logo suggestions?

I’ve been playing around with logos and fonts, hoping for inspiration. It’s not really happening. I have settled on the name kokoro and would love some feedback on mylogo design.

is a communication tool, a bridge, between the user and the music player.

it aims for serendipity, through a new way of choosing and controlling your music.

it lets your heart rate decide for you.

progress update.

the board works, here are some pictures:

soldering the polar receiver

it's pretty small

kokoro & battery

and a small video of the first time kokoro blinked! kokoro

also i’ve had a second version made with all the corrections i learned from past mistakes. i got some small batteries and still need an enclosure…

other ways of ipod interaction:

Mimi switch works with facial expressions

a patent points out alternative volume regulation.

kokoro works thanks to an Atmel chip running Arduino software.

The main code to get it to work is this arduino function:

void doCmdA4(int cmd[]) { // do IN AiR mode (4)

int cmdByte = cmd[0];
int cmdByteLen = cmd[1];
int parameter = cmd[2]; // some comands need parameters.
// write something for the cs in case there’s no parameters.
int csByteLen = cmdByteLen+1;

int cs = checkSum(csByteLen, 0×04, cmdByte, parameter, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00);

Serial.print(0xFF, BYTE); // header
Serial.print(0×55, BYTE); // header
Serial.print(csByteLen, BYTE); // this byte is the lenght of the data it should expect
Serial.print(0×04, BYTE); // ipod is in mode 4
Serial.print(0×00, BYTE); // in AiR mode the commands all have only 1 null block before the command
Serial.print(cmdByte, BYTE); // send the command
if (parameter > 0){ // not all cmds have parameters
Serial.print (parameter, BYTE); // send the parameter
}
Serial.print(cs, BYTE); // send the checksum
}

to which an array of numbers is sent.

the boards and parts are here!

iPodWizard widows software that talks to ipod in hex strings… might be able to learn some stuff from that. make has a few examples of use of this software.

a piece of neoprene and a silver marker

i’ve been using beats and pulses as the name of this project but lately i’ve been looking for other options.

i like the word kokoro, from the japanese symbol ? better described in this wikipedia entry.

As Marco said, it is not about the symbol of the heart, it’s about the movement of blood through the body. circulation. movement. As for mayan words that are related here is a list, nothing that I really like. In nahuatl, the word pulses translates to yoloyotl.

As described in this Slate article, the heart shape is believed to be based on a seed from a North African plant. Further references to this can be found in this article.

In a strange episode of this blog, my post from last night mysteriously disappeared today, along with a couple more posts from today… I’ve reported it to my hosting and would love to know what happened, but I also need to keep going.

It was not a very clear post and maybe it didn’t make much sense except to people in my thesis class who have been hearing about this all along.

In any case, when this data vanished i was working on a new version of it. Here it is, a little bit more explained:

This device plugs into your iPod and straps to it’s back. This is the layout of buttons that I settled on (I sent out my board to be made today, yeeeeyy!). The part of the cable that you don’t see in this image is just an iPod connector, the standard one that works with most iPods (I’ve considered using the 4 pin audio jack like the 2 later versions of the iPod shuffle but I think i might leave that for the list of improvements that can be done after I present thesis.

I’ve been looking at kokoro, a beautiful Japanese sign that means heart, mind, core, spirit. I first came across kokoro by looking at symbols for heart since I’ve been trying to avoid putting a small red heart on the controlling interface like I saw, and did not like, in the machines at Coles gym.

Last night Daniela, Rodrigo and Celina helped me to start thinking about what my buttons could look like. Rodrigo’s idea was to bring in a human figure instead of my first instinct of arrows and buttons with a status LED and a heart beat LED.

Some great feedback came from posting my interface ideas and asking for comments. Marco provided me amazing inspiration and made me think more about what else heartbeat means: rhythm, movement, sound. He also questioned my naming choice which has me thinking of options. He helped me come out with an idea for the interface that avoids the heart being a corny symbol, it looks like this:

Part of the inspiration for this button layout is texture. The gray area can be more textured and the rest of it completely smooth. I think I will apply this to any shape it takes.

Che Wei and Petra today helped me think more about this ideas. What else means faster and slower. Like a rabbit and a turtle, a man in movement and a meditation pose.

In all, thanks to everyone for looking at it and helping me think about it in new ways.

On the Eagle side of things, aftermuch help from Chris Cerrito and Tom Gerhardt I manage to upload the files and have my first boards made. I chose to get two of the barebones kind to beggin with since I will benefit from the faster turnover. I can’t wait to see them and really hope they work! My final board size was 1.90 x 3.15 inches (4.82 x 8 cm). Some important links of the day: Sparkfun’s tutorial on PCB layout options (it wasn’t easy to find from the Sparkfun main page), also the one titled Better PCBs in Eagle. I recommend anyone doing this reads this files before starting their design, rather than correcting mistakes later! One more important note, mentioned in the tutorials, there’s a piece of software (windows only) called View Plot that reads all the exported gerber files and puts them in a viewer.

This is the final board layout, I’ve highlighted the aspects where I took major decisions, the orange areas are the buttons and the red and white circle are the status heart rate LED (it blinks to the heart rate of the wearer) and the white one is the status LED, so it’s on while the device is on. Next up: thinking about how this buttons will look on the outside and how the whole device will look and feel.

Here it is working now:

I changed the plexi for a new thicker, heavier sheet, dremmeled it into shape with the last one as a mold.

Hinges hold it to the back of the board now. The computer is locked down as well. It has access to the on button of the computer in the back.

back of the board

It all came together really nicely, though it has taken long, I’m really happy with the final result. I’m putting together some nice pictures to makean operating manual. I’m also enlisting some help to make a sticker logo to go in the front.