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OSTK

Craig Pickard

Real-time CNC control and operation using drawing as a metaphor.

http://ostk.tech

Description

The larger project, the toolkit, which consists of software, design files, and source code, enables anyone to breathe life into their digital artworks and bring them into the physical world in a dynamic way. Tools such as laser cutters, 3D printers and desktop mills are commonplace in maker spaces and workshops all around the world. However the majority of these machines only accept static files and use proprietary software that offer limited flexibility. OSTK_CNC is entirely opensource and can be accessed by anyone via its website. The website offers plans, documentation, and design files for two custom CNC machines, software to use with them, and all of the accompanying source code.

I will be demoing the project using the Wacom Cintque, which will allow users to draw directely on the interface using the software I've written. The pen plotter will recreate the user's drawing in real-time while they're drawing in the app.

Classes

Thesis

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BOTH + NEITHER

Pat Shiu

How can the deliberate medium of code be used as a tool for intuitive exploration?

https://itp.nyu.edu/thesis2016/project/pat-shiu

Description

“Both + Neither” is a series of computational paintings exploring code as a medium for intuitive exploration.

The images were created using custom generative systems inspired by stochastic painting techniques, where predefined rules govern the image-making process, allowing repetition and probability to shape the outcome of the final work. As a result, the works themselves move away from the artist's control and assume the role of co-creator, and the process of itself becomes a collaborative exploration by artist and computer.

I created over 400 paintings before arriving at the final 6 selected for full-resolution display as 4 by 4 feet prints on aluminum. Through ritualistic iteration from user and system, an outcome that is both organic and hyper-procedural is gradually discovered and extracted from a sea possibilities, arising in shape and form through which intuitive convictions can be examined.

Classes

The World-Pixel by Pixel, Thesis

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Zombie Self Awareness Tool Kit

Samuel Sadtler

The best way to bring yourself to awareness and subvert the current apocalypse.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyFxrQd7-zw&index=2&list=PLp1AzLEITCFxnF3zXRn5ZErynB5Vg5Ynr

Description

Exploring ways to reflect on our relationships with our phones and ask the question. What can life be? Featured projects include: Shakie: the best selfie app for blurry photos, Chance of Rainbows app: Whats better than checking the weather? Rainbows!, Post Texts: for sending physical text messages, Crete: the worlds first connected brink for disconnecting but still getting notifications so you can sleep at night, and Zombie Crossing: a simple update to dated civic infrastructure.

Classes

Readymades, Thesis

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Future Waterfront

Crystal Brusch

Sea levels will rise more than six feet in the next hundred years. This project uses augmented reality to visualize climate change and lets you plan ahead for a glorious waterfront home. Will what you see inspire you to change the future?

https://itp.nyu.edu/thesis2016/project/crystal-brusch

Description

Sea levels will rise more than six feet in the next hundred years and South Florida is especially at risk. The region is a canary for the United States, but the area’s plans to survive climate change are out of touch. Miami Beach recently started to raise roadways, but a two-foot boost in height will not keep the roads dry through the century. This project aims to get people to think long-term and start a hard dialogue between residents and politicians. The first part engages residents through a satirical mortgage application while educating them about the spatial and temporal threats from sea level rise. The second part encourages residents to visually map future flooding with augmented reality and demand infrastructure that prevents or lessens flooding.

Classes

Social Hacking: Appropriating Interaction Technologies, Social Hacking: Appropriating Interaction Technologies, Thesis

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Crispicotura

Thea Rae

I’ve created mechanical creatures that wiggle, wobble, and sway. They are a new species that evolved in our tech-saturated and sedentary world. These creatures are my attempt to help machines experience a state of ease and playfulness, and to inspire whimsy in those around them.

http://thea-rae.tumblr.com/tagged/thesis

Description

These creatures have currently evolved into three different species–Juleractis, Maratuglans, and Aureiladilldium–each with its own anatomy. Their presence and emotional qualities are directly related to their form and method of actuation . They all drink the life juice of electricity, but each metabolizes it in different ways: magnetic fields, vibration, oscillating motors, the push and pull of springs. With each evolution they grow into more complex organisms capable of new varieties of wiggles. And like most creatures, they grow old and weary with time until eventually their joints weaken, leaving their still, skeletal structures behind.

Classes

Thesis

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VR and Occupational Therapy

Jaclyn Wickham

An investigation of the potential of virtual reality as a learning platform for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

https://itp.nyu.edu/thesis2016/project/jaclyn-wickham

Description

In collaboration with a team of Occupational Therapists, I am creating a series of 360 virtual reality (VR) experiences to provide students with ASD the opportunity to take virtual trips to community places (e.g. a grocery store, restaurant, subway station) to develop independent living skills. The VR experiences simulate a physical presence in real world settings, allowing students to practice activities of daily living and real-life social interactions within a safe, controllable environment.

The initial prototype is a virtual trip to a grocery store, which targets skills that are commonly included on students’ Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), such as finding items on a grocery list, using signs around the store to locate items, understanding aisle categorization, asking an employee for help, interacting with the cashier, and paying.

The goal was to design and develop a prototype for a low cost VR experience, which simply requires access to a mobile phone and Google Cardboard. The platform could potentially be usable during 1:1 occupational therapy sessions as a supplement to traditional Community-Based Instruction, providing students with the opportunity to repeatedly practice targeted skills in a realistic environment without real-world consequences, prior to going out into the community.

Classes

Thesis

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TIL.LY

Song Hia

TIL.LY is a microdiary webapp and a chatbot.

http://zeroco.github.io/tilly/

Description

The brain cheats when it comes to happiness. According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman, it focuses on two things about an event, the emotional peak and the end. He declares in his TED talk that “We don’t choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences.” In the study A “Present” for the Future: The Unexpected Value of Rediscovery, Harvard Business School researchers discovered that the documentation of the everyday might seem trivial, but provides unexpected happiness because over time, we can come to see the ordinary past as extraordinary.

TIL (Today I Learned) is an experiment in encouraging daily presence, reflection, and documentation of the everyday.

Classes

Always On, Always Connected, Thesis

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explorejs

William Field

explore.js is an open-source software toolkit that helps designers, artists, teachers, and amateur astronomers visualize the cosmos.

https://explorejs.space

Description

explore.js is an open-source toolkit that helps designers, artists, teachers, and amateur astronomers visualize the cosmos. It is composed of a JavaScript library that consolidates various astronomy tools, a texture pack, and scripts to help manage API requests on the back-end.

Classes

Thesis

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streaming souls

David Cihelna

Streaming souls is a live 360 video performance that connects the audience to the performance space in real time.

https://itp.nyu.edu/thesis2016/project/david-cihelna

Description

Streaming Souls is a short experimental performance streamed live in 360 degrees. The performance space was a 4 wall video projection box built at CultureHub NYC. The audience could impact the performance projections in real time, abstracting and offsetting the cohesion of the videos streamed back at them. Streaming souls explores new ways in which we can share spaces by creating a direct connection to the using 360 streaming. 360 video can translate one space to another, giving the audience direct access to a remote location, and in the process places gravity on human connection rather than entertaining isolation. The project is built on top of a custom 360 web player I built, which is now adapted into a live 360 platform called svrround.

Classes

Thesis, Prototyping Movies

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Immersive Piano Practice

Lirong Liu

It is an AR application that allows pianists to perform in a chosen immersive space so as to enhance their emotional connection to the piece and the composer.

http://itp.nyu.edu/thesis/thesis2016/ll2867/

Description

Other than note accuracy, pianists are taught to have related images in their minds to help them interpret the pieces they are learning. Most practice rooms are stark irrelevant to the music, which leads to improper or emotionally lacking interpretations.

I plan to combine a VR headset with a camera to create a VR application that enables pianists to be in an immersive environment without losing track of keyboards and their hands. Unlike flutes and violins, pianos are hard to move. Thus, pianists barely have a choice on where they play the music.

My target users are beginner and intermediate pianists. The user wears a VR headset and selects a scene inside the application before playing a piece in his/her regular practice room.

The core design features and functionality includes immersive scene playing, scene search and selection, live video stitching between the pre-recorded scene and camera view.

Classes

Thesis