My principal interest in mobile applications is to push the boundaries of innovation to create uniquely mobile experiences. I hope my blogs excite and challenge developers to think 'outside the box'.
Mobile health blogging on the journey to school
coultonp | 20 February, 2007 11:16
I have been a little quiet on the blogging front lately as Will Bamford and I have been working hard to complete the first stage of project we are working on with members of our Universities Geography department.
We have created a version of Locoblog, which we have christened geoblogger, that will allow us to record the journeys to school of 30 children during the course of a week of their journeys to and from school.
No only do we record the route but we have given the children the ability to blog their health status along the journeys together with an concerns about the environment.
The application also provides a twice daily health survey which is sent back to us along with the distance travelled.
We are going correlate their children’s school journeys with local traffic pollution data in the hope that we can make recommendations on the best routes to take and whether the local council needs to consider creating green corridors for such journeys. Here is the kit we have a amalgamated for the project which looks a bit scary all in one place .
The experiment will take place in 1 week periods in each season over the next year with the first one starting next week. I will blog more details and perhaps some preliminary results during the course of the trial as it will hopefully provide some interesting insights in using mobile phones for fieldwork recording and experiences of using this technology with children
General, Java, Location Based Services |
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Re: Mobile health blogging on the journey to school
coultonp | 23/02/2007, 10:28
HarttiThe data is stored on the phone at 1 second interval containing lat long sats etc in a folder on the memory based on 1 days events. We create individual blog entries as text files and images which are referenced by the unix time stamp. The data is combined for the ARC GIS system by parsing the file into the required format later. This is then combined with pollution maps from sensors around the town modified by a dispersion model. Hope this makes sense and thanks for the link I will check it out.
Paul
Re: Mobile health blogging on the journey to school
rubytsang | 29/03/2007, 23:31
Just curious how long does the battery last with this application running, pulling the data at 1 second interval sounds quite busy?
Thanks,
Ruby
Re: Mobile health blogging on the journey to school
coultonp | 30/03/2007, 11:06
RubyThe battery lasts over 8 hrs without any problem. As we are storing the data on the phone memory card we are not using the main communications of the phone so battry drain insnt as bad as it could be. In there first week trials we havent had any battery issues and have got some great plots of the kids journeys.
Re: Mobile health blogging on the journey to school
rubytsang | 30/03/2007, 21:21
Are there more details and results available for this project? I find it very interesting and would love to know more! Having kids plot their journeys is really cool.
Thanks,
Ruby
Re: Mobile health blogging on the journey to school
coultonp | 31/03/2007, 22:05
RubyThe first week has produced some excellent results and we have some great trails and photos that really shown interesting patterns. We are seeing a difference in the journey from school and the journey too school, the effects of weather on certain days, and the likely impact of traffic from the school run, amongst a number of others. Unfortunately I cant go public just yet as the plots need to be anonymised so we dont reveal too much about the actual children involved. I will be sorting this out soon will blog and example as soon as I can.
Sorry I cant do more at the moment but I am sure you appreciate the problems when children are involved.
BTW thanks for your interest in this. I am very excited about the project myself and its great to get feedback.
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My principal interest in mobile applications is to push the boundaries of innovation to create uniquely mobile experiences. I hope my blogs excite and challenge developers to think 'outside the box'.
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Re: Mobile health blogging on the journey to school
hartti | 23/02/2007, 04:26
Combining the diary data with pollution data sounds like a good idea. In which format do you get the data?
Also
Are you familiar with Wellness Diary
http://research.nokia.com/research/projects/WellnessDiary/index.html
Hartti