Date: 17.11.08.
Present: Everyone.
Description: Last week we finished our proposal for the project. Today was the first day of the developing process.
We started by working on the budget. As soon as it is finished it will be posted here.
We did luckily manage to save some money since Blomsterlandet were very nice by sponsoring us with two plastic plants. Our contact there David Johansson can be contacted via email on david.johansson (at) blomsterlandet.se.
We picked up the plastic plants from their store today and made a low fidelity look and feel prototype using the base of the Mood Lamp for lighting and as a vase. This combined with the input from the tutoring session of today led to the following ideas.
- We should only use green LEDs for the lighting system for the plastic plant since we noticed that using other colors will be too distractive. Using green LEDs will be more of an extension of the plant’s already green color.
- The LEDs used in the Mood Lamp would be suitable for the Power Plant. A few could be put in the middle with a diffuser to get a nice inner glow.
- The ordinary green LEDs found in the lab could be suitable aswell. They could be attached to the inner grid sticking out a bit (like lights on a christmas tree).
- The plant should not blink or shine too strong. It will distract the user.
- The plant should be lit up when the electricity consumption is low. If otherwise the user might activate a lot of electronic equipment in order to activate its nice looking lighting system. This would work against the goals of the project.
- The plant should only display the total electricity consumption of a home. Even if it is possible to meassure different sections or appliances in a household it is not necessary in order to reach our gols of the project. It will also be demanding to keep the entire system ubiquitous.
- In our opinion 3 different options are avaible for the lighting
- All LEDs will be activated at all times. They will just glow at different strengths
- Different amount of LEDs will be lit up depending on the electricity consumption.
- A combination of the two above.
We also started laying the foundation for the final written report.
[...] Lighting Apparatus – Initial Decisions As mentioned in the protocol for meeting 1, our early look and feel protoype (images will be posted) in combination with the [...]