As many of you know, I’m a bit of a data and analytics junkie, and like to claim that everything should be data-driven.^∗ I eat my own dog food and, being a fairly public person, I don’t mind showing the results: below is a chart graphing my GPA for each term as well as cumulatively since I’ve started college.^† If you’re just starting your college career, you should keep your GPA high by monitoring these trends. Continued…

Failure is easy.

Success is hard.

You must be in the habit of success to regularly succeed.

As part of a three-person team (two engineers and an interior designer), I designed a multitouch interactive table for Special Topics in Smart Design. We used frustrated total internal reflection techniques to detect interaction on a rear projected polycarbonate surface. The basic idea is to use high-quality polycarbonate with IR LEDs scattered around the edges pointing into the “glass.” The IR light is reflected internally until someone touches the surface, at which point the light is “frustrated” (caused by the index of refraction change) and thus escapes opposite the side your fingers are touching. Beneath the screen we had placed a Firewire webcam modified with a IR bandpass filter tuned to the exact frequency corresponding to the LEDs. The camera would detect the escaping IR as “blobs” and send to the attached computer. A projector and diffuser completed the hardware design, allowing almost arbitrary size multitouch displays. In our setup, we built a 42″ display into the center of an old table attached to the projector stand using 80/20 framing and two first-surface mirrors. We used freely available blob tracking software for retrieving coordinates corresponding to points of user interaction and provide basic user interaction functionality. We architected a software stack incorporating open-source components in such a way that non-multitouch aware applications could benefit from the use of multiple points of interaction. A modified version of X11 known as multipoint X11 (MPX) serializes input from multiple keyboards/mice into a single stream so that multiple people can work on a single workspace. We were developing a script to translate the output coordinates of the blob tracking software into MPX’s expected inputs and hook into the standard applications through this channel, but did not complete this software. Cody was responsible for the initial research into multitouch hardware, describing how the various systems worked and outlining the pros/cons of each. After deciding to move ahead with the system based on frustrated total internal reflection, the second engineer started specifying the exact materials, supplies, and parts we would need to build such a system, while I started researching open source multitouch software, but found that none existed that allowed easy use of existing applications; therefore, I turned to looking into how we might send user input directly to window managers, file browsers, etc, which is when I discovered MPX. The table itself was physically constructed by a second Drexel Smart House team following the completion of the course, as part of an outreach project with a local high school (Science Leadership Academy). Some of the students we worked with in this outreach research project now attend Drexel.

In my class on Native American culture, we just finished watching an interesting film called The Business of Fancydancing.

This movie centers on the life of Seymour Polatkin, a successful, gay Indian poet from Spokane who confronts his past when he returns to his childhood home on the reservation to attend the funeral of a dear friend.

The film explores the tension between two Spokane men who grew up together on the Spokane Reservation in eastern Washington state: Seymour Polatkin and Aristotle. Seymour’s internal conflict between his Indian heritage and his life as an urban gay man with a white boyfriend plays out in multiple cultures and relationships over his college and early adult years. His literary success as a famed American Indian poet, resulting in accolades from non-Indians, contrasts with a lack of approval from those he grew up with back on the reservation. The protagonist struggles with discomfort and alienation in both worlds.
— The Business of Fancydancing on Wikipedia

I relate strongly to Seymour’s cultural conflict and struggle for self-identity. Continued…