Connected Peekaboo Toolkit

Connected Peekaboo Toolkit (CPT) is a design toolkit that design researchers can use to conduct a design ethnographic research--- capturing photos and data for studying a specific context. Many examples can be seen in the paper "Seeing through Things: Exploring Design Space of Privacy-Aware Data-Enabled Objects". With the use of the CPT, designers can build a connected system based on the solid foundation of a working prototype with built-in connectivity, programmability (APIs), and a data-sharing interface.

The CPT is built on an existing example, Peekaboo Camera (https://github.com/FutureEveryday/PeekabooCam) which is an automatic time-lapse camera with an interactive data control button. The CPT turns the Peekaboo Camera into an open design, so that designers can flexibly design its expression. We call the camera the CPT camera in this paper. The CPT camera contains a Wifi router, which allows design researchers to flexibly connect with multiple sensing objects for wider data collection locally. The CPT camera also provides data storage and an additional data sharing interface (Data Canvas), which allows design researchers and participants to efficiently conduct de-briefings all of the captured data.

Publication

We publish this open-source design as a companion to the paper "Seeing through Things: Exploring the Design Space of Privacy-Aware Data-Enabled Objects" in the ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ToCHI). The paper is a great read/browse/ponder and introduces why we designed Connected Peekaboo Toolkit, how we did it and what the major results of deploying it were.

Citation

ACM Ref

Yu-Ting Cheng, Mathias Funk, Rung-Huei Liang, and Lin-Lin Chen. 2022. Seeing Through Things: Exploring the Design Space of Privacy-Aware Data-Enabled Objects. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. (December 2022). https://doi.org/10.1145/3577012

BibTeX

@article{10.1145/3577012,
author = {Cheng, Yu-Ting and Funk, Mathias and Liang, Rung-Huei and Chen, Lin-Lin},
title = {Seeing Through Things: Exploring the Design Space of Privacy-Aware Data-Enabled Objects},
year = {2022},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
issn = {1073-0516},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3577012},
doi = {10.1145/3577012},
journal = {ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact.},
month = {dec},
keywords = {Privacy Design, Field Study, Design Ethnography, Research Products, Design Space Exploration, Data-Enabled Objects}
}

Abstract

Increasing amounts of sensor-augmented research objects have been used in design research. We call these objects Data-Enabled Objects, which can be integrated into daily activities capturing data about people’s detailed whereabouts, behaviours and routines. These objects provide data perspectives on everyday life for contextual design research. However, data-enabled objects are still computational devices with limited privacy awareness and nuanced data sharing. To better design data-enabled objects, we explore privacy design spaces by inviting 18 teams of undergraduate design students to re-design the same type of sensor-enabled home research camera. We developed the Connected Peekaboo Toolkit (CPT) to support the design teams in designing, building, and directly deploying their prototypes in real home studies. We conducted Thematic Analysis to analyse their outcomes which led us to interpret that privacy is not just an obstacle but can be a driver by unfolding an exploration of possible design spaces for data-enabled objects.

Setup instructions

1. Prepare Materials

Follow steps in Peekaboo Cam (https://github.com/FutureEveryday/PeekabooCam) and prepare materials (you can remove all the "button material").

Electronic Materials (Peekaboo Cam)

• Raspberry pi 3*1
• Pi camera mini *1
• Audio Amplifier 2x3W mini 5V PAM8403 *1
• Speaker mini 0.5 w*2
• Servo Motor DF9GMS *2
• Mini Breadboard *1
• SD card 16G *1

Software material

• Peekaboo_pi.img
• ESP_sensing_modules/module1/module1.ino
• ESP_sensing_modules/module2/module2.ino
• remote_control/peekaboo_datagen.pde

2. Install image on your Raspberry Pi

Step 1

Download the operating system image peekaboo_pi.img to a folder on your computer. The download is large (2.3G!!) and available from here: peekaboo.img.

Step 2

Insert a new SD card (the card will be fully erased!)

Step 3

Either use a program such as Balena Etcher to flash the image onto the SD card, or use Terminal or PuTTY and type:

sudo dd if=<folder on your drive>/peekaboo_pi.img of=/dev/disk2

Note: Using the Terminal is risky, you need to know what you are doing! Replace with the correct source path for the image.

3. Follow the Building Steps in Peekaboo Cam

Follow the building steps in Peekaboo Cam (https://github.com/FutureEveryday/PeekabooCam) and remove 'button' function.

4. Start with Connected Peekaboo Toolkit

These steps teach you how to connect with the CPT and adjust the time for the CPT. As such, you can remote control the CPT by entering the code through terminal or PuTTY. Additionally you can make the CPT capture the correct timestamps of the captured data and photos.

Step 1

Turn on the CPT.

Step 2

Searching & Connecting to the wifi, called ‘Peekaboo’ on your Computer and enter the password: boxeslittleboxes

Step 3

Access to the Peekaboo from terminal on your computer (Mac/Linux), on Windows use PuTTY (https://www.putty.org).

On Terminal or PuTTY, type

ssh pi@192.168.4.1

Enter the password: raspberry

Step 4

To ensure valid timestamps, adjust the time first from your computer, after doing step 2 and 3:

sudo date -s ‘2019-04-25 09:30:00’ # type the current date and time here

Note: Every time you turn off the Pi, the time needs to be adjusted again.

5. Build Sensing Objects to Send Data to the CPT

The CPT enables a local connection between the CPT and the sensing objects. The following steps teach you how to use additional ‘sensing package’ to design your own sensing objects that can connect with the CPT.

You need ESP32 boards to connect with the sensors you want and install the boards to the object you make. Download the following files to the ESP board and it will automatically send data to the CPT.

Step 1

Design sensing objects that can capture contextual data in supporting your ethnographic study.

Step 2

Download the Sensing Package with two example programs for ESP32 based sensing modules, they are: ESP_sensing_modules/module1/module1.ino ESP_sensing_modules/module2/module2.ino

Step 3

Copy the file on the ESP32 board (using the Arduino IDE with the OOCSI for ESP library installed). And then it will automatically send the data to the CPT.

The example code will only send random data to the CPT, your job is to connect sensors and send sensor data to the CPT.

6. Build Sensing Objects to Control the CPT

The CPT provides an Interaction API for design researchers to make their sensing objects control the interaction of the CPT camera. In other words, these steps teach you how to design a remote control function of the CPT.

Step 1

Download the CPT remote control file: remote_control/peekaboo_datagen.pde

Step 2

Download Processing (http://processing.org) and install the library "OOCSI for Processing", in Processing using the Processing library manager.

Step 3

Run the program. You can see a white canvas, and can press to control the function:

Step 4

Copy the code labeled “trigger photo” or “raiseflag”, or “down flag” to your ESP (sensing objects). Looking at the code that send the camera and flag controls to the CPT, you can also design the trigger for the sensor modules.

7. Access Data Canvas (make data visualisation)

After capturing data for a period of time, the CPT provides design researcher's with a Data Canvas to automatically visualise data, and allows them to annotate the data. To access Data Canvas, you need to follow the following steps:

Step 1

Connect your computer to Peekaboo Wifi, password: boxeslittleboxes

Step 2

Open Browser, access: http://192.168.4.1

Step 3

You can annotate the data, and even delete photos.

Step 4

Remember to 'download', otherwise it won't save your annotations and your data.

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How to Reset the CPT

You may need to reset the CPT after your testing. After reset the CPT, you can start to conduct your study and capture data. The following steps reset the data on the CPT:

Step 1

Use the program you have downloaded: remote_control/peekaboo_datagen.pde

Step 2

Uncomment the lines in the setup function.

Step 3

Run the program, which will reset the Peekaboo Cam.

Step 4

Comment the lines again, so you don't accidentally reset the Cam.

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A D V A N C E D

You can redesign, adapt and completely change the CPT behavior by changing the internally used Python scripts. Only do this VERY carefully and only with basic knowledge of Python. Always make backups and take notes about your steps.

Example: Re-design the behavior of the flag and the shutter block from the camera

Step 1

Connect to the Peekaboo wifi

Step 2

Access to the Peekaboo from terminal on your computer

ssh pi@192.168.4.1

Use password: raspberry

Step 3

In the home directory, type:

nano timelapse/peekaboo.py

Step 4

You can find the code labeled by "shutter", "flag", you can edit the number of the rotations of the servo motor.

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The above instructions have been provided without any warranties; we advise caution when following the steps.