It’s been a while since our last blogpost and we have made a lot of progress. Time for an update.
The last few weeks we have been working hard on the prototypes of the Oglow, both the app and the bracelet. As we have not shown any concept drawings of the smartphone application so far, let’s start there.
The App:
After several rounds of concept drawing for the app, we decided that it is most important to keep the live experience of the Olympics central. Also, the application should not only be of functional use but should enhance the experience the Oglow offers. We chose to put the content central by using large moving images of the Olympic events. Also, each event should have it’s own dynamic page in the application and the user should be able to swipe through these events, starting with the current event. On the left of the current event, the user can see earlier events, on the right are the upcoming events. We made a lot of wireframes for these pages to get the optimal design. Next we created the actual designs using data, images and videos of the 2012 Londen Olympics. With these design we made an interactive prototype, which you can try out yourself below. This prototype is meant to give an idea of how the application would look and function.
After making the interactive prototype we got into contact with Starting Point, a creative company based in Amsterdam. They are currently helping us building the actual app in such a way that we can demo it during our final presentation. Their work also includes creating a back-end architecture making the building of the actual application easier. While the prototype tool offered limited options, the demo prototype will show the entire interface as it will be in the final app.
The Bracelet:
Of course we also made progress with the bracelet prototype. We got in touch with Sven Haitjema, who works as the Create-IT lab of the HvA and has his own company in iBeacons (Glimworm Beacons). He made a custom microcontroller board for us, making the prototype increasingly smaller. This board also came with an already build application we could use to turn the lights and vibration on/off. Also, he helped us make a 3D printed casing for this prototype so it would become wearable.
Although the board Sven made for us was very small, it also had its limits a to where the lights were places. This is why Sven made another board for us which we could connect to the LEDs we already had so that we could control the brightness and color of the light. Also, this way we could spread the lights better across the bracelet. Currently we are working with this new microcontroller board and the LEDs to make it all connect and wearable. Also, Tamara made some edits to the code of the application to control the board so that it would do exactly what we needed it to do.
We are currently working very hard to finish everything for the final presentation the 25th. Next to finishing the final prototypes we are busy making flyers, posters and preparing the presentation. We are also going to present our project at the Mediapark Jaarcongres at Hilversum the day after our Medialab final presentation. Here we will mainly discuss business-to-business opportunities for this project and hopefully get some useful feedback. Also, we are going to do some extensive user tests as well end of this month (30th June and 1st July). If you would like to help us with this and be one of the first to experience the Oglow, please contact us at futureoftv.medialab@gmail.com.