C3 :: From Prototype to Production
No I haven't hit any sort of production or even commercial level polish. But the title sure had some nice alliteration huh? 
As the title hints at though, the past month has been a great example of the vast gap between a prototype (as seen in my last YouTube video) and a production ready product.
At first I thought doing all of the alarm clock stuff (with Google Calendar integration) would be easier because I was now doing it on Android, with Java and all of Androids high level features. Boy was I wrong.
Thirteen Falls 2012
Thirteen Falls 2012, a set on Flickr.
Had a pretty awesome over nighter up to Thirteen Falls in the Pemi wilderness last weekend.
Got to put some new gear to the test, most of it turned out awesome. A few under-performers though, like my new -20° sleeping bag, who's draft collar was defective. First pull, the bungee-cord came right out of the draft collar :/ Also, just didn't quite live up to the -20° rating.
It's about 8 miles in, which we managed in roughly 5 hours.
C3: Prototype Testing
Good news everyone! I've reached prototype stage! And I've got a video to prove it!
C3: Wireless Sensors!
I've been making good progress since receiving my IOIO. Got it up and running over USB, tested it all out, and then had to wait for my PICKit3 to upgrade it's firmware. Once it arrived, it took some time for me to grok it (I've never used a PIC programmer or anything like it before) but finally got the Firmware upgraded and got the IOIO talking to my phone over Bluetooth.
Look ma, no breadboard!
Programming!
C3: From the ashes!
I had an unexpected break through on my C3 project! A couple nights ago, I had some spare time, and had been thinking about the pressure sensor for a long time. The problem with it is, there is a circle with a radius of just 4mm, and in order to get good readings, the force must be applied to the center, not the edges. This gives me only about 2mm's in radius to apply force in. Since this will be under my mattress where things can be jostled or move around, that's a pretty narrow margin of error.
With this in mind, I came up with an idea for a "puck" and threw it together in Google SketchUp:
Getting things moving
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm beginning a new game project that I'm pretty excited about. Me and the artist I always work with have been mulling a new project for some months, and have been waiting for other things in our lives to clear a way for it to begin.
About a month ago we started to put things together. Setting up internal servers and services for tracking and coordinating the project. As well as putting together a slightly larger team. We've brought on a programmer that I've worked with before, and a new artist/game-designer who we've known for a few years. Effectively doubling our bandwidth in both assets and engineering.
After discovering that Unity 3D had changed their pricing model, offering a much cheaper non-pro version for Android and iOS, I began doing some research and have since selected it as the technology to base our project on.
This is exciting, because in all our previous projects, we had been starting from scratch, technology wise. Developing the engine tech and tool chain (if you could even call them that) as we developed the game. For even our simple games, this involved a huge time investment.
Now with our doubled bandwidth, and a proven technology base, we're all pretty excited about the possibilities.
Lots of stuff is still up in the air, we're still heavily in discussion about game ideas, and names for our team, and so on. Though some points are beginning to gel. We're settling on a few "Guiding Principles" that we can use to evaluate each game idea as they come up, but I'll talk more about those in a later post. Just as a little sneak peak, our game will likely focus on AI driven game-play. Having autonomous actors in the world that the player works with to accomplish game-play objectives.
That's all for now!
MQ3 :: Completion!
Welp, JUST over a month, and I've got it pretty much completed. I have it all together, working, packaged up in it's enclosure, and mobile. (I'll do a proper video of it soon and post it)
Reading from a Vodka bottle, not a person
Microsoft’s Patent Club
Microsoft has been going around coercing manufacturers of Android devices into licensing agreements, where each Android device they ship, they must pay Microsoft some amount of money. Or else Microsoft will sick their pack of lawyers on them. Every company Microsoft has tried this tactic on so far as complied in the end, and some reports have Microsoft making more money off Android licensing deals than they do off of Windows Phone 7.
Unfortunately for us, part of the deal these companies are forced to make is a Non-Disclosure Agreement forbidding them from revealing what patents MS was actually threatening them with. Now, thanks to a brazen move by Barns & Nobel (who had previously signed a similar deal with MS), we now know what patents they are using.
Some of the patents appear to be oriented towards the Linux Kernel it's self, while others are oriented towards specific features in Android (albeit extremely general and basic features).
The following is a list of the 10 Patents and a brief description of each one.
Stack Overflow
Twitter Feed
- @KenJennings . 6 hours ago
- @NS2 Are the other maps more one sided? 1 day ago
- @bluesnessman Ya, but C# won't let you double delete, won't let you corrupt your heap. It's a safety blanket, after time you grow to love it 1 day ago
- Photos from my backpacking trip this weekend to 13 Falls http://t.co/RNThVvmi 2 days ago
- @NS2 It'd also be nice to make your self more apparent on map & minimap. Maybe those animated rings from v early builds when you open map. 5 days ago
Me on Flickr
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