Tuesday, August 27, 2013

More of kids becoming the hexarotor

Here is another video of the kids working with the real-time video on a bike helmet.
 
 
 
Some interesting things popped out for us:
  • Watch the helmet video when it's on the kid's heads.  Which ways is it pointing?  How much does it move around?
  • When they're directing the other group of kids, look what a great job they do using words.  Lots of pointing at first but it gets better and better.
  • Kids that are receiving directions also do a good job of taking instructions.  There is value in taking things literally as in "go over to that tree".  Watch the video and you'll know what I mean.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Kids Become the Hexarotor

During a test run prior to our Saturday meeting we realized that we had a burned out motor on the hexarotor... and no spare.  Another lesson learned.  Have spare parts!  If nothing else, the TATTS Project has reminded us all that we need to expect the unexpected.  Sounds like autism doesn't it?

In order to keep the project moving and still meet, we decided to mount the GoPro camera, transmitter and battery to a bike helmet and transmit the signal back to the base station.  We decided to turn the kids into the hexarotor!


One of the activities we did this past weekend was have the kids wear the helmet while riding around the park.  We captured video from the helmet and streamed it back to the monitor, recorded the video on the camera itself and also took video of the child riding.
 
 

 
Dan even got into it! 


Here's a quick video of the system and the kids.  Notice the 'ohhs' and 'ahhs'...  More


I'll post video from the bike helmet and the 'Hide & Direct' game (modified Hide & Seek) that we played as well as soon as I get time to process the video.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Real Time Video!

Our end goal has always been to get a real-time video feed from the hexarotor down to the kids so that we can fully experience flying and begin to work on perspective taking.  The equipment is in and we've completed testing.  We have a transmitter that takes the video feed right from the GoPro camera and beams across the airwaves and a receiver that takes in the signal and passes it to a pair of goggles for one child and a 21" TV for the rest of the team.  And it's all portable.


Initial Test of Video Feed From the Camera to the TV

View from within the Goggles
 
Now let's strap this on the hex and get going!