The Games Academy at Falmouth wanted a way to track the students' studio time so the staff could monitor how often the studio was used. The technician, Andy Smith, Senior Technician (Time Based Media) developed a bar code registration system using a Raspberry Pi (RPi), barcode scanner and 7 inch display. Every time a student entered the studio they would scan their student ID card with the bar code reader, and scan when they left the studio, these timestamps were recorded in a database against the student's id and enabled the Games Academy to see studio usage. If the system recognised the code it would welcome the student to the games academy if not the RPi would return a 'card unrecognisable' error message. I developed an interface for Andy's code that used a series of animations to illustrate the working process of the registration system, you can see the animations below. I wanted the interface to appear to be alive and vibrant so I used boiling animation to animate a static interface.
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| Barcode scanner installed on the Entrance to Falmouth Games Academy. Watkins 2017. Entrance to Falmouth Games Academy. [animated gif] |
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| A student holding their ID card against a barcode scanner. Watkins 2017. Barcode scanner. [animated gif] |
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| Basic three frame loop which creates a boiling line animation for the interface. Watkins. 2017. Boiling animation. [animated gif] |
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| Scanning a card triggers the 'scanned' animation to show the user that something is happening Watkins. 2017. Scanned. [animated gif] The welcome screen was customisable and allowed students to create their own greetings. |
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| If the student has already signed the 'signed in' message is returned Watkins. 2017. Signed in. [animated gif] |
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| If the barcode is unrecognisable has already signed the 'unrecognisable' message is returned Watkins. 2017. Unrecognisable. [animated gif] |
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| When the student scans their card to leave the academy the 'Bye bye' message is returned Watkins. 2017. Bye bye. [animated gif]
When the interface is not responding to scanning a barcode it can work as a digital sign and show live data.
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| Showing live bus data. Watkins. 2017. Live transport data. [animated gif] |
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| Showing live news feeds. Watkins. 2017. Live news feeds. [animated gif] |
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Showing the busy-ness of the canteen.
Watkins. 2017. Live canteen feed, empty. [animated gif]
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Or showing its emptiness.
Watkins. 2017. Live canteen feed, empty. [animated gif]
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Showing live weather feed.
Watkins. 2017. Live weather feed. [animated gif]
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