Fwd: Heart Rate Monitor Peripheral

[Seth Woodworth]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tom Boonsiri <tom.boonsiri at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 2:31 AM
Subject: Heart Rate Monitor Peripheral
To: seth.woodworth at gmail.com


Fellow developers,

Is your Measure activity feeling neglected? If so, shame on you. =)
I'd like to encourage everyone to build on the great work of Arjun
Sarwal and help us extend the sensor interface with our peripheral --
the heart rate monitor.

Pictures of the device:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/3419907541_f62b168dce_m.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3558/3420715230_00e29b7787_m.jpg

It's a relatively simple device that measures the blood flow in your
finger with an infrared sensor. Powered by USB, the device sends
measurements to the XO via the AC/DC sensor interface (audio jack).
Using a Measure variant with a heart beat detection method, we are
able to display the heart rate (as shown in the pic).

If you're a developer interested in integrating biofeedback into your
application, please email me for more details on how you can get your
hands on a few of our peripherals. Otherwise, we are looking for
developers who can help us evolve the Measure activity to better suit
the lesson plan we have created for the device. The device is not of
clinical quality and solely for educational purposes. We are
definitely interested in feedback on our direction.

In the short-term, it would be interesting to develop a gui where you
could structure a family tree (even extending it to branches for
relatives) and allow kids to record measurements for various family
members. This could potentially evolve into other health education
efforts with a wiki backbone to support health wellness.

Please send me your feedback and your interest!

Thanks,
Tom Boonsiri -- OLPC GoldenState
(tom.boonsiri at gmail.com)