It takes quite a lot of time to be responsible for the course Computerized Measurement Systems here at Lund University. It is fun, but very time consuming. Good thing that I have not planned to get much research done this week. We are getting closer to the end of the semester now and the grand finale of the course is on Friday. The students have been working with their projects for the last two weeks now and will present their results during a 10 minute long presentation. I'm looking forward to it. All groups seem to have some really nice results to talk about.

This course is closely related to the work I put down on developing the research tool we call ELVIS. The acronym stands for Echolocation Visualization and Interface System and is basically what it sounds like. It visualizes the echolocation of dolphins and works as an interface between the dolphin and the computer, between the researcher and the dolphin, and the researcher and the measurement data that are visualized in real time. This project has been a collaboration with Kolmarden Wild Animal Park.

One of the features that this measurement system has is that it can be operated as an acoustically operated touch screen. This means that the dolphins can use their echolocation beam to point on the screen without touching it. I made a painting program for them so that they can draw on the computer. They do this by swiping their echolocation beam across the screen, which leaves a visible trace on it.

Unfortunately you can't see the dolphin in this video, but she is right behind the screen. A meter or so from the screen. The creaking sound you hear is created by a click detector that transforms the sound into audible sound.

Each echolocation click is very short. If you divide a second into 100 000 parts, one echolocation click is as short as only one of those parts. Without the click detector you would not hear anything since the sound they generate is so high in frequency that our ears can't hear it (think piccolo flute and shift that frequency up about 10 times). Imagine the sound being 1/100 000 parts of a second long, much higher in pitch than a piccolo flute and directed in a rather narrow cone in front of the dolphin, much like the light cone of a flash light but made of sound instead of light! Good thing we have measurement equipment that can help us see and hear it.