Edited by author 02-10-2006 04:46 PM
Hi Barbara;

You can email me at teazer999999(at)yahoo.com. replace the (at) with @

Tom,
How do I contact you for school related appearances?

Thanks,
Barbara

no, but tom's url is on the archives:
http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsf/archive/200511/

I stumbled onto this talk from Google so I missed it. Is their a transcript or anything similar? I teach middle school physical science (physics, chemistry, astronomy) so I'm always looking for great ideas. Thanks.

Ooops, daylight and coffee bring the following correction; A 1/50,000 sec strobe will make a 1/250th of a rotation, about a 1 1/2 degrees (360/250).

Edited by author 12-02-2005 02:28 AM
My apologies for disagreeing with the person in the audience who said strobes vary in their duration. From what I read on the web they do to accommodate different distances, in one case from 1/1,000 sec to 1/50,000. I assume they stay on longer for objects that are further away, as the surface area to illuminate increases with square of the distance.

Which made me thing of another science fair project. Measure the duration of strobe flashes with a rotating luminescent wheel. Put the disk in a box, cut a hole for a lens to focus the strobe to a point on the surface of the disk, and spin the disk at 1200 rpm. The strobe will leave a curved streak on the wheel, whose length (angle subtended) is proportional to strobe duration. Why 1200 rpm? Because it's fast so the streak will spread when the strobe is on, and it's easy to calculate. 1200 rpm = 200 rev per sec. A 1 millisecond strobe will make an arc 1/5 of a rotation. A 1/50,000 sec strobe will make a 1/250th of a rotation, less than a degree (250/360).

Well thank you for the question. I have two students I'm going to see tomorrow who need a project. Guess what I'm going to tell them about? I bet they are going to have fun trying to spin something that fast. I'm thinking small and view it with a magnifying glass. And wear those safety glasses!!!

Edited by author 12-02-2005 01:58 AM
I'm glad you enjoyed the talk. I've brainstormed with clients a few times but surprisingly rarely. I love brainstorming, but for business I usually cook up an idea, brainstroming internally or with colleagues, do the "go/no-go" experiment to show that it will work, apply for a patent, then try and sell the idea/project/product to a customer. For education, I brainstrom with the students when we first meet to decide on a project.

Tom, thanks for the fascinating presentation.
I liked your philosophy of boiling a problem down to a simple go/no go experiment. It is the shortest path to a proof of concept. Have you ever been involved with brainstorming sessions for new product ideas for clients?

Edited by author 11-30-2005 03:44 PM
Hi Rolf. Yes it can be used for many applications. The barcode reader I use acts like a keyboard so the bar codes are basically like typing on the keyboard. I then use a MetaKey program that maps keys to any sequence of keys or actions, like launching a program. I've made cards with my favorite mp3 songs, so I put a card song under the bar code reader and the song starts playing on the PC. Lots of possibilities!

Hi Tom,
Your barcode cards seem like a really clever idea...
Wondering what other uses this could allow besides programming for kids? Perhaps it could be a substitute for a keyboard
in situations where there's a small set of tasks at hand.
Anyway, looking forward to hearing your talk!
-Rolf VW

Edited by author 11-10-2005 07:33 AM
For the past several years Tom has been visiting K-12 students in public schools developing technology and after-school classes to help kids discover and explore science and engineering, often using music and visual arts to attract students' interest. The technology he will discuss includes programming robots with playing cards, hacking digital cameras to make animated movies and lensless microscopes, electronic circuits to sequence LEDs and perform strobe experiments, building musical instruments, and using inexpensive components to do science fair projects.

Thomas G. Zimmerman is a member of the research staff exploring the frontiers of human-computer interaction at the IBM Almaden Research Center. His 15 patents cover position tracking, pen input, wireless communication, music training, biometrics and encryption. Mr. Zimmerman's inventions include the Data Glove, Electric Field Personal Area Network (EF PAN), a wireless PDA to capture multiple biometrics, and tokenless electronic tender secured with dynamic signature verification. His interactive exhibits are installed at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, National Geographic Society in Washington, DC, and Great Lakes Science Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He received his B.S. in Humanities and Engineering (1980) and M.S. in Media Science (1995) from MIT.