Bloomberg
Contact: "Dong Fang (BLOOMBERG/ LONDON)" <dfang14@bloomberg.net>
Project suggestions for 2016
We would like you to make a hazard warning app on the smartwatch Pebble. When a user takes their Pebble for a jog, he/she can take notes on any potential hazard they come across on the road, such as broken pavement, dog dirt, flooding... After the run, they can pair their Pebble to a computer program or mobile app, and upload the data via an interactive map. This allows other Pebble users to download the data, and receive an alarm when they are near the hazard.
1) Safe way home
Goal: Build a form of detection for crime in the local area. This would involve crime alerts with the scope to include GeoTagging, mapping the danger of certain routes and the detection of where you are if you experience/see a crime. A Pebble smart watch will be used for detecting the user's location and for quickly reporting a crime, and the watch should be paired with an Android phone for getting alerts.
Feedback:
Nice. Based on last year, students will be keen to get some experience of wearables. We need to think of a scenario that does rely on the Pebble - if the user is also carrying an Android phone, then couldn't it be used for the whole application? How about a related application for sports/fitness users, for times when someone might be out jogging with your Pebble, but no phone? Do you know if Pebble apps can run standalone for later upload of data? One idea might be a jogging hazard map - collect information on broken pavements, dog dirt, flooding ... and report to other joggers at the end of your run via an interactive map, or even a warning application that will run on another pebble to sound alarm when approaching hazards.
2) Scanning and printing of real-life objects
Goal: Use cameras/sensors to take a 360 degrees image around an object. Build a 3D model from the image, then send it off to a 3D printer to get a miniature copy of the real-life object. Technical description: Use or a build a SLAM implementation (there are open-source ones, in particular for Kinect) to get a 3D model from a scene, then improve the model for 3D printing (remove holes etc.) export the geometry as the correct file format (probably STL) and finally send it to a 3D printer.
Feedback:
probably a bit too close to commercial products, meaning that results might be disappointing to students (we have had design briefs along these lines in the past, but at a time when 3D scanning was more of a novelty).
Project suggestions from 2015
Earlier suggestions
Project 1: An Interactive, Freeform Board
When planning and developing projects, it is often necessary to brainstorm and conceptualise ideas across multiple locations. You will create an application to allow us to share free-form content in a whiteboard format, with multiple users able to update the board simultaneously. This should be available on both desktops and mobile devices. The key challenge will be ensuring that updates from multiple users are handled elegantly. Additions and edits may want to be displayed differently. These problems should be carefully considered with attention given to the user experience.
Feedback:
The Interactive Freeform Board idea is quite similar to projects that we’ve done in the past, but boards like this are now distributed around our building, so it’s no longer quite as interesting as it has been. We did use a large multi-user touchscreen for a project like this last year, but that was with a client that loaned special hardware to make it more interesting.
Project 3: I am also thinking about a third project, for those more financially-minded. Bloomberg has created an open-API (http://www.bloomberglabs.com/api), which offers easy access to financial market data, and we have hosted a few hackathons using this api. I'm trying to come up with a cool project involving using this api. From your experience, do you think this may be something the students will enjoy?
Feedback:
We could certainly consider this, although I see that the documentation is several hundred pages – we usually try to minimise the amount of time devoted to learning specific development tools, given the short duration of the projects. However, you said that this API has successfully been used in hackathons in the past? Were these one day events? If so, could you give some examples of the kinds of app that resulted from them?
