Checking out the bitJam: Innovation Cube

"Will you be a judge for the competition, too?"

"Yes!" was my reply, I hadn't been working at element14 for long and I was already asked to take some goodies and judge a competition for the opening of the Innovation Cube in Stoke-On-Trent, a place created and run by bITjAM Ltd. to help companies and, most importantly, young people to develop their digital works through concept, prototyping and design.

As a person who's heavily into technology and has been since a young age, I think that it's fantastic to have encouragement from places like this; we are slowly moving away from the attitude of technology being niche, quirky, nerdy, geeky with lots of spreadsheets (the only Information Tech' taught in my school was basically accounting) and shunned (based upon the attitude of those around me growing up at least) to happily embraced with enthusiasm and support. It's refreshing.

So this is where the innovation Qube fits in, it's practically an office-come-workshop space where individuals, groups and professionals can go to develop their software (such as metric tracking for a support ticket system) and potentially hardware prototyping.

To achieve these goals, the space itself comes with an array of computer systems available to work on, from Windows PCs to Apple Macs and the ability to prototype as the Qube has a Cube 3D printerCube 3D printer available for rapid production from 3D computer aided design models.

While 3D printing is slowly becoming the norm, the Qube demonstrated its support of innovation by having other products available for tinkering/development. One was the recently controversial Oculus Rift which they had demonstrating the villa scene where you could look out to sea over a balcony, inspect the nearby sunflowers and for many, disorientate yourself by traveling up and down stairs. After finally having a go myself and being told rather jokingly that I must be a machine for not getting nauseous, it was quickly easy to see the benefit of the stereoscopic 3D effect that the Oculus Rift provides and with the recent advent of the Dev Kit 2 the quality of it can only get better.

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If you watch the video above, it becomes obvious that using the Oculus Rift in general requires wireless controls of some form and I think it would be best if the Rift itself was wireless. Still, there's time before the devices comes into production. I also found it interesting to see that few people tried looking up or down while wearing it.

	There was a local developer at the Qube's opening, Dan Wilson of Circitfied was showing his projects, these I found particularly interesting as Dan was very keen to tell me about a metal-covered console with various buttons and switches for a display that was custom made.   Dan informed me that he focused on a technique called circuit bending to achieve the sounds that he wanted to make and that he customised the tools to do it. I wasn't sure if Dan composed music himself from these or if he wanted to just dabble, I suspect it was a mixture of both having now found his Soundcloud space.     The center piece of Dan's circuit bending exploits was his Roland TR-505, set in an old drawer and with a custom, laser engraved and cut fascia, the sounds created by it satisfyingly scratches every chiptune itch I have, samples of which are available on his Soundcloud, too. Dan is available for custom creations alongside his salvaging of electronics. Which reminds me to get on with hacking the Casio SA-1 I have lying around...
While audio is one of my interests, I was distracted at the Qube by another controller/monitor, one which I feel hasn't been taken advantage of fully in the mainstream and even, when previous devices such as the OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator came about; people were highly skeptical over it actually working. In this case I'm talking about the NeuroSky Mindwave.   The version that bitJam had acquired was the 'mobile' which works on portable devices such as the iPad. The demonstration program which was running displayed the various frequencies that it was able to gather from your mind and tried to make sense of it in a summary of 'attention' and 'meditation'.   People had various results and when I was wearing it, there was a clear distinction that I was most attentive when I was at rest. Others were either attentive or resting; but you could easily see how the results can be confusing to make sense of. Evidently anyone working with this equipment would have to do their research and also take suitable benchmarks.

The OCZ NIA which behaves similarly to this, could pick up some of these readings but the main feedback given was that of electrical signals sent to muscles which are pretty strong and clear. Such as eye movement or clenching your jaw. If someone can work with bitJam to produce something more that would really be exciting!

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On the topic of alternative controller interfaces, bitJam also have a LEAP gesture controller device. This is a motion sensing controller that uses a very small infra-red block that monitors for hand gestures used above it in quite a large area.

The demonstration which was running for this device was to manipulate a ball that was floating in free space and to sculpt it as you would clay. You had the options of choosing the materials and also how you wanted to interact with it, such as growing or shrinking it, deforming it, etc. The result can be sent to a 3D printer so that you have a solid traversal from the virtual to physical space.

After I had plenty of time to familiarise myself with the facilities available at bitJam, they had the grand opening with visitors from local businesses, organisations and also the Lord Mayor of Stoke on Trent, Sheila Pitt cut the ribbon. A very grand affair. After much socialising I sat down with the Lord Mayor, a Games Design lecturer and other persons to judge entries for the technical competition where entries had came in from local school children up to University students. However not all of the ideas were articulated very well and we decided to choose a 'top three'.

At third place came an idea which was well presented with the persons desktop publishing skills in a piece of software for your phone that helped to teach you another language. It wasn't entirely clear as to how it approached this but the premise was sold on the professionalism of the advertising and the age-group was also considered as we the judges decided we had seen far worse presented by University students over the years and so they deserved further encouragement for a job well done.

Second place was for a well articulated design by a University student which incorporated a wireless power charger/kit into a mouse-mat for use with a wireless mouse or other equipment to charge while you use or to merely charge while idle such that you no longer need to a separate dock for the equipment.

First place went to a group of students in high/secondary school. A concept where magic can meet reality, I've seen this idea executed in advertising, previously. Around their school they wanted videos on screens looping of either demonstration videos or teachers or staff standing. This concept may be familiar to you from films such as Harry Potter. The idea is that these 'photo frames' are interactive on some level; the presented idea was that in cases of emergency the screens would alter to show you the nearest exit or the best course of action.

Alternatively they could be used to administrate the school's rules. Such as getting along swiftly to your class if/when it detected you walking by at a particular time, perhaps it could interact with other technologies that school children carry around with them such as RFID tags. This idea would be orchestrated by using Raspberry Pi's embedded in the screens or displays.

This idea which builds on services that are already rendered by adding useful information and in such a place with extensibility (why not have it in hospitals for example?) is why it won overall. As a prize element14 gave them an Arduino kit with accessories and a token mug just for the fun of it. bitJam also arranged with them full consultation to bring their idea to reality.

Hopefully, we'll be seeing more of that idea and more like it, nurtured in the future.