Augmented Comms
AUGMENTED COMMS AUTHORS
Caleb Gardner
Originally from Hampton Roads, VA, Caleb Gardner is a freelance writer currently working from Harrisonburg, VA. His non-academic work typically involves original content creation and/or the translation of technical language for the layperson, while, his academic interest often centers around music, subcultures, popular culture, corporate injustice, and poverty.
Zerubabbel Tessema
Originally from Alexandria, VA, Zerubabbel Tessema is Senior Computer Science Major at JMU. He enjoys finding difficult solutions to simple problems.
Jack O'Neil
Originally from Annapolis, Maryland, Jack O’Neill is an Intelligence Analysis major at James Madison University with a concentration in national security. He is an aspiring data scientist with experience in data mining and visualizing big data. His passions outside of academia includes cybersecurity interests, startups, playing piano and finding solutions to difficult problems.
Adam Warren
Skylar Southard
As an artist my goal is to integrate both technology and design. Light and movement have an immense impact, as light itself is a very unique medium— people connect to it in a deep and emotional way. Technology allows me to manipulate this light and control it in a specific way. Though it might not be initially apparent, I use nature is a big influence as well, deeply intrigued by the organized chaos nature. As an artist I try to capture this with my sculptures and photography. I feel we, as a community, judge art based on how we relate to it and/or it’s relevance to modernity. It’s because of this that user interaction is such a valuable tool; it instantly allows viewers to connect to artwork. I manipulate this by making my sculptures infinitely reprogrammed, rearranging in order to fit modern issues. I took time to make my work scalable, allowing my sculptures to adapt to the space. The scale of the piece alters the emotion you receive from it. A single piece can be mechanical, limited in motion, whereas a group of pieces tends to have a more organic feel to them.
AUGMENTED COMMS BLOG
Meet the Augmented Communications Team!
We’re the Augmented Comms Team from James Madison University and we are looking to develop a way to restore telecommunications for first responders in post-hurricane areas. This blog post is just...
Augmented Comms Team Timeline
Click your way through this interactive timeline to see the events of the semester and the progress leading up to the final showcase! Our...
Lassie Wants to Use UAVs to Save Lives in Wake of Hurricanes
October 31, 2016 Harrisonburg, VA Lassie has designed UAV-based technology that will aid first responders in hurricane aftermath by way of restoring telecommunications in devastated areas. The...
Considering the Ethics of the Project
Unmanned systems are always a hot-button issue. Drones are often surrounded by controversy and criticism, however, the projects in this course are less so than the drone usage scenarios on the...
Accepting Criticism, Acknowleding Shortcomings, Then Moving Forward
In 2005, the world watched the unfortunate events of Hurricane Katrina unfold on their television sets. Just a month ago we saw it all happen again with Hurricane Matthew and the devastation it...
So, What’s the Deal With Waves Anyway?
On November 9th, the class was lucky enough to experience a rare “double feature.” Dr. Kevin Giovanetti and Dr. Thomas Alberts both gave insightful and approachable presentations on waves--with a...
Baby, Let’s Get Technical
On October 5th, the class heard a lecture from Thomas, a professor at Old Dominion University and an advisor to the project. In this presentation, we came to understand some of the basic physics...
Augmented Comms: How Could This Stuff Work?
Our drone attachment has to be able to achieve one goal: transmit telecommunications (probably from a mobile ground station) to the people in the area. We briefly talked about the problems we are...
Getting Things Rolling with Augmented Communications
In the last week of August, 2005, Hurricane Katrina rocked the gulf coast. Some victims of the storm were stranded and without communications for several weeks--315,000 people were still without...
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