GrailTrailXtrct
I’m out testing the Grail trail piece which runs along beside the river Schelde. Although it begins at 15 minutes ride from the Snoepwinkel, the quiet space of river and marsh it takes you to is more than worth it. After another day of computer bound solo-sourcing-bug-agh labour, its a relief. Onwards! Neil Armstrong died today. The moon sits as a cloudy tear drop in indigo sky.
Kurt has 10 swamp bikes ready for action, with two more on the way. Speaker angle towards cyclist is a precise requirement and not easy to achieve. If one speaker’s fixing on the cross-bar (Dave Cranmer design, The Marvelo Project (2008)) is slightly misaligned, rider won’t receive the stereo field envelopment required. We gently persevere . Welcome sunshine in full support.
Chip on Swamp Bike can’t remember date, so change June 10th 21.33 to Tues 21st August, 18.00h and this is what happened on Route 1_Yellow on Swamp Bike no.1 today…. Jun 10 21:33:39 2012 speed is 568.71522779471km/h direction is s
loaded Bikebell
loaded TapeSwoosh1
loaded LaLaPatr
loaded LouisBouncy3
loaded LouisBouncy1
loaded MeesterMuink1
loaded ZooEntry
Sun Jun 10 21:33:48 2012 entered-zone Trumpet2_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
sending play Trumpet2
PLAYING Trumpet2
Sun Jun 10 21:33:50 2012 speed is 0.0011456924547613km/h direction is s
Sun Jun 10 21:33:56 2012 entered-zone Bikebell_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
sending play Bikebell
PLAYING Bikebell
Sun Jun 10 21:34:01 2012 speed is 0.0036432649784873km/h direction is e
Sun Jun 10 21:34:09 2012 entered-zone LaLaPatr_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
sending play LaLaPatr
PLAYING LaLaPatr
Sun Jun 10 21:34:12 2012 speed is 0.0045081973235498km/h direction is e
Sun Jun 10 21:34:12 2012 left-zone Bikebell_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
fading…
Sun Jun 10 21:34:14 2012 entered-zone TapeSwoosh1_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
sending play TapeSwoosh1
Sun Jun 10 21:34:14 2012 left-zone Trumpet2_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
PLAYING TapeSwoosh1
fading…
Sun Jun 10 21:34:21 2012 entered-zone LouisBouncy3_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
sending play LouisBouncy3
Sun Jun 10 21:34:23 2012 speed is 0.0025788523221097km/h direction is e
PLAYING LouisBouncy3
Sun Jun 10 21:34:34 2012 speed is 0.0013852748404249km/h direction is ne
Sun Jun 10 21:34:34 2012 entered-zone LouisBouncy1_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
sending play LouisBouncy1
PLAYING LouisBouncy1
Sun Jun 10 21:34:38 2012 left-zone TapeSwoosh1_no_centre_no in Route1_Yellow
fading…
Kaffe back @ timelab, Ghent, Dave/FoAM still in Cornwall. Sun hot, spirits high. I’ve just run the 1st on site test and things triggered approximately correctly and most important at this stage, it sounds good. I mean the audio quality is Fine. Also KM is managing to deal with a lot of the tech. A great start.,,onwards!
Dave Griffiths/FoAM is in town so we can update on the Swamp. 1st time we are in same real space since the bike’s Ghent public testing in June and now we’re planning for the real thing launching September 1st. A great afternoon. We’re on the same page interested to ultimately transform the bicycle to instrument but agree that for now we will go with Kaffe’s front door instrumentation, flying ghost zones as characters, and the butterfly net approach in the Lederberg garden. 2nd good thing is the Eeze machine performs as required, and the Beagle board will boot from previously crashed SD card. Onwards!
We hover between rain storms but the morning testing went well. Eight bikes out on two routes with all returning, only one accident and one overstimulated cyclist to the point of distress, the others grinning. All eight bikes then fell domino style inspiring an umbilical cord re-charging install system for the show’s two month run, as well as neoprene shock-proofing for the back rack boxes. Ghent streets are brutal in parts and we have still to see how the beagle boards will survive two months+ of bike attached vibrations.
We have six bikes ready to go functioning 88% on 2 different routes with 2 more winding up for the 3rd. It’s a slow process writing to titchy SD cards via the Mac terminal but its all suddenly completely robust and learning has gone exponential. The best news is that the passers by seem to get more and more delighted and day 2 public testing is tomorrow. Thanks Tim and Duncan for sharing GPS processing gizmos and Kurt for all the hardware details. Wish you were here Dave. Onwards.
[audio:https://www.kaffematthews.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Route3_Start.mp3|titles=Route3 Start_the_Swamp]
hey Dave and Pete, this is my favourite map so far, which on 2nd time round behaved sweet as a nut to write, ( pete.. i think cache emptying is a good idea or could this be my imagination?) Altogether everything’s FATTER. Also i’ve reworked some audio in route 3 and have replaced files no longer used with the new ones. Everything’s in db. Hoping this solves the GPS in Ghent issues. Here’s a laptop version from bottom RHc up to 1st bridge. On a bike it’s completely different.
Duncan Speakman, Tim Redfern and Kaffe take a break from circuits spread on tables and Beagle board loading maps + audio files via linux through Skype. They’re flat out at timelab for Electrified public action on Saturday, and so far not much is working. This is fine and the light outside is sublime. ps. what are gumsticks? it could be time for the jumper story.
Fantastic. In transit between Cornwall and Brussels, David Griffiths/fo.am, has come to discuss ‘The swamp that was…’ with a view to taking over the programming for the piece’s completion. The good news is that work done so far has been written in lua so all code is present within the script and can be continued from where things had got to. We neither have time to work on it before public experiment weekend so will keep located music triggering to one layer and embed navigational messages to the cyclists in the other. We agree that apart from getting the system to function reliably at best audio quality, we – I!- need to decide the optimum system for telling people where to go. NO maps on board. The cyclist needs to be able to pedal and listen and know where to go without doubt. Apart from the conundrum of the sonic maze in Ledeberg and down the back of the Muinkaai.