My weekdays were spent working at the straight-out-of-star-trek Space Visualization Lab (SVL) at Adler Planetarium. This was my first tryst with Augmented Reality technology. Have you heard of Layar? It is an augmented reality app available for various mobile platforms which enables users to digitally engage and interact with objects in the real world by delivering digital experiences on top of them. Working at SVL, I developed a layer for Layar (you read it right!) which can be used by visitors to interact more engagingly with the Milky Way Galaxy Wall exhibit in the planetarium. Using this layer, visitors can simply point their phone’s camera to the wall to get more information about stellar objects hidden in the wall. See us in action -

Testing it out with Caitlin, in front of the Milky Way Galaxy Wall!

And it works! NOTE: Julieta Galaxy is just a fictitious name for testing! Dont go ask about it to an astronomer!

I would love to come back another day to Adler and experience the exhibits, just hovering my phone’s camera over them! And I’d also like to come back, for Chicago. The city never failed to mesmerize me, every day, at every street corner. From the raw humility of Buddy Guy performing live, to the grand extravagance of the Field Museum – it was a sojourn worth remembrance. Ohh and the best deep-dish pizza did happen. Lou Malnati’s is the place to be if you want to savour those gigantic, calorie-filled, sinfully perfect pizzas!

Two and a half days in Chicago – and it’s almost love at first sight. I can see why one of my professors Malcolm McCullough (teaching Networked Cities) cites Chicago so often in the lectures. It is an architecture enthusiast’s paradise where the old and the new blend seamlessly to create a unique experience. I could still spot those old printing press shops in the city and was left awestruck by the sheer beauty of the stained glass ceiling of Chicago Cultural Center. And then suddenly, across the block I was face to face with soaring marvels of modern architecture – the Cloud Gate (popularly known as ‘the bean’), Willis Tower and so on. After taking a self-guided walking tour of the city loop area, I can vouch for it as the best way to see the city. If there’s anything that I feel at loss of, is a good camera. I am definitely coming back with one!
When you feel hungry out of so much walking, you’re never far from good food – even on when a budget. I have sampled Rudy’s burgers and quesadillas, fine beer at Hackney’s, and some fast food Indian at Chutney Joe’s. I think I’m yet to have the best deep dish pizza – but that’ll come soon.

Today was my first day at Adler Planetarium, where I would be working for the rest of the week at the Space Visualization Lab. Yep, it is indeed as sci-fi as it sounds, and the office space is straight out of a Star Trek movie with large displays, controllers, touch screens, weird LED lights and the works! I will be working on improvising a Milky Way exhibit to make it more engaging for people, and would also design a solution to link it up with The Milky Way crowd-sourcing project. It’s bound to be a really fun and knowledgeable experience. And did I mention that the view of Chicago downtown from Adler is to die for?

View of Chicago downtown from Adler Planetarium

Today ended with loud and hearty laughs at The Second City improv show. They are possibly one of the most outstandingly hilarious live acts I’ve ever seen. If you’re in Chicago/LA/Toronto and haven’t experienced it, you’re definitely missing on some laughter therapy!

That’s about it for today! Signing off from the windy city!

Edit: Read the second post in the series! Warning: Deep-Dish Pizzas ahead! 

The last class’s lab exercise was incredibly fun. We had to create a graphic of a snail on Illustrator. The results are for you to see..

Presenting… :drumroll:.

Week 7 – Lab – The Showstopper Snail

Hop over to my scribd profile to check out some other creations – including a bunny with a dark secret, some jquery sliders, business cards, posters etc.

http://www.scribd.com/sethip_520/shelf

What would be my final Facebook status update, my last blog, or my last tweet? Would I be on my death bed, hurriedly posting something with my wobbly hands? Something like…

Yeah, wait till I’m back in my next incarnation, I’ll settle scores with the 5 people who liked that!

Or maybe, people will start posting their wills online!  Hereby, I announce that XYZ will have all permissions to read, access and modify my blog, Facebook, Twitter, GMail, LinkedIn and Foursquare accounts so that I remain online in the virtual world, forever!

On a more serious note, as the guy in the video said, we are all leaving behind an unimaginable amount of data, stored and shared across the world wide web. And that data isn’t merely a digital combination of 0 and 1. It’s a plethora of thoughts and memories in the form of text, photos and videos; and in the larger sense, a legacy and a culture in it’s own right.
In a way, it is all probably good. My great great grand daughter will know what a jerk her great great grand dad was!