• Meeting with Joel

    Robert Danis • 04/12/2016 at 21:47 • 0 comments

    This morning I met with my advisor, Joel Hollingsworth to discuss the progress I have made, and any problems that I have come across. We talked about the motion sensor and he suggested I look into using the proximity sensor or the light detector. We also talked about how I need to make sure the calendar continues to update, especially when the app is running.

  • Updates

    Robert Danis • 04/03/2016 at 21:49 • 0 comments

    Calendar:

    As evidenced in the recent picture that I uploaded, I have successfully synced (sunk?) the calendar on my phone to the one on the tablet, so that whenever I add an event from my phone it shows up on the tablet. However, for this to appear on the mirror the app needs to be relaunched, which is difficult to do when attached to the plastic. I will continue to work on this.

    Motion Detector:

    I have downloaded several applications with the hopes that it would help me setup the motion detector, which would turn on the mirror whenever someone walked by. This has proven to be a challenge and something that I will continue to work on.

    Advisor:

    I have setup a meeting with Joel and will work with him on the calendar feature, as well as the motion detector.

  • What I've been up to

    Robert Danis • 03/31/2016 at 21:47 • 0 comments

    How I'm doing so far:

    Well I have successfully received all of my materials and installed the code for the mirror onto the tablet. A problem here is to make sure that I am drawing from the correct sources (yahoo finance, calendar, etc). I have found that the "chores" notification is hardcoded instead of drawing from an app on the phone, which would lead to difficulties in the accessibility of this function. For example, the stock price notification pulls data directly from Yahoo Finance and therefore requires no additional maintenance from a coding point of view, whereas I would need to reprogram the tablet each time I wanted to add a new chore. As for the calendar, I need to make sure that the calendar app that the program is pulling from can be assessed by my iPhone, to make for easy accessibility.

    Mentor

    I met briefly with Joel and he was impressed with my progress and was eager to see the product. I will meet with him again once I get the motion sensor working.

    Physical Mirror:

    The mirror is proving to be a little difficult. I have the two way mirror plastic and the tablet shows through perfectly, however the device itself is heavy. As someone who lives on-campus I cannot really use nails or other strong adhesives to ensure that the mirror will not fall, so instead I have just rested it onto of my mini-fridge. In order to get the mirror to work, I have blacked out the back of the mirror with dark paper, with a small rectangle left uncovered for the tablet to show through. This prevents the user from seeing through the mirror and instead having it serve as a reflective device.

    Motion Sensor:

    I have found an app that I hope to use in order to transform the front-facing mirror into a motion detector. I will post more on this in the coming days.