Here it is, my Abstract and personal statement it was fruitless exercise. I have decided to throw out what I was working on and start anew. My project is technical without any soul. Moving on….
Environments. It is said by 2050 that over half the world’s population live in cities. While the arguments for density are strong; its environmental, it’s sustainable, the innovation of cities will drive our society forward. I think we run the risk as a society is losing touch with nature. I grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut and Massachusetts in the hills of Vermont. Clean-air, quiet, darkness. Three things that are in short supply in the cities. If we are to live in these areas and thrive in them we must design tools that ameliorate the unnatural environmental conditions that urban environments create.
I am interested in exploring devices and mechanisms and interactions that brings the outdoor world inside. How to make indoor environments more biophilic. I will explore light, sound, smell, and touch.
How can each of these senses be stimulated to believe that they are experiencing in outdoor environment?
How can the dynamism of an outdoor environment be captured, recorded, re-created using sensors and actuators?
How can I create connections between these environments that are meaningful?
Sep
22
Thesis Week 2: Abstract
May
11
Biomodul8
Biomodul8 is an machine for indoor agriculture.
Indoor urban environments are often devoid of things (outside of their human occupants, pets and pests.)
This leads to a disconnection with nature. Urbanites grow up without understanding where there food comes from and what processes are involved in creation. The indoor agriculture solutions to date such as windowfarms are very DIY. The form factor is not something that works in a household that is concerned with aesthetics. Our long term goal with BioModul8 is to create an aquaponic system that is at once functional and attractive.
Our first task was to create a functioning aquaponics system. It is a complex system and in building the unit first without concern for aesthetics we will be able to concentrate on identifying the problems that different form factors might create.
Here is the code for the Arduino running the prototype.
Unlike most physical computing or screen based presentation. This project is a living system and will involve a much longer period of time than we initially envisioned. Marko and I will be continuing this over the summer. Documenting our findings and progress. The finished system being ready for it’s debut by the fall 2010 ITP show.
Apr
21
Nature of Code Final: Link Tree
L-systems are found in so many systems in nature; from Estuaries to the nervous system of animals. I became curious about using them for a visualization tool for web crawling. My goal was to have the user enter a link. The crawler goes to the page finds all the links and places them in an object. Then that object is iterated through and all those links are opened, their individual page links become objects….and so on. The Tree’s branching would be driven by the the ArrayList.size() of each node. The parent node setting the number of branches on which it’s children would grow their branches…and so on.
This process happens in two parts. First the aforementioned webcrawling code is run. Populating the nodes, then the drawNode is called and the populated Node object’s tree is iterated through to make the illustration. As of this writing however I have been unsuccessful in the second part of the project. I hit a wall in dealing with the multiple parameters needed for the Vector values located in the tree code and the single arguments that the ArrayList.size() returns. At This point it is kind of like this.
I am humbled but unbowed. While the recursive properties are present within the webcrawl, the graphical representation I think will yield a better understanding of the links within websites. I look forward to finishing the project in the coming weeks.
Here is my project folder with commented code.
This one class here is posted to illustrate the recursion.
NOTE:
For my GL Art final I rewrote the Link Tree so that it uses JOVector to create the tree instead of PVector. This is the next logical evolution of this project. Porting the project into OpenGL will give me the ability to make iterative improvements to the tree graphics using JOApp. Of particular interest is the access to the Frame Buffer Object which will allow me to draw to a much larger screen area. Using threading I could let the animation grow, while simultaneously allowing the user to navigate the larger tree.
I have posted the code here.
Mar
31
Mar
31
Link Tree
Tree with Random Branching
Last Semester in Tom Igoe’s Understanding Networks, we looked at various Traceroute tools that map a packets progress through the internet. At the time I focused much of my effort on writing parsers to pull the data from the traces but really didn’t feel I had a dynamic enough visual vocabulary to represent the movement of data across time and space. I feel differently now.
Branching Fractals seem to be the perfect visual tool to express the movement of said data. The branching of network hubs and spokes could be seen through successive iterations of traceroutes. I would accomplish this by setting up a cron job that executes on the hour. Then I would parse the results and use them to drive the branching of the fractal. My only hesitancy in pursuing this however is the potential lack of alternate routes, resulting in a “stick” or a “twig” but not a “tree”, and the lack of real time interaction. As an Alternative I will present to the class the idea of a link Tree that the user would be able to type in a link and see all the links and the link’s links (and links of the links links, ad infinitum…well hopefully not). The branching if possible would be controlled by the number of nodes the link crawler finds as it moves along. Visually this would produce an uneven tree, some parts thriving while other parts dying off.
The project would consist of a link crawler that feeds the number of nodes found at each branch. Each link would be associated with a branch and at some point it might evolve so that you can mouse over and get the URL.
Mar
08
Design Frontiers Solar Facade
Last week there was a presentation given by Konara power plastic. They produce solar panels using retrofitted printing presses. Our task was to come up with a design that could be output for production.
The scope of the task was somewhat of a question for our group. Are we to design a graphic? A system? A product? None of us had a definitive answer.
What we could agree on though, is that this technology allows the opportunity to place what would normally be out of signt (see: “ugly panels” on roof top) in plain view.
Wrapping buildings allows one to scale the material. It provides enough power to do some real work. It could be used to run the irrigation system, provide, boost ventilation, or it could power the security alarm system. The last choice I find particularly intriguing since one could wrap abandoned buildings and they could effectively look after themselves.
Another possibility is embedding flexible OLED displays or speakers with the solar panels. Together these two elements could create some very powerful interactions. On a smaller scale it could be a self powered monitor that one could attach to there smartphone when needed. Larger arrays could be used for providing illumination at night instead of streetlights. I am curious as to what can be embedded with the panels and weather or not Konarka has attempted such a thing.
What would be helpful for designers would be a DRC (design rule check) for the system. I am still a bit unsure as to what works and what does not.
Panels wrapped around a Facade
Feb
24
First Person Shooters make me sick….no really
The overarching goal that I have made for myself this semester is to blend what I am learning in GLArt with NOC. Pretty images and the dynamics that make them move. After several trips to see Resident Matt Parker, I think I am ready to start moving down this road.
My first attempt will be this:
A first person perspective game. It will be very simple at first, the player will move around the board and use controls to activate balls pouring into jars.
This will allow me to make use of active and passive bodies. I will most be making use of the toxilib because it makes use of 3-D vectors. There will be collisions involved.
The OPENGL portion of the project will be focusing on camera movement, lighting/materials, and the use of matrix nesting.
This may extend into a larger project or at the very least my final project will contain elements of the code I am writing for this project.
Feb
09
GL ART Translations and Transformations
This week we began to explore the transformation matrix in OPENGL. This is not my first experience with this set of functions. During ICM we explored the idea of PushMatrix() and PopMatrix() which store and discard various coordinate matrix states in Processing. Additionally in MAYA the scene one builds has global coordinates and local coordinates that relate to collections of objects within a scene. For example: A car drives through a scene. That car has a global coordinate within that scene. The cars tires however maintain coordinates that are grouped to the car. This concept is called “nesting” in MAYA. The Sun in my example is the Global position, nested within this is the earth, and within the earth is the moon. The example can be found here
Feb
09
GL ART “Hello World”
In this first installment of GL Art the goal was to make some shapes and get them moving. I think the biggest leap from Processing is the idea that Cartesian coordinates don’t really have any relation to pixel location. I spent a lot of time drawing points and lines to explore what this meant. The view port is a malleable “camera” for displaying the geometry within a scene. I would assume as in Maya, the Angle of View definable. This being the case. All composition must be achieved by “framing up” the geometry using gluLookat()’s second set of parameters. This allows you to position the camera in relation to the vector defined in the function’s first parameter. Here is my example.
Feb
01
Channeling the Childhood Geek
When we were first tasked with recreating a childhood experiment, I tried to think back to my favorites, or at least to the ones that worked. This being a task for Design Frontiers in Biology I thought something related to living things would be a plus. I settled on the “classic” project I did as a child that demonstrates transpiration using celery and food coloring.
The experiment it quite straight forward and is documented here.
Once one begins to think about the process and the interaction a little more, You can see the implications for using plants as output devices. Food coloring dropped into a vase containing a white daisy could be used to indicate something: someone has been home in your absence, the cleaning lady is coming tomorrow, or perhaps its time to take out the trash. Plants being a welcome counterpoint to any electronic display could be used to “lower the volume” by displaying the information that is timely but might not require immediate attention. Instead of a cacophony of escalating computer alarms, wouldn’t it be more pleasant to notice that the flowers set to your spouse’s anniversary have deepened in color to the point where you FINALLY notice (and remember)? The aesthetics of the experience aide in framing the event as it should be remembered, something pleasant and playful. For those that would assert that such “quiet” displays would be constantly overlooked, I would say that it is a matter of habit. If you know that the flowers or vines in your environment have a message to deliver, you would probably pay more attention to them.
The psychologist Judith Heerwagen has argued:
” [Human] performance and well being…depend not only on the absence of significant [environmental] problems, but also on the presence of particular kinds of features and attributes in buildings… the challenge of green design is to integrate into buildings the positive biophilic features of our evolved relationship with nature.”[1]
Within this same discussion in Stephen R. Kellert’s “Building for Life”, some of Heerwagen’s Elements of Biophilic Design are listed; Three of these: ” Sensory variability, Enticement, and a Sense of playfulness”, would be fulfilled by such a “organic” display system. One could imagine gardens of data through which the consumer of the information could stroll. Could such a garden replace logging on to check one’s portfolio fitness one day?