Pebbling in colour

The Pebble Time is finally out! This fantastically simple, yet massively functional, little smartwatch is now shipping to the Kickstarter backers who pledged their renewed support to the company that produced the original Pebble.



I've been lucky enough to be beta testing a developer preview model of the Pebble Time, and have had it on my wrist for the last few weeks. I used this time to put together some animated watchfaces which make the most of the colour screen, and learn some C programming along the way!

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Path Time

An elegant animated watchface, with each digit built from curving paths. Animated minute transitions, and tap-triggered animation to improve readability under low light. Animations, line widths and colours can be customised.

Inspired by the watchface shown on the red Pebble Time Steel advertising images:

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Pop!

A fun, animated, easy to read watchface. Every minute the bubbles in the background pop, and a set of new ones appear (by default) in a new colour. Alternatively you can customsise the colour of the bubbles. Tapping or shaking the watch also triggers the animation.

Inspired by the watchface shown on the red Pebble Time advertising images:

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Arcturus

A colourful interpretation of the classic arc watchface design, with a Pebble Time-style loading animation and dynamic colour schemes. Colour schemes and whether or not to show the second hand can be customised.

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Disarray

A colourful interpretation of the classic pixel array digital watchface design, with loading animations, animated minute transitions and dynamic colour schemes. Colour schemes, pixel styles and animations can be customised.

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Software used:
CloudPebble: Watchface programming. CloudPebble is an online IDE for Pebble watchfaces and apps.
Notepad++: Server side HTML/Javascript for the watchface settings.

Cells and Worms - 2. The Shirt

Last post I talked about how seeing how many worms overlap if you drop them on a patch of ground, how (somehow) this was vaguely related to my scientific research, and that the simulation of this process even generates quite nice pictures. If you thought that was geeky, then this takes geekyness to a whole new level!

Part of my research has been into the shapes of trypanosome parasites. Trypanosomes that cause disease in people are fairly widely known (you might have heard of sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, or leishmaniasis) but trypanosomes don't just infect people. Trypanosome species have also been found infecting animals from sharks to penguins, crocodiles to elephants. There is even one species named after Steve Irwin (the crocodile hunter) that infects koalas!

A scanning electron microscope image of Trypanosoma brucei, the trypanosome which causes sleeping sickness.

In short, I did some research to test whether there were particular characteristic shapes of trypanosomes (length, width, etc.) that look like they might help the parasite survive in the bloodstream of different host animals. I made a big database of properties of trypanosome shape and, using the scripts I made to draw nicely tesselated trypanosome shapes I talked about in the last post, I put together a compelling summary of just how varied trypanosome shapes from different host species are are:

The science behind this picture suggests some interesting adaptation to help the parasites swim within their host bloodstream, but that's enough about the science. To me this pattern was just begging to be on a shirt, an abstract design with a biological twist!

Spoonflower is a fantastic online service where you can order customised fabric, wallpaper and other prints. So that is exactly what I did, and after some sewing (that I didn't do myself) I am now the proud owner of the world's only 100% scientifically accurate trypanosome shirt, featuring 27 different trypanosome species.

Scientists always say that research can take you down unexpected paths. This path from wriggly worms, through an image generating script, through research into trypanosome shape, to the world's only trypanosome shirt was quite an unexpected one!

Software used:
ImageJ: Automated trypanosome drawing.
Inkscape: Conversion to vector graphics for printing.

Decoding The Encoding

Decoding The Encoding is my new infographic/research comic feature in the Oxford University Biochemical Society (OUBS) magazine Phenotype. This term's feature is all about the ENCODE project, a massive international research project to move beyond just knowing the sequence of the human genome and moving towards understanding how that translates into its function. Check out the full issue here.

Software used:

Python: General data parsing and reformatting.

ImageJ: Creating the chromosome map plots.

Inkscape: Page layout and design.

Light vs. Microscopists

Light vs. Microscopists, my research comics feature in OUBS Phenotype, trinity term 2012. Everything you wanted to know about superresolution light microscopy in one fun package. Including a cute kitten. Check out the full issue here.

Software used
Inkscape: Document design and layout.
ImageJ: Micrograph simulation.