Business aspects

It is nice to see the progress in the technology aspects of the project, but another very important aspect is the business aspect. How and to whom will the product be sold and how will it be produced? I’ll try to keep it short and clear.

First of all, we made three personas to get a grip on what kind of persons will buy our product. We got a very successful businessman, a little girl and an old man. They all have different motives of buying and collecting the Cadavre Exquis Robots. I will quickly go through them. The businessman buys them for his kids, as he is away from home very often and has to travel a lot for his work. He always brought the cliché presents, like an Eiffel tower keychain when he went to Paris, but after getting to know our product he promised his kids to bring parts of this robot every time he came back. The persona of the little girl comes from a small village in Iowa and likes to collect bugs and play outside. She asks family to bring parts when they come to visit. She mostly likes the story behind them and the differences between good & evil. Last but not least is the old man. As a retired man he has a lot of time on his hands, so he likes to travel with his wife. He has been a technical engineer in his old days and still likes technical products, for example, he has the whole attic with things like miniature steam engines. He likes the technical movement of the creatures and the cultural background within each part.

Some other techniques applied are among others the Value Ladder, Technology Tree, Key Buying Factors and a suggested Partnership & Supply Chain table. The Value Ladder gives information on which function supplies which value, for example the functional property of Actuators will eventually give the Value of entertainment. The technology tree will give information on which parts have to be made, with what techniques they can be made and if there are any supporting technology. For example, the connection units are a Product Function, which will be produced by Milling or Molding, while the supporting technology of this piece is Computer Aided Design (CAD). The Key Buying Factors are different factors which are divided into three groups: Qualifiers, Winners and Differentiators. Qualifying factors are those that make sure our product can survive in the market, while Winning factors are those that make it better than all the rest. At last there are the Differentiating factors, which actually make sure that the product stays a winner over time by changing certain elements, staying ahead of competition.

We also made a Roadmap of the product to have a look into the possible future. I added a few pictures of the techniques.

Receive Library tutorial

as i promised: the two libraries for the pulsernet and a tutorial of how to use it.

-------RECIEVING

The library for the recieving of values which have been sended by the pulsernet can be found here.

to use it, first extrude the .rar in your arduino/libraries folder.

Start your arduino and import the library. This can be done in the menu: sketch / import library

If you extracted your library in the right folder, it should say: PulsernetRecieve.
If you click that the library is imported.

Then create an instance of the receive class by creating a code like:

Receive /name/ ( /number of receiving pin/ );

for instance:

Receive mailbox(7);

I am receiving the values on pin nr 7 and i call the receiver mailbox from now on.

then cal your normal voids, and an integer to set the value to.

int value;

void setup()

{

}

void loop()

{

now in this loop you only need to set the received value to your integer.

value = mailbox.Value();

}

now every time a value will be recieved, the value of your integer will change to that value.

-------SENDING

The library for the sending of values over the pulsernet can be found here.

to use it, first extrude the .rar in your arduino/libraries folder.

Start your arduino and import the library. This can be done by opening the menu: sketch / import library. If you extracted the library properly it should say PulsernetSend. If you click that the library is included.

Then create an instance of the send class by creating a code

Send

/name/

(

/number of receiving pin/

);

for instance:

Send mailman(13);

I am receiving the values on pin nr 13 and i call the sender mailman from now on.

then cal your normal voids.

void setup()

{

}

void loop()

{

now in this loop all you need to do is send the value you want to send with your sender:

mailman.Sender(15);

}

we are now sending the value 15 to the other arduino with the pulsernet. Of course you can also insert a variable instead of a real value.

---------------

if there are any questions or problems with these libraries, send me an email or just ask

Thank god for.. ADSL?

Because the previous version of internet was way too slow (1 phone number in 40 seconds) the scientists redesigned the internet.

The system no longer works with bites, but with pulses:

if it wants to send an 7, it turns its digital gate to high, waits 7 milliseconds and then turns it to low again.
This way it was now possible to send a full phone number in 440 milliseconds!

So now we are able to send all the stuff we need at the speeds we need. There is no limit of digits anymore, but values below 100 get send fastest (because it works with delays; 123 = 123 milliseconds)

I will upload the libraries for sending and receiving as soon as possible.

physical connection model

Check out the new model for the physical connection thingy. It actually conducts!

3D-cadavres

Yeah! We made some 3D-cadavres and they rock! See them shine in their natural habitat.

Next to the fact that they're so cool, we actually learned some stuff from making them: We should take the balance of the creature into account (especially when designing the head) and for the first time the idea of having moving parts on the torso occurred to us.

We're definitely gonna do more of these.

Thank god for the internet

today at 1pm it finaly happened:
Scientists were able to send a 10 digit number from one arduino to the other

I will be converting the sending and recieving programs to libraries for everybody to use as soon as possible.

ps i blurred out 2 digits, because its my phone number

45-ZOR illustrated

Here are some images of the planet 45-ZOR, from which the Cadavre Exquis creatures originate.

This is one of the old maps the creatures brought with them from their planet.

Impression of the Vulcano Area on 45-ZOR
Impression of the Forest Area on 45-ZORImpression of the Ocean Area on 45-ZOR

More of these impressions are coming. As we will learn more about the creatures from 45-ZOR, our knowledge about their habitat grows and enables us to create these pictures of their homeland. Stay tuned!

TRIP TO AMSTERDAM

Today - the 5th of March - our platform week will have a change in activities, since a day trip to Amsterdam is planned. The most important and exciting visit will be the client meeting with WAAG society. We will get to know the client, and visa versa.

Not only this will happen on our day out, but we will also visit the exhibitions Transnatural and Niet Normaal.



We are all excited about this day, and are going to make the best of it!

Platform week 1: Physical

The physical platform consists of a way of connecting the different parts physically. It should be sturdy and at the same time allow for electronic energy and signals to pass.

We started out with a physical exploration of different possibilities:

We then created the following diagram to analyze the value of different kinds of physical connection possibilities.

We then physicalized the most interesting option. It is shown below. You can connect it by plugging one side in the other and then turning it so it clicks shut. The pins allow for electric signals and power to pass through.

Platform week 1: Virtual

The first steps were taken for designing the virtual platform. This consists out of a model for the intelligence, which was translated to a virtual simulation.

An elaboration on this model will follow.

Platform week 1: Fiction

The fiction part of the platform is finished! Beneath, you can find the story, accompanied with a moodboard and an illustration.

Millions of light years away, there is a solar system with five planets. The star in the center of this system shines almost fifty times brighter than our sun. The orbits of the planets roaring around this star are all very different. The first two planets have a similar oval shaped orbit. Because they are not centered with the star in the middle, there exists a very hot summer when the planet is close to the star in the first half of the orbit, while in the other half there is a strong winter, unknown here on earth. The other three planets have a more circle shaped orbit. But it is the second planet from the star, known to us as 45-ZOR, on which there exists a form of life. It would not be the first planet on which you would suspect to see life, as it is a very hostile planet: giant forests which dry out in the summer and offer little shelter in the winter, many super storms rage the land and volcano eruptions are not uncommen. While the creatures are somehow comparable with those on earth (senses, skin, brains etc) they have evolved in a complete different way. Because of Earth’s relatively slow changes creatures on Earth are able to take hundreds of years to evolve. On the planet 45-ZOR the climate changes so drastically and fast, that regular evolution was unable to keep up. So nature came up with a new solution. Instead of being able to change their properties over time, creatures on 45-ZOR are able to share their properties with other creatures. For instance, a sheep-like creature can lend its wool fur to another creature that does not have fur on its own. The sheep-like creature can then expect to get another helpful property from the other creature, for instance long arms to reach the best fruit on the trees. The borrowing and trading of limbs and other properties are done on a daily, if not minutely basis. For a long time these creatures thrived on the very hostile planet. But some creatures forgot the unwritten rules of trading and borrowing and wanted to have more and more parts for their own. Instead of asking to borrow a limb, they just took them from other creatures. As some parts were even more valuable, because of better properties, the evil ones wanted to steal those from the peaceful creatures. In the fear of losing all their parts, the friendly creatures made plans to flee the world. They used their bodies to build a giant flying ark to escape.

After decennia of flying through space, they came across a planet that looked friendly enough to continue their lives: our planet Earth. When entering the atmosphere they experienced so much resistance that the ship fell apart and the parts rained down on Earth. The creatures, now scattered over the whole planet, started a quest to find all the parts again and continue living in peace like they did on 45-ZOR.

What they did not know was that the evil creatures followed them through space and also made an appearance on Earth. Now all the parts were spread over the whole world, it would be a challenge for both races to collect all the parts as soon as possible.

But both found out that the parts they brought with them from 45-ZOR were not the only parts they could use. Earth was full of items usable as parts: plants, trash, abandoned toys or home appliances. This opened new possibilities to evolve for the creatures. Both the good and evil creatures seek the help of humans to build custom parts for them. While it is easy for humans to build a new part, they will not know what kind of impact it has on the creatures’ society without testing it. Some people help the good creatures while others help the evil ones.

The moodboard that was based on this story. We used it to design the environment.

The environment. (Mai)