A8StormDrain

A8StormDrain

To-Do

Create a response as a group to the following questions:

1. how and to which extent does the EDC support individual and/or social creativity?
2. which features of the EDC (if any) did you find interesting / impressive?
3. which features are missing from the EDC?

how and to which extent does the EDC support individual and/or social creativity?

EDC supports individual creativity by allowing community members to voice their own concerns, and it also brings together individual strengths in the problem solving processes, providing the context for which participants can externalize their solutions and see what consequences their solutions have on the others. EDC supports social creativity by bringing multiple perspectives together to reflect on solving mutual environments, and has moved the interaction away from the solitary computer toward active and shared understanding within the community through a shared design.  This interaction creates a better understanding of the effects of design on the community beyond the individual, and requires participants to consider the broader implications of their own actions and to see how their manipulations of objects can affect the other participants.

which features of the EDC (if any) did you find interesting / impressive?

    The various technologies used to identify real objects is very interesting.  It would be interesting to hear more about these technologies and why some work better than others.  RFID tagging is becoming more and more common for applications like the EDC.  
    The extensions beyond two dimensions are interesting. The EDC quickly becomes more like a virtual reality setup when entire walls are turned into collaborative settings. No longer are user confined to a 17” monitor.
    The tactile nature of the EDC is revolutionary in some regards. Many existing computer technologies rely on virtual interactions, but the EDC aims to incorporate real objects into its sensory input, giving users a closer connection to the machine. It’s much more natural.
    The use of Agent Sheets. Agent sheets seems like a great program to represent different objects in the EDC. In general Agent sheets is simple and easy to use making for easy manipulation of objects. It also offers programming capabilities which can be very useful.

which features are missing from the EDC?

Not necessarily a certain feature, but it would be awesome to see the work done on the EDC be combined with newer table interfaces like the Microsoft Surface.  
One application that could be interesting is the use of an EDC system inside of classrooms.  Contrasting the benefits for different levels of education and areas of interest would be quite a compelling study.

The EDC could be used for many uses, but the form factor may not meet all the needs.  It would be very cool if the surface could change from flat to vertical and all the angles in between.  As a flat surface, it suits the collaboration needs best. If it were vertical, it could help in demonstration and teaching environments.  At an angle, the surface would be best for artists, architects, and designers.

The EDC needs a business plan. At the moment it sounds like only researchers are interested in using it. Hal acknowledged the closest the EDC had come to actually being in use was when the Boulder City Council and University of Colorado Regents were invited to use it. But they weren’t convinced to purchase one for their own use. The EDC needs to be valuable enough that consumers are willing to pay for it. Even schools have budgets to consider. Why should they use the EDC in place of their existing system? What value does the EDC bring that existing systems don’t? The EDC needs to be tailored for real consumers if it wants to stand any chance of being used in the real world.

The use of something more advanced than Agent Sheets. While it is an interesting feature of the EDC, Agent Sheets seems too limiting for a project like this. With Agent Sheets, one is restricted to the use of square agents on a grid. This greatly limits the capabilities of the EDC. For example, making roads on a gird is fine, but making a diagonal road is almost impossible for agent sheets.