Tag: experiment

That’s a Cappuccino!

thatsacappuccino
Last week we had a Hack Day at Poke. We were split into teams of about 6 or 7 and given 24 hours to come up with a ‘working thing with a URL’ that’s something to do with the theme: FOOD. The team I was in came up with That’s a Cappuccino! – A campaign to put an end to people ordering a Cappuccino but receiving a Latte. There’s lots of ways to get a cappuccino wrong, but we narrowed it down to the basic ‘golden ratio’ of what it should be made of:

 

1 part espresso, 1 part steamed milk, 1 part foam.

 

With this in mind we’ve built a map, that anybody can contribute to, that simply labels places as “That’s a cappuccino!” or “That’s not a cappuccino!”. We also wrote an open letter to some major cappuccino venders (including Starbucks, Costa and, naturally, The Wild Bean Cafe) asking them how the ensure their cappuccinos are of the correct stanrd and if they’d like to get involved in the campaign and where. Here’s the letter.

 

Our film unit ran about all over over London interviewing baristas about what they think makes the perfect cappuccino, and they even got to meet Gwilym Davies, the UK and world champion barista who is a jolly nice champ and has officially backed our project:

It turned out to be a pretty massive project for 24 hours but we devided and conquered and… didn’t win in the end (The Holy Sandwich won, well done you lot), but there’s still a chance we can get a prize for the most traffic on our site, as well as improving your next cappuccino – so go check out our site, and get adding to that map.

 

Our team (the Golden Ratio) are: Me!, Chris Meachin, Iain Tait, Chris Reeves (the other one), Aina Ørebech, Kate Ducham and Nicky Gibson.

The Sound of Orange RockCorps

I made a little video thingy. It sits on the side of a taxi cab which is actually a mobile photo booth/sound recorder for something called The Sound of Orange Rockcorps. What these photos and sounds are going to be used for is a bit secret, and we’re still working on it a surprise!

 

There’s more information on the Orange RockCorps blog.

He only went and did it!

I was so impressed by Iain’s performance over the weekend, that I am moved to blogging. Here’s what happened. Sit Iain of Tait put out this tweet Friday night:

tweet-iain

To which I flippantly responded with:

tweet-jason

I know, it’s another one of my cocky annoying tweets. But this time, HE TOOK THE BAIT! He actually completed the full list of tasks. Read all about it on Crackunit.



Above is Iain’s home brew weapon (Task 3). It’s an odd looking weapon, but it reminded me of this awesome killer ball thingy from the bonkers Russian sci-fi Day Watch.



With so many projects we have lying around half baked, it’s an attitude like Iain’s that inspiring me to get the bloody things done. Iain, you win.

BakerTweet

Yey! We made a thing! Well, when I say ‘we’ I mean Poke, and when I say Poke I mean ‘mainly Zolty and Mattias‘, but we helped out, we even screwed the thing to the wall. Anyway, it’s a lovely device that hangs on the wall of the baker’s kitchen across the road from Poke, when something fresh comes out of the oven they just turn a dial to select what kind of fresh thing it it, press a button, and hey presto a tweet is sent out to hungry new media professionals int he Shoreditch area. It’s all made possible with the lovely Arduino.

 
We tried to keep it under wraps a bit but it kinda slipped out into the twitter land and news spread like hot cakes (pun very much intended), so we rushed together this promo video in about 2 hours. What’s super sweet is somebody over at Hidden Chemistry has already extended the idea with a bit of a hack – nice!

 
We’ve had great support from the people over at the Albion (our first test subject) who are chuffed to bits with thier new toy. It’s not many swanky, brand new, Conran designed cafes that let a bunch of geeks screw something weird onto one of their shiny tiled walls.

 
Get the full skinny at BakerTweet.com

 
Here’s some pics of the thing being installed.

Camelids Ballroom Adventure

In responce to the Ideas Brothers’ mood film I’ve made my own. It’s about that time where you sit back and wonder at the glorious ballet between the two members of the Camelid family; the Camel and the Llama, and the adventures those little tykes get up to.

Terror Castle


We finally finshed our big propper Little Big Planet level. Surprisingly, it’s themed around a ghost train that goes off the rails a bit. Really enjoyed building the thing. The tools are designed very well to give every meat sack out there the chance to build something fun. Anyway, go play “Terror Castle” (named after a really old horror attraction from Great Yarmouth, used to scare the nipples off us) and let us know what you think either in the comments here, on in Little Big Planet.

Our First LBP Level, in Hell


Is it hot in here, or is it me? from flippers on Vimeo.
After much begging, we managed to blag ourselves a beta key (thanks Gripwrench!). Here’s our first little level. Spent about a week messing around with it. The creation tools really are fine. Such a fun thing to play with. Looking forward to burning many hours making more Little Big Dark Sinister things when the final game comes out in a few weeks.

Should Boob Beard?

So… The Boob grew a hot and sexy beard while we were away in the States, which he then cruelly stole away from us with a few swipes of a razor. His reasoning for this was some crap about it being uncomfortable or some shit, which of course is a small price to pay for looking hotter than a mince pie fresh from the microwave on boxing day. Now he doesn’t seem to believe me that the hotness is worth the discomfort so he needs your help. That’s right folks, you can play a part in shaping the Boob, for behold; I have prepared a simple online petition for you to express your opinion on this burning issue (of course with it being a petition and not a vote you can only record a pro-beard comment, but hey ho, that’s the right choice anyway). So for the love of Boob and all that is holy, SIGN THE PETITION (please).