Contextual Camouflage is an open-source gallery art installation built in RoR that guides visitors to anonymously report mental health disorders that affect themselves or their relationships. After users submit a disorder, they have the option to include anecdotes and demographic data for intervention researchers. The data is molded into an interactive real-time display using ActionCable. Come see how code can double as art and an educational tool.
Outline
Intended Audience
All attendees, especially ones interested in using ActionCable in production, working on a product post-hackathon or displaying their work in a creative way.
Outcome
Inspire developers to work on their own Rails art piece or be interested in contributing to ours.
I've spent the last year working on this art installation and am incredibly excited to debut it in an exhibition and to speak about it at Railsconf. It is important to my team and nonprofit partner that we built a tool to help erase the stigma around mental illness. CC gave us a chance to put ActionCable in Production and use Materialize over Bootstrap so we could confidently transfer those skills to our paid work.
I learned a lot about volunteering my time and motivating others when there isn't money involved (similar to working on open-source). I struggled with areas including documentation, scheduling and accountability. I have a lot of lessons and insights to share.