Running activity visualization beads

The purpose of these beads is to visualize your running or walking activity. For each run/walk you can print a parametrized bead. It visualizes three parameters:

• Running or walkingduration:Bead diameter
• Running or walkingdistance:Bead length modification

• Averagespeed:Resolution (higher=faster) Use the easy-to-useCustomizer (click on "apps") to create beads that visualize your own running (or download the OpenScad code).

  Duration is more important than kilometers or speed, but you can change that by editing the code. The picture chosen to represent the thing shows: A 20km walk in 7 hours, 1 hour of jogging and the best marathon run ever.

  Creating a string of pearls that you could proudly wear may help you engaging in running or walking activities. Imaging a deal with your partner: For each achieved run or walk, you will give or receive a silver-plated bead (via an on-line printing service). The bigger, the longer and the smoother they are, the better you do.

  This design was inspired by Stusak, S., Tabard, A., Sauka, F., Khot, R. A., & Butz, A. (2014). Activity sculptures: Exploring the impact of physical visualizations on running activity. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics, 20(12), 2201-2210. https://www.medien.ifi.lmu.de/pubdb/publications/pub/stusak2014vis/stusak2014vis.pdf

  This is a proof of concept. The OpenScad code probably should be tweaked to fit real runner's perceptions (I walk and do not run). In addition, it could implement more precise information, e.g. as described in the article.

  Print Settings

Printer:

Felix Pro1

Rafts:

Yes

Supports:

No

Resolution:

0.2mm

Infill:

50% but can be lower

Notes:

This should be printable with any printer, but:

Some pieces (short distances) have fairly strong overhang and may need support.

The beads may not stick enough to the print bed and can get ripped away by the nozzle. To minimize that risk, you could do any or all of the following: increase CutAway parameter, use a raft (that's what I used for the larger beads), use some support, put some glue on the bed, make the first layer fat (add 25-50% to width and height).

If you do not plan wearing it, use PLA. If you do want to wear the necklace, try special filaments like PETG or wood or stone composites. However these need to be printed with bigger resolutions, so you may have to make the beads a bit bigger. The customizer allows doing that.

Post-Printing

Filing

Short distance beads (e.g. the ones that have more width than height), don't print too well and need some post-processing, e.g. filing. If you want to avoid "flat" overhangs, increase the Skewfact to produce more elongated beads.

SkewFactor = log(RunningDistance+9)

How I Designed This

By trial and error.

The original article suggest a much preciser visualization where counting edges provide some information. This is not the case here, my math skills are too low for programming polyhedrons.

Tweaking, versions and future

Tweaking

The little math values "being out there", i.e. the diameter of a bead visualizes the time spent. Adding distance will just make it a bit longer and bit smoother. You get a round bead if you run/walk 10km.

Since I didn't want too big differences between beads, I used a log10 to compute the diameter and extralength.

AverageSpeed = RunningDistance / RunningDuration 60;
Resolution = ln(AverageSpeedAverageSpeedAverageSpeed)2.5;
BeadDiameter = log(RunningDuration)*10; //One hour running is about 1.7 cm
SkewFactor = log(RunningDistance) ; // log10, so running 10km = 1

Updates

July 8 2016, 15:30- Changed the OpenScad file to fix parameter infos and added a picture of a first print. The bigger beads, e.g. the Marathon got ripped off the print bed. Printing a new one with a raft seems to work.

July 8 2016, 22:30 CET- Added some more information. I also made a picture with bigger beds. I printed these with a little raft and no support.

Future

A commercial idea: Couple this with the services tied to one of these fitness tracking/e-health bracelets (e.g. Fitbit, Garmin, Jawbone, Misfit, Withings, etc.). If a person walks over 10km a day, then the service would automatically send her/him a bead visualizing the exploit (fast delivery if possible). It should be possible to extract just the walk or the run. Measuring steps instead of distance can do of course. Height (or steps up/down) would be a nice extra parameter. One could use color to code this.