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Step 2Make your pom poms
This project uses pom-poms rather than flags.
It is possible to improvise by simply printing out a yellow page and a blue page on a printer, but it's not ideal.
It is a machine-vision based system which detects pixels which have a high intensity of a particular hue. Pom-poms are good because they are rotationally symmetrical, whilst flags and bits of paper end up side-on to the camera so don't get detected so well, especially if you invite others to play with it, who don't know how it works under the hood, and don't make an effort to put the flags side-on.
Thanks to Michael Powell for constructing these. They are perfect for the job. In particular, they contrast well with the background, making it easy to detect. Additionally, when you shake them, they get bigger, meaning that if the computer can't see them yet, you shake them, they get bigger and the computer picks them up.
Find yourself two big sheets of colored paper (this software responds to peak colors at hues of 0.2 (Yellow) and 0.4 (Blue) in the unit HSV (Hue Saturation Value) color spectrum. If you're a programmer, you could change these values to experiment with detecting other kinds of colors or objects.
If you want to check out what these hues look like, or print out some paper just to test the system, then choose HSB in your favourite image editor, set the saturation and value to max, and the hue value to 20% and 40% of the hue range (these ranges can be different depending on your software. 0.0-1.0 is a unit range, 0-255 is another common scheme which uses whole numbers between zero and 255, where yellow would be at 51/255 and blue at 102/255).
We found large rolls of colored paper in blue and yellow from staples for about $7 each.
You make a load of layers of paper, run tape across the whole of one side, and fold over underneath. Once they are taped at the bottom, you can score them with a sharp craft knife from the taped bottom all the way to the top to create the loose flapping strips which create the pom pom.
Finally when you have cut through the multiple layers of paper, you roll up the whole thing along the length of the tape and secure it with a final few turns of tape. If you do this tightly, you end up with a nice handle at the bottom.
It is possible to improvise by simply printing out a yellow page and a blue page on a printer, but it's not ideal.
It is a machine-vision based system which detects pixels which have a high intensity of a particular hue. Pom-poms are good because they are rotationally symmetrical, whilst flags and bits of paper end up side-on to the camera so don't get detected so well, especially if you invite others to play with it, who don't know how it works under the hood, and don't make an effort to put the flags side-on.
Thanks to Michael Powell for constructing these. They are perfect for the job. In particular, they contrast well with the background, making it easy to detect. Additionally, when you shake them, they get bigger, meaning that if the computer can't see them yet, you shake them, they get bigger and the computer picks them up.
Find yourself two big sheets of colored paper (this software responds to peak colors at hues of 0.2 (Yellow) and 0.4 (Blue) in the unit HSV (Hue Saturation Value) color spectrum. If you're a programmer, you could change these values to experiment with detecting other kinds of colors or objects.
If you want to check out what these hues look like, or print out some paper just to test the system, then choose HSB in your favourite image editor, set the saturation and value to max, and the hue value to 20% and 40% of the hue range (these ranges can be different depending on your software. 0.0-1.0 is a unit range, 0-255 is another common scheme which uses whole numbers between zero and 255, where yellow would be at 51/255 and blue at 102/255).
We found large rolls of colored paper in blue and yellow from staples for about $7 each.
You make a load of layers of paper, run tape across the whole of one side, and fold over underneath. Once they are taped at the bottom, you can score them with a sharp craft knife from the taped bottom all the way to the top to create the loose flapping strips which create the pom pom.
Finally when you have cut through the multiple layers of paper, you roll up the whole thing along the length of the tape and secure it with a final few turns of tape. If you do this tightly, you end up with a nice handle at the bottom.
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