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Triple Cities Makerspace at the World Maker Faire!

Maker Faires are “all-ages gathering[s] of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors”, organized by Maker Media (who also publish Make: magazine) to promote the creativity of these individuals and organizations at specific venues around the world. One of the largest of these gatherings is held in New York City every year in the fall, typically at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in the Hall of Science. Triple Cities Makerspace has had an active presence at the NYC World Maker Faire for the past three years, hosting a booth in the Makerspaces compound at the Faire to promote the activities and projects of individual TCMS members and the organization as  whole. The Events Committee is responsible for this booth and the projects featured inside it which, this year, consisted of Cliff’s 3D printer, Eric’s “Doctor Who” chess set, Adam’s “Drink Bot” (upgraded with an aluminum frame and a Raspberry Pi 3 controlling all of the hardware), and Leslie’s geometric piece building set). The booth was manned by various members of the Committee throughout the entire weekend of the Faire, rotating through several shifts to allow everyone to appreciate all of the other exhibits at the Faire. Several other members of the Makerspace came down for the weekend to check out all of the awesome stuff at the Faire as well, and their photos of the booth and other exhibits at the Faire are featured in the Google Photos album linked at the bottom of this blog post, along with photos taken by the members of the Committee. We look forward to attending 2017’s Faire!

Faire photos are available here, c/o Kris Brown.

Sources:

“Maker Faire: A Bit of History.” Makerfaire.com. Maker Media, 1 Jan. 2017. Web. 3 Jan. 2017.

Ready Player One: Exploring the tech of Virtual Reality

One of the most popular science-fiction novels of recent years is Ready Player One, a dystopian adventure story with an archetypal “hero from humble origins” protagonist named Wade Watts who, like most of the other people in his poverty-stricken and socially dysfunctional world, spends most of his waking hours in a ‘Matrix’-like virtual universe called the OASIS. Infinitely vast and incredibly rich in sensual details, the OASIS provides simulations or substitutions of almost every real life experience from K-12 education and white-collar work to recreation and travel, as well as facsimiles of physically impossible situations. For example, in one chapter Wade goes to a party where his avatar dances in midair before morphing into a blob of light! The mad genius who created this virtual universe has died and left his multibillion-dollar fortune, and ultimate control over the OASIS, to the first person who can solve a cryptic puzzle using clues hidden deep within the simulation. Wade is eager to solve this puzzle, but so is every other OASIS user, along with a telecommunications company which is seeking to gain control over the OASIS to monetize it. When Wade starts making progress solving the puzzle, he comes under pressure to give up his secrets and becomes a literal as well as a virtual target for assassination.

Besides presenting a variation of a very familiar narrative structure in a compelling way, Ready Player One also provides one of the most thoughtful descriptions of virtual reality I’ve ever encountered, going beyond the usual “do everything you’ve ever dreamed of” and “escaping from reality” tropes to describing in great detail how this simulated society works in terms of economics, culture, and real-world ramifications. For example, Wade is initially limited in making progress within the OASIS because he doesn’t have enough virtual money to be able to travel far within the simulation, which he needs to do in order to complete quests to earn money and raise the status of his avatar. The technology which people use to interact with the OASIS is also described in a fair amount of detail – from features of the virtual reality software which Wade uses to interact with the virtual universe and other avatars within it (e.g., chat rooms that are 3-D representations of real-life rooms with various objects inside that can be physically manipulated) to the physical hardware which people use to access the OASIS, which can be a basic set of goggles and haptic gloves to form-fitting immersion suits/cockpits and machines which produce detailed sounds and smells to go with the audio-visual and tactile sensations the user is experiencing inside the simulation.

Some of the virtual or augmented/mixed reality concepts described in this book are starting to be developed in real life! For example, several companies are releasing software/hardware packages designed to place the user in either a completely virtual environment (e.g., the Oculus Rift project, now owned by Facebook), or to place virtual objects that you can physically interact with in the real world (e.g., the Magic Leap project, funded by Google and several V.C. firms). With the rapid development over the past ten years or so of small, powerful electronic hardware used in smartphones – high-resolution and color-accurate displays, fast and efficient CPUs, and lighter, higher-density batteries – several of these projects can now develop products that can be used without requiring tethers or cords of any kind to provide data or electricity, and which produce audio-visual and tactile effects that cannot be easily distinguished from interactions with the real world. These virtual (V.R.) or augmented / mixed reality (A.R., M.R.) devices have great potential for use with a wide variety of applications, from fully immersive gaming and tourism to interactive worldwide news feeds and business transactions.

For example, imagine being able to play an advanced version of Pokémon Go where you can physically feel the Poké Ball you’re throwing at a given character, or be able to reach out and touch a Pokémon that you’ve captured! Using the appropriate sensory hardware, you could climb an active volcano and feel the heat of the magma inside it; or catch a live performance of your favorite band from the front row, and see and hear the musicians playing right in front of you! Customer representatives could take a simulated tour of a factory production line to witness in person how a product they are interested in buying is created; car shoppers could take virtual test drives of a vehicle they like at their favorite racetrack; and history teachers could take students to the Moon with the Apollo astronauts or invade the beaches of France with Allied troops in World War II!

Everyday life could be made more productive or interesting with digital representations of useful data or physical objects/experiences, too! For example, a version of Google Maps could be created to take advantage of someone wearing A.R. goggles to give them directions to a given location with virtual signs that appear while they’re physically walking or driving, instructing them to follow a particular route and informing them of their projected arrival times and potential disturbances from weather or traffic. Business presentations could involve data projections or physically interactive objects which each attendee could personally manipulate, and people could experience live news events firsthand with reporters around the world. The possibilities for information generation, sharing, and consumption are virtually endless, and many of these possibilities are explored in depth in Ready Player One.

Of course, as with any great technological developments, there are potential downsides, both in the novel and in reality. The possibility for the information generated by users of these platforms to be collected, analyzed, and used in various ways which could compromise those users’ privacy is both realistic and far more extensive in nature than what is typically done with tracking of Internet and smartphone usage. For example, when the identities of some of Wade’s friends – including their childhood and adolescent histories, personal habits, and geographical locations – are linked with their OASIS avatars, attempts are made on their lives. It is not hard to imagine many realistic scenarios where someone may not want their V.R. avatar(s) linked with their personal identity and activities. The medical, psychological, and cultural/societal effects which long-term usage of V.R./A.R./M.R. products have on the average person are also currently unknown; indeed, one of the major plot points of Ready Player One, albeit a plot point common to many pieces of V.R. fiction, is that many people would prefer to spend their time escaping from reality and indulging themselves in simulations of their fantasies instead of putting substantial effort into resolving their personal and societal problems. This is obviously hugely detrimental to their physical and mental health, and to the health of the environment and other people whom they share reality with. Finally, although preliminary versions of the software and hardware described in this blog post can currently be purchased, consumer-friendly goggles, gloves, and suits will probably not be available for another 5-10 years, as many of them are limited in scope and applications for reasons of cost, aesthetics, content and infrastructure limitations, or inadequately developed software or hardware interfaces.

Still, the appeal of virtual reality and the idea of experiencing many heretofore impractical or impossible activities or events with all of our senses in a way that makes us feel as though we’re really present there remains as bright as ever. With the technologies being developed today by many different companies, the possibility of making many of these concepts parts of our daily lives, and of them enriching us in many ways, seems more plausible than ever before. Indeed, in a final ironic twist, a film adaptation of Ready Player One is currently in development with Steven Spielberg at the helm; and not only has the studio invited people to create avatars of themselves for use as background characters in the film, but they are also considering developing a real version of the OASIS to be released alongside the film adaptation! We could very soon be following Wade in questing through an infinitude of worlds and experiences ourselves, and sharing these experiences with friends, family, and acquaintances in a deeper and more enriching way than ever before.

Sources:

Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One. New York: Broadway Books, 2011. Print.

Kelly, Kevin. “Hypervision: Magic Leap and the Future of VR.” Wired May 2016: 74-87, 112.

Packwood, Lewis. “How Far Away is the Technology of Ready Player One?” Kotaku.co.uk. Future plc, 5 May 2016. Web. 6 Aug. 2016.

“Create a 3D avatar for the upcoming film Ready Player One.” Talenthouse.com. Warner Brothers, 19 May 2016. Web. 6 Aug. 2016.

Where did the makerspace movement come from?

Erik Leonard addresses the question: “Where did the maker movement come from? Why is it happening now?” This is a complex question… and to answer it we need to make a leap back in time. Let’s think about technology prior to circa 1980. 

BY ERIK LEONARD

As the co-founder of a makerspace, I end up at a lot of events or social engagements where I’m talking to the public or people that are otherwise unfamiliar with makerspaces and the maker movement. A question that comes up time after time is “Where did the maker movement come from? Why is it happening now?”

This is a complex question with no one good answer and I am by no means a philosopher or a historian so my answer is going to be neither authoritative nor definitive. That being said I will attempt to answer this. The simplest answer to the question of where makerspaces came from is, Europe. Like chiptunes and tea based energy drinks, the makerspace movement is an offshoot of the hackerspace movement. Hackerspaces can be thought of as the lungfish ancestors of modern makerspaces. They share a lot of traits, they are shared spaces where people with similar ideas and goals can meet, they are a means of cost sharing to acquire expensive equipment, and they have a collaborative and communal mindset. But while makerspaces tend to focus on building physical objects, hackerspaces operated in the ethereal realm of software, encryption, and pure mathematics. Hackerspaces helped birth a lot of the tools and software that we take for granted nowadays in the maker ecosystem.

Before we go any further down this path, we need to make a leap back in time. Let’s think about technology prior to circa 1980. If you owned a television in the 1950’s it was a purely analog device, meaning that there was no onboard computer or microprocessor that helped it run, it was a creature of vacuum tubes and dials. It also included something that most devices today lack, if you popped off the back cover you’d find a schematic that outlines how the TV was wired. This is a treasure-trove of information for anyone that wanted to make their TV do something it didn’t do from the factory, or for someone that wanted to repair their own TV. This era of analog electronics that had user serviceable parts spawned a 3-4 decade long era of electronics experimentation. HAM radio, CB radio, early video game systems, and the first mini-computers that industrious proto-makers could assemble from mail order kits were all results of this. In the end though cheap computers would help put a damper on the maker movement for many years.

Let’s flash forward to the three decades spanning the 80’s to the mid 2000’s. There was a massive change in electronics of both the industrial and consumer varieties. Microcontrollers (essentially low power computers on a single chip) were cheap and easy for industrial designers to use, they also offered more reliability over older analog systems. This led to a new methodology in design, why take all the time to design an analog circuit to do something when you could throw a microprocessor in it, and program it to do the task at hand?

We went from having a device that was designed to do a single function to a general purpose minicomputer that happened to have a single function. Everything from video game consoles, to microwave ovens and automobile control systems became general purpose computers with some application specific hardware to help it function. This was a deathblow in the maker community. How do you tinker with something that has zero documentation and inside is nothing more than a few support components and a microprocessor under a blob of epoxy? You could go out and get a good oscilloscope, a logic analyzer, a reflow oven, a decent solder station, and some industrial microcontroller development hardware, and after you mortgaged your house you might be able to try and muck about with tweaking that shiny new DVD player you dropped $200 on at Circuit City. But for most people it wasn’t worth the effort, so many makers turned to software and the web, and thus hackerspaces we born.

However as we well know the maker movement, much like punk rock, wasn’t dead, it just smelled like it. The late 2000’s to present has seen a renaissance in hardware design, the cost of computers is at an all time low, there is a buffet of cheap tools that only a decade before would have cost more than a Camry. So the makers turned software developers have an slew of code tricks up their sleeve that when combined with their hardware knowledge gave us Arduino’s, cheap 3D printers, and all sorts of other amazing open source hardware. We live in a time where the average makerspace has gear that only 30 years ago even the largest companies didn’t have

So back to the question at hand, where did the makerspace/maker movement come from, and why is it so big right now? In my opinion the makers never went anywhere, they’ve always been around, from the early pioneers of electricity to the guy down the street that spends long nights in his garage restoring a vintage car, the makers are everywhere. We had a brief period in the early days of the internet and personal computing where making phase changed into web development and software. But the bar for making is so low that we’ve reached a wonderful time when anyone who wants to can make something truly fantastic.