New parents will tell you that a baby takes a few months to acquire something close to a day/night sleep pattern, and during that time Mom and Dad also find their sleep becomes a a rarely-snatched luxury. [Seung Lee] has turned this experience into a unique data visualisation, by taking the sleep pattern data of his son’s first year of life and knitting it into a blanket.
The data was recorded using the Baby Connect app, from which it was exported and converted to JSON. This was in turn fed to some HTML/Javascript which generated a knitting pattern in a handy format that could be displayed on any mobile or portable device for knitting on the go. The blanket was then knitted by hand as a series of panels that were later joined into one, providing relief as the rows lined up.
The finished product shows very well the progression as the youngster adapts to a regular sleep pattern, and even shows a shift to the right at the very bottom as a result of a trip across time zones to see relatives. It’s both a good visualisation and a unique keepsake that the baby will treasure one day as an adult. (Snarky Ed Note: Or bring along to the therapist as evidence.)
This blanket was hand-knitted, but it’s not the first knitted project we’ve seen. How about a map of the Universe created on a hacked knitting machine?
Interesting!
This creeps me out.
been able to collect that much data on one individual in just one area of their life is a bit scarey..
But that a side the interesting thing is if you have more than one as any parent will tell you they dont sleep at the same time so if you did the same thing for the sleep pattern of the parents you would just have a blue blanket
Your smartphone collects a lot more data on you than this.
Your energy meter is sufficient to collect this data on you.
Somehow it’s a little bit odd to knit it down for the permanent record, right? But parents know a lot about their kids, not the least because they have to clothe and feed them.
I know what underwear my son has on this morning, and I’m not even a creeper! (Ninja Turtles — his choice.)
But still, it’s going to be interesting where society shakes out on how much technology-mediated parental surveillance is good for kids, or parents. My own guess is that something like none is the right amount.