AZ Labs showcase @ Vila Verde

Text by Fili­pe Cruz

On the 25 and 26 Janu­ary, AZ Labs show­ca­sed some pro­jects at the library of Vila Ver­de. This show­ca­se was the first step in a seri­es of ini­a­ti­ves pro­mo­ted by Casa do Conhe­ci­men­to in Vila Ver­de in cola­bo­ra­ti­on with Audi­ên­cia Zero. 500 stu­dents from local scho­ols were brought to a secret room in the muni­ci­pal library to dis­co­ver cre­a­ti­ve, artis­tic and open sour­ce appli­ca­ti­ons of tech­no­logy we had setup to show them.

The res­pon­se from the stu­dents, tea­chers and orga­ni­zing comit­tee was gre­at and we look forward to cola­bo­ra­te some more with the peo­ple of Vila Ver­de in the near future!

In total we show­ca­sed 7 projects.

Draw­dio – An eso­te­ric elec­tro­nic ins­tru­ment inven­ted by some folks at MIT explo­ring the con­duc­ti­vity of graf­fi­te on paper or just com­mon water. The user clo­ses the elec­tro­nic cir­cuit through tou­ch, trig­ge­ring sound through a small spe­a­ker. Show­ca­sed by Ricar­do Lobo and João Gonçalves.

GroundS­pi­nes Graf­fi­ti – The laser tag­ging pro­toty­pe deve­lo­ped at xDA, ins­pi­red by theGRL laser tag sys­tem. This pro­ject was ori­gi­nally deve­lo­ped by Tia­go Ser­ra, Tony Gon­çal­ves and Vic­tor Mar­tins to beau­tify aban­do­ned buil­dings in Coim­bra. Show­ca­sed by Pedro Salgado.

RC Micro Machi­nes – Ori­gi­nally deve­lo­ped through a sprint ses­si­on with peo­ple from the dif­fe­rent AZ Labs, main­tai­ned by Nuno Bar­ros, Ricar­do Lobo, João Gon­çal­ves and Pedro Sal­ga­do. Show­ca­sed by Nuno Barros.

Anon­Mir­ror – An inte­rac­ti­ve ins­tal­la­ti­on about soci­al acti­vism in our soci­ety. Made by Fili­pe Cruz using Open­Fra­meworks, Kinect and a wrap­per deve­lo­ped by Vic­tor Martins.

Maker­Bot – Ricar­do Lobo show­ca­sed and did some live main­te­nan­ce fixes on “Cata­ri­na”, one of the two AZ Labs Cup­ca­ke Maker­bots we have. Prin­ting some whis­tles and showingThin­gi­e­ver­se.

New Picas­so – A kinect con­trol­led robot that paints the flo­or. Users wave their hands in front of the kinect to send com­mands through Ardui­no to the ser­vo motors of the robot. Pro­ject by Gui­lher­me Mar­tins, Pedro Sal­ga­do and João Gonçalves.

Tele­for­ma – Pro­ject by Ricar­do Lobo, João Gon­çal­ves and Mécia Sá dea­ling with the rela­ti­onship that peo­ple have with spe­e­ch and con­ver­sa­ti­on. The pro­ject is based on a mecha­ni­cal phy­si­cal inter­fa­ce that allows two users to trans­la­te visu­ally the form of their speech.