ITP 30: Build a show in a day (Part III)

Michael Doherty
2011

What are you working on?
I’m part of a group of people working on TweetGrass. People can send in twitter messages about things that they do that are related to sustainability, something as simple as recycling a bottle, for instance. They add a hashtag and the messages are picked up by our processing application. The application makes a cloud which grows with more and more tweets. When it gets big enough it turns into rain on the screen, which them turns into physical rain under the screen that waters wheat grass. There are is also gold leaf that users can put on the wheat grass box. By putting the gold leaf on, they are making a pledge to support sustainability. When they tweet, they do something sustainable. One is a pledge, the other is actual action.

So if no one tweets, the wheat grass dies. Is this a play on guilt?
Sort of. If you recycle a bottle you don’t see the benefit of recycling the bottle, you just know there is a benefit., This creates a feedback loop. It’s not immediate, but you know that if the wheat grass is still alive, you’re doing something. Also seeing other people’s tweets might give you guilt about not doing something yourself.

How long have you been working?
-We’ve been working since around 10am. We had a few hang-ups with wrong parts but I think that’s all being resolved.

When do you think you’ll finish?
It’s almost 2 now? I’m hoping by midnight, but that’s probably a very hopeful estimate.

ITP 30: Build a show in a day (Part II)

Name:
Adam Parrish (2008)

What are you doing?
I’m using google search results to make a computer player for the game Apples to Apples. The computer will have a hand of cards and I will input the hand into the computer. It will then use google search to find the most common combination of occurrences. I’m planning on trying out three strategies, most common result, least common result, and choose randomly. Later on I’ll do a play test to see which strategy works best.

How long have you been working on this?
About 3 hours.

How much longer?
I think I’ll have a prototype that works in 2 or 3 more hours

How did you pick the project?
I had the idea a couple of weeks ago and I figured it would make a good 1-in-1 project.

*apologies for the nonexistent photography skills

ITP 30: Build a show in a day

The 1-in-1 is here! I’ve been helping to organize the ITP 30th Anniversary version of a 4-in-4 (see here, here, and here for background). Instead of doing four projects over four days, participants will attempt to complete one project in one day. After the 24 hour event, the projects will be put into a gallery on the ITP floor. .: ITP show in a day.

I have class during the day today so I didn’t plan on doing a project, but attempting to do homework amid the flurry of 1-in-1 activity proved impossible. Instead, I grabbed a camera and began to interview people about what they’re working on. Here is the first:

Name: Jeff Gray (2006)

What are you doing?
I’m making a little scrubbing sampler for multiple sounds that you can scrub across the wires.

When did you first come up with the idea?
I did a simplified version of this at ITP a while back and I’ve been thinking about working on it again for a while,but I just didn’t have the time. This was kind of a good excuse.

How are you doing on time?
I’ve been working for a solid hour, and I probably have at least six more hours. More like 10 if I really want to make it great. But if I just want something that functions minimally, somewhere around 6.

Learn more about Jeff and his audio scrubber here.

Solar Design: Headlamps for Midwives

I missed the first Solar Design class because I was sick, but I was so taken with the project selected for the weekly critique that I decided to blog about it. The case study involved the development of a headlamp for midwives in Ahmendabad, Gujarat. According to the project’s documentation:

Traditionally, midwives have to travel long distances during the late hours of the night and/or early morning to assist deliveries. Child birth normally takes place well inside the homes and very often the rooms are very poorly lit. Since the time of delivery is unpredictable, in most cases the delivery takes place with just the midwife assisting the lady in labour as the man of the house is not allowed to be present. Thus, they make a hole in the wall and reflect the sunlight using a mirror (for day time deliveries) or use kerosene lamps (for night time deliveries). The former is very often difficult and not always possible, the latter poses a health hazard and does not provide enough luminescence since the midwife is the only person involved and holding the kerosene lamp to shed light accurately is not convenient.

SELCO, an India-based social enterprise that provides sustainable energy solutions to under-served communities, partnered with the local Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) to develop a headlamp that would solve the midwives lighting problem. The solar-powered headlamp design provided a hands-free way to focus light on the way to, from, and during childbirth.

Focus group responses (see youtube video here) to the product were very positive, and a few suggestions (increase water resistance, increase luminescence) were incorporated into a new version of the headlamp. Most strikingly, the midwives suggested that the headlamp could be used in other communities, such as flower pickers, masonry workers, embroidery workers, and fisherman, revealing how widespread the problem of access to light is in rural India.

Although we don’t have access to focus groups and field research, I’m looking forward to employing a similar project development method in Solar Design this year. Chapter 2 of our textbook, Rural Electrification with Photovoltaics, focuses on the reasons that Africa has such an enormous potential for solar energy. It’s exciting to have an opportunity to rethink infrastructure and work toward atypical, off the grid solutions for day-to-day problems.

Animals Final

For my final Animals, People project, I decided to address the role of anthropomorphism in children’s literature and learning materials. Animal characters are often personified to the point that their human-like attributes overwhelm their animal features and needs. As a result, children grow up to view animals as human-like, misinterpreting their actions and attributing human desires to their behavior.
I set about designing an “edutainment”-style book to teach kids about ocean reef life. The story revolves around cleaner shrimp, chosen because their cleaner stations act as a hub for reef activity.  Here are a few parameters for myself to avoid overly anthropomorphizing the creatures:
1. no names (animals will be referred to by their common names only)
2. no talking
3. no interactions that would not occur in nature
Here is the result:

I’m pretty satisfied with the overall look and feel of the text/images, though they definitely could use some refinement. But! I realized post-crit that while the late-1970’s academic look of the book might be appealing to me, it probably doesn’t strike a 10 year old as thrilling. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

Nature of Code Midterm

A continuation on the slug motif (I promise, I’ll be done with it after this). I created system of slow moving slugs that is inhabited by a swarm of flies. Each slug moves about the screen unaware of the others, while the flies subtly try to move toward the mouse without traveling over the slugs. I’m somewhat happy with the final sketch–I’d like to add something more to motivate the slug’s movements.

The motivational slug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87F82nh6GtQ

Animal House

For the last part of our first Animal’s People unit, Aly, Alex, and I designed an apartment building that is inhabited by Riley, an amazon parrot, Sebastian, a loggerhead turtle, and Imke, a pygme hedgehog. Each animal lives on his or her own floor; however, the habits and habitats of each creature effects the lifestyles of the others. The final project takes the form of a pdf generated in Adobe Illustrator.

My floor of the final apartment bulding. Click to view the entire finished product.

I think our project was fairly successful. Our world is visually rich, and the three team members spend quite a bit of time together sorting through its ins and outs. Regardless, we had a very difficult time creating a plausible world that could be inhabited by all three of our creatures. By “plausible,” I don’t mean realistic–there was no way that we could create a traditionally realistic habitat for the animals. Even without confining ourselves to the realm of the real, we struggled to come up depth and richness in the relationships among our animals. Our final product, with its list of tit-for-tat interdependencies, feels somewhat restrained and superficial.
In the next iteration, I would like to add a little bit of explanatory and educational narrative.  I think a second phase of this product most likely take the form of an illustrated children’s book, in which interdependencies gain depth through narrative interaction among the characters.
Additionally, I would adapt my floor of the apartment to the style of the other two group members. Their graphic, bold style seemed to overwhelm Imke’s area. While the top two floors could be read from a few feet away, mine seemed to require a magnifying glass to fully observe the habitat’s detail.

Animals/People character studies

Can you tell how the hedgehog is feeling in each of the sketches above? For this week’s Animals, People assignment, we were supposed to make character studies of our animal in various emotional states. Some of mine are definitely more successful than others. Click here for the key.

imke is a pygmy hedgehog.

For someone covered in spikes, Imke is pretty nervous. He is alarmed by loud sounds, fast movements, and threatening looks. He spends more time than has to with his quills up, and frequently hides under furniture or in corners. When he feels threatened he makes a puffing noise and makes his body as large, spiky, and round as possible; when he is scared he curls into a ball, sending his quills out at ninety-degree angles.

Imke likes being around large enclosed spaces, sunlight, and happy people. When he does feel safe, Imke is very active. He prances about hunting for small bugs, smelling and licking anything that he finds interesting.  When he gets tired, he often sits on my head as I work. He fastidiously cleans his quills, and likes to be scratched and tickled on his soft underbelly.

Age: 6
Gender: Male
Goals: Warn his owner about danger; find delicious bugs.
Attributes: Alert, spiky, quick to react.
Weaknesses: Overly cautious, small.