 of the MAC building, we immediately began the hunt for an electrical outlet. Though the projector was charged, the RaspberryPi requires a steady supply of juice directly from the source. Due to the limited length of the rPi’s power cord, we sought to use the outlets embedded in the desks. Tragedy struck when the rPi’s plug was too bulky for the electrical socket beneath the opening of the table. It was then, when I backtracked to the lab for an extension cord. Upon return, with extension cord in hand, I found the altar glowing, with rPi’s power cord at full stretch and its plug lost into the wired electrical crevice at the desk’s foot.

Just as one problem was solved, another emerged. WiFi connectivity issues kept us from running a headless rPi program initialization. This meant that invasive bluetooth keyboard surgery was required to bring the altar to life. Then we gave the presentation and demoed the altar. At the conclusion of the presentation, Dr. Bouchat reassured us that the altar worked as we had hoped and the altar's functionality was surprisingly visible to the audience, despite its small size. 

Last week, we presented our altar to the URCPP group. I feel like we gave a great demonstration, and I also like how the audience received our work. Our audience asked not many questions, so I think we covered the main points in our presentation. After every group presented, some professors and students showed great interest in our altar with further questions. Even though this was presented in a small group, the interest in this idea showed me that this growing field of slow technology, HCI, etc has a future. 

Although the presentation went great, there were some unseen troubles. The main problem was with controlling the Raspberry Pi remotely. When preparing our presentation, the goal was to use VNC viewer software on a laptop, allowing the Raspberry to be used through another computer. This was needed to run the required commands on the Raspberry Pi and start our program. This was not possible as we could not connect the Raspberry to WIFI but we were able to run the program and give a proper demonstration.

Every two weeks, three groups of URCPP students organize presentations to update other URCPP students and their mentors on the project/ research they have been working on. This Wednesday was the last day of presentations, and we were one of the groups to demonstrate our six-week process on the fabrication and replication of Thanato Fenestra.

We spent the first half of the week preparing for the presentation by reconstructing the altar, making final edits to the altar, and designing and testing our presentation. We rebuilt the altar because each of us have been working on further altar development. As I mentioned in a previous post, we built a new component housing compartment to get closer to finalizing the internal placement of the components. Additionally, we made some adjustments to the image processing program. We refactored the code so that when the altar is initialized, the program will log the ambient temperature and lighting of the room. By taking an environment “snapshot” at initialization, the altar will now be able to react to the condition of the tea candle without regard for ambient variations during the altar’s use. This has proven to be a more stable programmed solution for the altar, ensuring that less bugs will creep up during a presentation scenario. 

Simultaneously, we were sketching ideas for the URCPP presentation. Initially, we prepared a slide only presentation. The group was at a bit lost in regard to our approach in speaking about our altar. But after our initial practice session, Dr. Jones provided some much appreciated insight for improving the presentation. Not least of which was performing a live demonstration of how one would use the actual prototype altar. From there, our presentation approach was: introduction, high-level demo and explanation, lower-level sensor explanation, originating background, package explanation, and component comparison of the old and new altar.

This week our team is going to present to the URCPP group, I’ve been looking forward to showing off our work, but I do have my doubts. This presentation will focus on our current progress, giving me a sense of relief because we will not be required to present our final results. I am happy we have a working model, but it is not within my expectations. Our altar works and does everything it is supposed to, but not in the way we intend. Our current altar can only work in one light setting, its behavior changes when the ambient light setting changes. I took our prototype to a study room in the Marget A. Cargill (MAC) building, and my results were interesting. I chose this area because I could manipulate the lighting as I like. What I found was that our current program was inefficient. The slightest lighting change greatly affected the altar. I noticed that even my movements affected the way the altar functioned. The altar would iterate through images whenever I changed my position, but the iteration would stop when I returned to my position.

The replication and reconstruction process of Thanato Fenestra is a long-term study where our group and I are putting our effort into the techno altar's fabrication and design. In the future, we are thinking of future researchers to contribute their thoughts and ideas so the altar can expand and be used in homes from multiple cultural backgrounds to practice their memory ritual traditional practices. This week, we thought of coming up with different designs for the top part of the expanded compartment housing all the components: the RPI, the computer, projector, mirror, and the breadboard. Our initial design had multiple cardboard rings to provide an enclosed space. Although this design was functional, especially since the rings we not placed parallel to each other but intersected to use more space, Dr. Jones suggested us an alternative design with a geometric shape. This origami geometric paper pattern is aesthetically pleasing and covers more ground. But once we started following the tutorial, we found it complicating following the instructions as they were unclear, and the images were posted in a non-chronological order. Initially, after spending approximately an hour tracing the multiple lines to fold in the 8.5 by 11 inches white paper, and folding the right parts to produce an origami barrel structure, I had to pause and look for another tutorial. One that would indicate the foldable lines easily instead of trying to figure it out by zooming in the pictures and counting the lines. After searching the origami barrel structure, I followed the illustration of a photograph showing the measurements and foldable lines in the paper and its 3D version on the side. I found this picture helpful in replicating the origami but complicated when folding the lines. It took our colleague and I more than enough time to fold it correctly. But our long process was justified because we did not know until a student working besides our MakerSpace room helped us and told us the barrel structure was advanced origami. After completing one, we decided to create an additional one because the form was not enough to cover the open space. It was challenging whether to follow the exact measurements with larger paper sizes only to create one structure instead of multiple ones and join them. But we didn't know if it would produce a different pattern or be more complicated. Therefore, we decided to stick with the regular-sized papers and created two identical ones.

Thursday morning, we had the pleasure of speaking with a PhD graduate student. They shared with us their current research endeavors and we had the chance to practice talking about our altar project. What stood out to me was that they are looking into the question of identity and how it is constructed. Moreover, they are using HCI as a vehicle to explore this gray area. The inquiry into the often fractured reality of human existence, or more plainly put, the analysis of people(s) with multiple ethnic identities and the trials and tribulations they are confronted with as a matter of who they are, has a direct connection to my lived experience. 

The student shared with us a few stories. One of them was about a German youtuber whose content is centered around them living life in Columbia. And though they are German through and through, they identify as Columbian. Surprisingly, no Columbian in their videos will contest this Germans adopted identity. This is because of the Germans commitment to living an “authentic” Columbian existence. It is through this daily commitment of “walking the walk” and “talking the talk,” that this person is able to transcend their birth place and birthright, and forge a new ethinc identity, AND be welcomed by the local community.

Conversely, they also shared stories of individuals whose multiracial identity can become a point of tension. For example, when they find themselves in a group of one of their ethinic identities, they are often labeled an outsider due to their multiethnic nature.Thus bringing into question the “purity” of cultural roots. In these instances, one is often peer pressured into amplifying one of their identities by suppressing the pieces of themselves. It is easy to see how this social dynamic cultivates fertile ground for an identity crisis.

As we are approaching our final weeks of the research program, yet continuing to learn additional topics researched within the Human-Computer Interaction field, Dr. Jones allowed us to learn about the research of a colleague working towards her Ph.D. in the HCI field. Marilyn Iriarte is a graduate student focusing on her studies in self-identity in the Latino community. She is currently interviewing young adolescents and looking forward to receiving factual data that will allow her to understand societal or cultural factors influencing the identity of young adolescents who may encounter an issue of identity between two homes, one from the United States and the other from their family’s heritage culture. When Marilyn Iriarte explained her work, she also reflected on some parts of her work in progress. For example, she made us aware of the importance of establishing a connection with her participants. I didn't say interviewees because she doesn't like categorizing the conversation she makes with her participants as an interview. In order to get data, she reflected that forming a close relationship with the people will increase the possibility of receiving genuine data rather than biased information to appeal to her satisfaction. This information made me reflect on points mentioned in a psychology course involving interview biases. Interviewers narrow their questions with an objective that does not disclose an interviewee's thoughts but rather their anticipating expectations. I found the concept of her work-study appalling because it is not mentioned enough, and it highly resonated with me. As a Hispanic born in the United States and with Spanish-speaking Mexican parents, there was a point where I struggled to recognize my identity when I felt I didn't necessarily "fit" as an American because of my language or as a Mexican because I didn't practice the customs. There was a constant back and forth where my true identity was lost between my Mexican culture and American life. Therefore, I believe Iriarte's studies considerably raise awareness and support for kids who are defining their self-identity between their American life and their family heritage.

The internal component organization of the altar has been riding in the back seat until this week. Earlier in the week a team member handled the cable management of the computer and circuit, along with implementing some innovative solutions for the projector tilt and its power button. This concise internal editing made room for some potential design changes as we may now be able to have the projector, computer, and circuit, directly under the circular frame. This means that almost nothing will be placed behind the paper screen, with the exception of the mirror. If that is the case, then the only thing that will require accommodation post-screen is the mirror and the projected image. This leaves a lot of dead space for us to whittle down. And this inquiry into the altar redesign is what I investigated on Friday of Week 6.

I made cardboard cutouts with the laser cutter to make another electronic compartment box so that I could take measurements of the angles for the projector and mirror. Gluing the last prototype made it difficult to gather angle information, so this time I made sure to precisely attach the box components with the blue painters tape and leave out the front wall to make maneuvering the projector and mirror easier. Securing each component in a way that allows for reconstruction and deconstruction makes gathering iterative prototype information more feasible, especially when trying to conserve materials. Because there is always something new to measure or a step that was overlooked and increased editability allows one to backtrack in the prototype process. 

With this taped box without a front wall, I placed the projector with ease under where the circular frame would go, and the mirror at the back. I should note that a team member was running some tests with the full prototype elsewhere so I was without the laser cut circular frame, so I made due with the octagonal frame. With the octagonal frame now set on the box, I turned on the projector and angled the mirror upward and the image displayed as desired. I recorded some measurements and started experimenting with the placement of components. Once the team member returned with the Circular frame, I ran the same adjustments as I did with the octagonal frame. Of course the circular frame lent itself to different measurements. 

On Thursday, we were looking into further design solutions for our altar. In particular we were trying to find a more attractive “hood” for the altar. Our current hood cover resembles a ribcage and when it is wrapped in paper the overall aesthetic of the altar resembles a 19th-century prairie schooner. While it is possible to make more laser cutouts of the arches, this route does not lend itself well to material conservation as using the laser cutter to make circle and semi-circle cutouts leads to the majority of the cardboard being wasted. Perhaps, one way to reduce the waste from our circle problem would be to divide the circle into fourths and stack the arches one on top of the other.

In the meantime, a colleague and I investigated an origami technique suggested by Dr. Jones. This architectural design can turn a sheet of paper into a structure capable of bearing a load greater than itself. A plus is its geometric pattern is rather visually appealing and reminds me of Ikea lamp shades. 

To make the paper structure, take out an 8.5 by 11 inch paper and fold it lengthwise into eighths or eight equal columns. Then draw diagonal lines from the tip of the first fold to the tip of its opposite. Do this in both directions so that it produces diamonds. If done properly, the edges of the diamonds should intersect at the creases only. Then fold the paper along those freshly drawn lines. You should now have a piece of paper with creased diamonds throughout. Now all there is left to do is to crease, pinch, and fold it until it forms a barrel-like structure. However, this is far more challenging than we gave it credit for. So if you find yourself struggling, remember the phrase, “mountain peaks and valley sweeps.” This is a trick we learned from a peer next door where the idea is to bring the peaks of the diamonds together while making sure the valleys remain “sweeping.” In the end you should be left with a geometric paper tunnel.

While the origami paper barrel did add visual interest it did not have the lamp shade effect that we were hoping for. The light from the projector only shone through where it is directly reflected. For us to have a glowing altar we are going to have to include lights just for this purpose.