As a final project for Participatory Networks last year, I proposed a small web network called Can Do, with the following mission:

Can Do is a collection of small steps everyone can take to enact positive change in the environment, based on the belief that building a community of people interested in taking some of these small steps can a powerful motivating tool, and empower us with the knowledge of our collective impact.

Beyond a working test site, I was never able to actually build this project and see how it lives out in the real world. In the year since proposing it, I have also reconsidered the idea of this as a stand-alone site. In my explorations of the notion of place online in my thesis, I have often wondered about Facebook, and why it is that its particular blend of features and tools beat out so many others like it, and somehow transformed into the social center of the internet for so many people.

Regardless of why it happened, I would like to take Can Do and redesign it as a Facebook application, to take advantage of its strong infrastructure and the built in connection that so many people already have to it. This would involve redesigning the basic flow of interaction to fit into the Facebook architecture, as well as reconsidering the graphic language used within FB.

(Week of) Jan 5:
class proposals
Research Facebook architecture
Redraw Can Do site architecture

Jan 12:
Design sketches
Coding begins

Jan 19:
More coding

Jan 26:
Finishing up coding
Small scale testing

Feb 2:
Testing, tweaking, etc.

Feb 9:
final presentations
Show the project!
Invite people to add it

Even when you have nothing in common with someone, you can always talk about the weather. I am interested in weather's ability to transcend space, and yet I feel like a lot of interactive technology acts as a buffer against the communal experience of weather instead of a conduit. I would like to spend wintersession exploring the ways in which technology can react to, and interact with, the weather outside, with the goal of using data to create a sense of place online by strengthening the awareness of, and the connection to, the natural world.

My raw materials for this research will primarily be live data feeds - such as those provided by Yahoo Weather, Weather.com, and the National Weather Service - and secondary information from sources like geotagged images from flickr and text from blog or twitter updates.

I have started experimenting with web-based versions of this idea that use rss feeds and javascript, and I would like to continue with that, as well as integrate some Processing into the mix. The thing that I find interesting and challenging as a novice programmer is how to generate form from data that doesn't look data-y. How do you introduce visual randomness into a program? I wonder if by keying off of random natural phenomena that unique form might result.

My time will be broken down into a series of experiments (vignettes?), and will be a test bed for learning some new technical skills in the process. Ultimately I want to see if I can generate interesting form and/or patterns from the weather conditions outside, that can then be used to evoke the experience of weather online or in other design work.

Inspirations:
I Wanted to See All of the News From Today - Martin John Callanan
Suns from flickr - Penelope Umbrico
Infome Imager - Lisa Jevbratt
Nine Patch Generator - Jared Tarbell


(Week of) Jan 5:
class proposals
present prior experimentation

Jan 12:
refined web experimentation

Jan 19:
final web experimentation
first stabs at Processing

Jan 26:
refined Processing sketches

Feb 2:
more Processing
start documentation

Feb 9:
final presentations: series of web and Processing pieces
poster-size printouts of the most successful?
written documentation of code/process