John Stasko, Myungcheol Doo, Brian Dorn and Chris Plaue, "Explorations and Experiences with Ambient Information Systems", Workshop on the Issues of Designing and Evaluating Ambient Information Systems at Pervasive '07, Toronto, May 2007, pp. 36-41. [pdf]

Summary

The Georgia Institute of Technology has trolley service between Technology Square, the Midtown Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) Station, and the main campus area. Individuals are able to track the position of the trolleys online to determine how long they have to wait before the next one arrives.

In the Ambient Trolley project, we built a novel physical interface to indicate to building residents the amount of time before the next Trolley arrives at the stop outside our building. Using a modified physical N-gauge motorized trolley car, Phidgets, and GPS data provided by NextBus, the Ambient Trolley repositions itself on the track to indicate the approximate wait (0 & 8 minutes represent the extreme values at each end of the track.)

The Ambient Trolley is self-calibrating; by using hardware switches placed on bumpers at each end of the track, the trolley is able to detect when its at an extreme value. At various points during execution, the Ambient Trolley will use these switches to recalibrate itself.

  Demonstration Video of the Ambient Trolley in Action:

[Director's Outtake]