Today was the first day we physically met as a group, which was a delight! The day started with preparing for Design Review 1. In the review we presented our progress so far and discussed the possible challenges lying ahead of us. The takeaways from the review were:

• Use an iterative process rather than parallel prototyping. Get started quickly, fail early and often.
• Create a plan for the system and define the interfaces. This will make it easier to split into subgroups working on different parts of the system.
• Get a simple working prototype up and running as soon as possible. Then, add functionality and polish.
• Be at least two people involved in each task

Getting started

After the review, we adjusted our time plan and got started with the first tasks. One of these was to test and get familiar with the major components we have ordered, getting them to do their own thing in isolation. An initial roadblock was that the PIR sensors from the 'duino starter kits were happy to pick up signals - so happy that they never neglected to pick up a change even when we put the sensor in a vase in a vain attempt to force the issue. Going to try out other sensors before fixing those problems.

Additionally we did some explorations for folding patterns in paper, to see what movements certain patterns afforded. No clear direction has been found yet, although light is scattered very pleasingly through the geometries.

A problem is that the tesselations are not fond of moving when the sheets are "bent", which clearly points away from making anything like the sketches in the picture. Different avenues must be explored, before committing to something dumb.