4 in 4

Tomorrow I begin 4 projects in 4 days, 3,000 miles from the majority of other participating classmates. Nevertheless, I am pumped. There's plenty to do around my home in the San Fernando Valley, and on my lappy. Plus I return on Thursday and can therefore allot time to on-floor pursuits.

The Plan

DAY 1:

Vanna for a Day video for my sis.

Finish helping Alexis through her Grad essay.

First Java t00t.

Prep for upcoming days. (Call D.R.)

DAY 2:

Do (at least) 5 Java tutorials.

Remove wallpaper from Mom's bathroom.

Prep for tomorrow.

DAY 3:

Do (at least) 5 PHP tutorials.

Paint the fence in the backyard.

Prep for tomorrow.

DAY 4:

Mend everything - hand sew+ itp sewing machine.

Do (at least) 1 Illustrator tutorial.

Make something small with laser cutter.

DAY5?:

Re-record All Bit, Apples, and write Lyrics for Elephant.

Record lyrics for two newbs and send them to Mattycakes.

finals

OH my, what a journey it's been.

My simple LED coat rack, most recently deemed "DigitalMom beta" morphed into a cnc etched plexi-glass and wood interface with hooks. Still effective, possibly more so given that there are symbols to guide your interpretation of the weather, rather than color alone.

































Pretty sure I've covered a robust range of feelings regarding DigitalMom - from excitement to disappointment to ennui and beyond - and in the end I managed to scrape together a moral to the story of semester one at ITP. And that is that my sole duty as a student in this program is to stay inspired. Pay attention to all the things that totally rule and remember them when idea time comes - talk to people about my projects so they can keep me juiced and give me excellent feedback, and go to places, both virtual and physical, that make me antsy to create, or at least remind me how invaluable it is to see something through.

visual communication: personal infographics

icm: final project

I'm still working out my name game (working title)... but my physical computing final looks like it's going to be pretty processing heavy...

I'll be using a basic weather XML feed, either from the man(http://www.weather.gov/xml/current_obs/) or from a service like yahoo (http://developer.yahoo.com/weather/).

Ideally the API witll track the "chance" of future weather for each day, and that will (possibly wirelessly effect) my output, i.e. if there is a 60% chance of rain it will change to blue, if it's high winds it'll turn red, etc

There are some neat options for RGB LEDs, but they're usually very expensive (for example:
http://www.colorkinetics.com/ls/essentialwhite/ewflexslx/). So it might
be simpler / cheaper to create my own.

Still unsure about whether to use/make an RGB panel or string lights. I'm thinking panel will be more simple to implement, although string lights would be full of x-mas cheer...

I talked to my 'rents about it, and in doing so realized that it's a pretty New York-type project. I sort of forgot how people in California have big windows and beautiful weather pretty much all the time. whatevz.

visual communication: portfolio possibilities

^ possible flash site

> current wordpress site: here

> inspiration:
----------------david choe
-----------------screen bites
------------------design of today
-------------------cummobranding

> moving forward:
looks like i'll be doing a sort of hand illustration deal, heavily infused with my darling personality. we'll see what turns up. i'm thinking knick knacks in a basement maybe?

*the site needs to contain space for audio, video, design, text (essays), interactive, contact, cv, and resume.

physical computing: 10 final project idears

I've compiled a list of stuff I'm into from the p. comp final project vantage... Maybe by the time I've blogged this all down I'll figure out which one to run with? I think I may be leaning in a certain direction already....

1. Moss turntables. Just kidding - that's Kimi's project. Fuckin' Kimi.

2. Mouse-less digital graffiti - so you practice before you go outside and beautify the city. This would processing heavy and probably fairly small-scale initially, but (ideally/eventually) you'd be able to stand in front of a projected brick wall and move your hand (?) to make a spray-painty line. Blob detection might work well here...

3. Plant(s) theremin - only work(s) when watered. Makes theremin noises

4. Apartment/object GPS - still chewing on this one. I don't mind competing with Sirius... >:E

5. Umbrella stand weatherman - uses wireless and/or wired tech. to connect to a weather API. Lights up when it's going to rain so you remember your umbrella.

6. Weather orb - similar, maybe not as fun.

7. Build speakers.

8. Build a theremin.

9. Use the neat controller from the junk pile to make... sound? images? tactile things like wind? smell? all of the above/ some kind of total experience? ...graffiti? I could learn quite a bit about wiring this way... also processing heavy?

10. Was a bedside servo light-switch operator for the sleepy reader, but instead I'm thinking conductive and/or magnetic material on wallet, keys, phone and when all are stuck alongside each other a light goes from red to green... and... a chain of events takes place that essentially makes you a fresh cup of spicy hot chocolate while playing Boyz II Men...

11. Ferris Bueller's Day Off... just think about it. Oh and Rock It! also

visual communication : logos

itp logos pdf