​Games Technologist

Dissertation Project

The goal for this project was was to answer the following question - "Is it possible to enhance an artificial environment with subsumption architecture?". I should add though I had to iterate and change my research question several times so that is was clearly answerable and left no areas for vagueness, and as such the research question in my proposal was slightly different. This was one of me best projects in terms of personal development as a software developer and engineer. Making use of 3DS Max, to develop a model of the artificial environment prototype, and the converting the file format to and STL format, and then having each element of the prototype milled from foam.

 

Additionally the Arduino and a series of sensors and actuators were employed, and embedded into the environment; and C++ alongside some Java that was used to integrate computer vision attained via the Kinect Version One and the systems based on the Arduino. This was a fun project, and gave me insight into how to produce an academic paper, and understand the value of terms like 'synthesis' in terms of how papers I read were perceived and considered by other academics; creating short contexts for the scholarly work used and see the flaws in the work, and offer alternatives approaches.

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Dissertation Files: contains videos of my exploration, and references to the C++ and Java Code I used, and project proposal: 

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Much of my academic research took place using the brilliant Google scholar; and computer vision was not taught as part of my degree; as such I do have to give thanks and appreciation to both Google and Daniel Shiftman (and his brilliant online tutorials using the Kinect camera and its depth sensing capabilities!).Additionally, the developers behind the 'Open Kinect' libray deserve high levels of gratitude and appreciation as well - as this library was brilliant, and allowed so much creation and quirky experiments to take place. Additionally, I have to condemn Microsoft for discontinuing the Kinect Cameras, as these were brilliant devices, that have everything one needs built into them.