Extreme shepherding!

Ok, so this is more about being REALLY good at your job than about the LEDs or the technical aspects of what we've been working on, but I think it's amazing.



They did have to hook up battery packs to each sheep, and remotely turn them on for the fireworks effect, so that does require some certain skills that I'm quite certain I don't have yet. Electronics AND animal training, fun stuff.

555 Timer chip tutorial

I found to tutorial that helps and introduced topics dealing with integrated circuits. The tutorials that I've seen have helped with the understanding of elements that are basic circuit builders on boards.

FM synth made with PD

I found this to be a very cool video. The stuff that can be done with PD keeps blowing my mind. It very cool how he manipulated something that is free to all of us using PD. I actually think it sounds pretty good too. If i had a car i think i would want to have that PD hook up.

Electric Circuit Experiment

I thought this video was pretty cool. When I was building my circuits for the project, I never thought to use vegetables in a circuit. I just thought it interesting the things you can use in circuits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70gh5GrX4xI

Make Magazine: Electronics Workshop LCD and GPS

This is a video from one of my favorite publications, Make Magazine. In it, host Bre Pettis joins up with a hardware hacker to create a circuit using an LCD display and a GPS system. They first show the coding and creation of the LCD screen to make it say whatever you'd like, and then they move into integrating it with the GPS unit. The video shows clear directions on how to do this, as well as an application of the finished hardware.

Shadow Fire

I thought this was interesting because it utilizes the figure's shadow to produce an obscure graphic effect. Probably one of my favorite installations by far, not only in terms of interactivity, but in effort and practicality.

D E A D T E C H

Hokay, so I drive by this place a few times a week, and I've always wondered what it was. Some strange converted warehouse/garage looking place, with a rather nice sign across the front: DEADTECH. After fleeting dreams of genetically-enhanced embalming fluid and zombie training grounds, I stumbled across their website whilst idly searching (as I am wont to do).

"Hey!" sez I, "that's the place up the street!" Hoping against hope for a paintball arena only with real zombies a la House of the Dead, I found out that it's actually a gallery of sorts for "technology-enabled art." Alternately very, er, informal (the neighbors complain when show openings get too rowdy) and well-organized, it seems to be above all a typical hands-on creative-geek lair, a place to make stuff and have other people over to make stuff, too. And occasionally have a party.

It's been around and hosting shows since 1999, and they seem to be nice enough to UIC students that they've got the spring '08 MFA thesis show listing posted on their blog. They claim to host bi-monthly Chicago_pd meetings, but the most recent web searches only turn up years-old info (unless I'm completely looking in the wrong places...). Some links to the dorkbot project are dead or lead back to Deadtech pages, although if you find the good link you'll get some info about just what they do. (Everyone get together and we'll present something cool! Or obnoxious! Or obnoxiously cool!) Regardless, if they're having a show anytime soon, I'm going. Maybe I'll just knock on the door sometime.

(In keeping with my apparent theme of animals in my posts, be sure to check out the saga of when Willy the Cat fell out a window between two buildings and Rob had to figure out how to get the critter out and still try to make it to work. Also, SquirrelFight.)

Drancing accelerometer music: PureData/GEM & WiiRemote

I thought this particular video was pretty interesting. It shows the interactions between the person with the wii remotes and the screen. It is shown with the different colors moving around on the screen.
-Lori McDermott

interactive advertising

This video shows how companies are utilizing new technology/media to persuade consumers into buying their products. This interactive billboard shows different images/compositions every time a person walks by. Consequently, potential consumers feel like attracted for two reasons: 1. it is aesthetically pleasing, 2. by showing different images every time, the approach is sort of personalized.

sound goes in, shapes come out

All musicians hope that when they play an instrument, there will be a reaction; this program seems to do just that. We've seen projects where movement created sound, but this time sound creates movement. PD GEM seems to have been programmed to play certain shapes and patterns of movement depending on the pitch and pattern of the keys struck on a piano. Depending on how sensitive the program is, it can make the performer responsible for not one, but two completely unique demonstrations at once. The only part that kind of boils my broccoli is how simple the shapes in the beginning are. I know it leads up to a more grand and visually interesting conclusion, but the last thing I want to see in a piece such as this are the stupid triangles and circles that even I can create. However, that's just me...

Cool Interactive/Informational LCD Table

This piece reminded me of those cool futuristic 3D computers seen in sci-fi movies. The enormous amount of information pertaining to each individual number baffled me when I first saw this. The animation portrayed and caused by physical interaction was also very interesting, in that each number effected by the animation represented a philosophical meaning for it. It's like art, philosophy, science, religion, and the unknown all came together into one table.

Self Assembling Robot

While this is obviously way far advanced for our class, the concept of a robot that assembles it's self is pretty awesome. It makes me think of ways you could transpose the idea into the art world. For instance a sculpture that builds itself by responding to noise activity within a space, or one that builds itself based on movement in the room (like, the more movement or noise in the room, the faster it creates itself etc.). Evan Behmer

Microsoft Future Vision 2019

This is a pretty great video showing what Microsoft's vision of the near future is if current technologies and interface ideologies continue to develop as they have been. I'm not sure if this could all be accomplished in 10 years, but most of what's in the video seems pretty feasible.

Awesome Interactive Drawing Screen

At the first part of the video, I thought it was way too basic, having to draw a simple 2D shape on a screen with your hand. But as it progressed, I began to notice the different colors and shapes that began to form and morph into a 3D visual and it quickly became much more interesting. The best part of the video, in my opinion, is the very end where he moves his hand away from the screen and it immediately drops to the floor. So it went from this basic 2D shape to 3D graphics with physics involved. What an incredible installation.

Animation Thesis

This is an animation Thesis made by Nick Pitera from Ringling College of Art and Design. Even though this is not exactly programming the way we've been doing it using PureDate, it is still a form of Electronic Visualization. I personally am very interested in animation and will most likely be moving to another college to study computer animation. In this piece, Pitera demonstrates the art of animation, specifically, character animation which I hope to one day master. In character animation, the animator uses the computer and drawings to create a moving image that portrays the human movement into something that has life. The movement gives off emotion and when done correctly can make the character seem almost lifelike.

~Gabe

Audrino sounds

I decided to post this for several reasons. I found this a good example of the use of the Audrino board in creating sound. I don't know much about the Audrino system but I found this a pretty interesting idea. I prefer sound over visual usually and didn't think that the Audrino could be used like this. I like how it becomes and instrument of sorts.

cube pd gem

Understanding that we are going to continue with PD Gem, I continued my research with the software. I had a project that was similar to this. I would like to incorporate my project along with hardware that will animate with relative motion, that will clearly project the animation on the screen.

I like this video because it seems very similar to what we did in class last Thursday, just in a more advanced manner. It shows led lights at varying brightnesses all hooked up to a large circuit. This resembles the tiny led circuit we made, complete with the ability to vary the brightness of the lights. It's nice to see a different example of such a circuit because it gives us an idea of where we could go with our own.

Flexinol

There's a lot of really boring videos of this material called "Flexinol". What I find interesting is not the videos, but where the technology can advance to and what it means to robotics and physical response from computerized systems. Flexinol is basically a wire that contracts when a voltage is applied to it, much like the way muscles work. This means that gears and motors could possibly be replaced in the future by strands of this material.

Silicon Flexinol Test @ Yahoo! Video

arduino + wiimote = robot?

Now here's an intriguing idea. Sometimes we don't see that things we have lying around the house can be used in different ways. This makes me want to go home and open up my wiimote nunchuck and see how it works... Apparently it is an accelerometer. It has a lot of potential to be used with Arduino, and hopefully I'll be able to figure out how it works by the end of this course. The only downfall of this example is that it is not wireless. Maybe there is a way that it can be combined with the wireless wiimote somehow to control the robot's actions as well as movement. 

Sammich!

Ok, so I'm not sure that this qualifies as art, per se, but anything to facilitate the production thereof is beneficial. And so, sandwiches are beneficial!



//non-compiling code generated for humor value only.
public class ThingsInThisWorld
{
ThingsInThisWorld toastedThings = new ThingsInThisWorld();
toastedThings = areDelicious;
areDelicious = nom;
}

Who wants to bother getting up in the middle of a project to do something so boring as getting something to eat? Adam Cecchetti and Bre Pettis have made a fabulous contraption that will do this bothersome task for you! (Well, you have to actually do the eating part yourself). They're not necessarily pretty, you don't get much in the way of customization or complexity, but you do get two pieces of bread with cheese that's been run by a toaster. That's more than you would have gotten just sitting in front of your computer, so no complaints!

The project used an Ardiuno board, two motor controller boards, two random stepper motors to work the tray and the back flap of the toaster with two servos, and one toaster oven sacrificed in the name of science. =) Inspired by an XKCD comic...good times.

The video is pretty damn funny, and has a very helpful PSA at the end reminding geeks to remember to eat once in a while...starvation kills, you know.