The visit in Linz

Time flies and I was sloppy with the documentation!
About the journey to Linz and stuff around I talked about in Friendly Hairy Creatures, but the visit at the Ars Electronica Future Lab is missing.
On our first day Marianne visited us at the trail rider hotel. Marianne met Pepe the first time, but as mentioned in the post he was pretty distracted with the other horses and his own hormones.

Marianne and Pepe

 We did a little walk all together because Marianne wanted to experience his ear movement at first hand.
After this we found a real good working space in the common room of the trail rider hotel. A long table was quickly filled with our stuff: Laptops, Handys, GoPro's and some more. WiFi was great and we started with our try outs.
If I want to know wheater the recording from the GoPro is fine I can check this via Handy. Unfortunately the quality of the record is not very good.
We had two things in mind for our first visit. The fitting of the GoPro and the cameras for the ears. When the GoPro is fixed on the halter between the ears, for Point and Moritz you can get a good impression. The ears are almost completly in the picture, also when they move to the back. But with Pepe all is so small and close together. Therefor Marianne developed a bridge and printed it out. The bridge brings the GoPro just a few centimeters to the back,

Mane and front hair are out of the way and the GoPro is fixed on a snaffle.

The idea for the snaffle comes from the need to fix the antenna.

Antenna as unicorn

Therefor the snaffle is not so solid as the halter out of leather and the GoPro hangs a little loose. The idea was to use Pepe's mane to fix the GoPro. And that meant I had to braid.

Almost artfully

After the drive to the Ars Electronica Center

And is caught after the fall

Basically it is a good solution when is not shaking his head all the time. But it's not a fast solution. I need some time for the braiding.
During the next days I drove to Linz every time. Beside our experiments with the prototyp I wanted to find out how stressable Pepe is. Sounds worst when it was. But is he ok with two hours trail riding (1h one way): Yes. How does he react to a complete new environment: Curious and unexcited.

Pepe im Hänger vor dem Ars Electronica Future Lab

Inside the trailer he is fine and can rest. Once I close the doors of the trailer he is calm, but with open doors the disturbance is high. Besides, we had a lot of attention. On one hand is was a good idea to park in front of the Future Lab and Marianne could go easily in and out and fix things. On the other hand there where a lot of traffic with people who wanted to make a photo or asked us questions.
Last step: Cameras for the ears.

Ohrenkameras und viel Gekabel

About how to fix these little cameras in and on these little ears we thought a lot. It is truly difficult and we found not really a satisfying solution. With the crochet hook Pepe stoped moving his ears. I provoked some situations, but the ears stood more or less in the middle and didn't move any more. The fit wasn't that tight, but as a solution it was out of question. Finally we choose hook and loo fastener which are self-bonding. Marianne searched for solutions with the lenght of the cabels (the ears are moving in a quit long distance) and the display of the cameras. Lot's of small things to take care about. We did it, but we were all a little bit stressed, including Pepe. The last difficulty was to put the camera in the right angel, otherwise you just see the ground.
All in all I'm not convinced with the ear cameras and would like to go for LED's.

Summary:
1. Prototyp: We learned a lot and we changed a lot. To be honest I had to be on site for a much longer time. Such an intensive program with an animal is exhausting and not necessarily crowned with success. We learned a lot and have to implement this.
2. Pepe: It is easy to travel with him even when he is alone, but it is also exhausting for him. A short time later I traveled with all three Ponys to Berlin. When his herd is close he is much calmer. Effort vs benefit? If possible I would try to travel as a herd.
3. Sabine: The responsibility for my animal is huge. Simultaneously to concentrate on the project and play an active part as usual is difficult and energy-sapping. For myself I'm not easy with strange surroundings and this has influence on Pepes wellbeing. There is a fine balance between us, if it is balanced all things come easy. But it's an effort to hold it in balance, I should not forget this.
4. Lesson Learned: Take much more time!