Greetings! I have been on vacation in the United Kingdom for two weeks (I had a stellar time). While in the UK, and more specifically in Lancaster, England, I found out that I am now a Killam Scholar! What this means for me is that I have been fortunate enough to receive funding from the Killam Trusts (University of Alberta Izaak Walton Killam Scholarship) for my PhD research and education. I am very thankful that I received this award / honor!!
I just found out that I have two papers (along with Fraser Anderson) that were accepted at CyberTherapy and CyberPsychology 15 to be held in Seoul, Korea in June (during the World Cup of Soccer)! I am very happy that I get to go back to CT & CP again this year, because I had a great time last year when it was held in Italy. As soon as I am able, I will post pictures, videos, and our accepted papers!
Inspired by the success of our AIRTouch project, Fraser and I wanted to adapt the multi-touch activities that I created for the AIRTouch system to a much larger surface. We used our large rear-projected “Disney” screen, a Wiimote, an off-the-shelf NEC projector, an inexpensive Bluetooth dongle (Deal Extreme is awesome), and a custom IR ‘light pen’ to make our AIRWall system. We initially used Johnny Chung Lee’s Wiimote software (he is the nicest guy) to handle the tracking of the IR ‘light pen’, and then later built our own.
Fraser’s IR Light Pen
A few of the activities that we tested on the AIRWall can be seen here:
After much hard work and valuable input from a number of my therapist and research colleagues, the first version of the AIRTouch software was completed in September 2009. So far, we have 12 different tasks that are fully customizable and meet a variety of patient needs. Each of the activities was created using Adobe Flex (which I personally think is awesome) and although they are rather simple graphically, they are very fun to interact with.
In November 2009, Fraser and I were lucky enough to travel to Australia and give a conference presentation about our preliminary work at OzCHI 2009. You can read our conference publication here or email me for a copy. The publication was co-authored by D. Goertzen, J. Halton, Q. Ranson, W.F. Bischof and P. Boulanger.
A few of the upper-extremity-based activities are shown here:
Version two of the software is finished but I am waiting until I deploy them at the Glenrose before I begin writing about it and taking videos with my new Flip HD!
After I finished my MSc degree in January, I spent the next few months working on a number of projects in the AMMI lab. One of the most fruitful projects was the design and development of the AIR Touch multi-touch system. Working with Fraser Anderson and a team of researchers and occupational therapists at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, the AIR Touch system is comprised of a 3 foot by 2 foot multi-touch surface (manufactured by NOR_/D), a FireFly MV IR camera, an off-the-shelf NEC projector, a mirror, the openFrameworks software package, and a suite of rehabilitation-inspired multi touch activities written in Adobe Flex. The lovely black 2×4 stand was created by Fraser and I in my garage (thanks Dad for the supplies!).
Version One of the system:
IR Camera Image (Top), Tracking Image (Bottom):
We chose to use a very open solution, as opposed to the Microsoft Surface or a SMART table, so we could modify or add things to the hardware setup as needed. We are currently in the process of designing version two of the hardware and I will post pictures when we are done!
