Dove Real Beauty Sketches

TE+ND Rover

http://www.tendrover.com/

http://marniajohnston.com/home.html

MIT Pipetting Makerbot

Hivostat

http://hivebio.org/projects/ministat-2

http://hivebio.org/projects/drd4-repeats/

http://hivebio.org/projects/citizen-salmon/

Color Recognition Lock

http://makezine.com/projects/color-recognition-lock/

Fold it

http://fold.it/portal/

Backyard Brains SpikerBox

Week 5 Readings

In the article Open Sourcery by Harrop was really great. I think that with all of the new technology that is being developed, it is going to be a great resource for there to open sources of information and how-to's to learn how to develop different products and self-made technologies. 

I also thought that the article about by Gaver, Boucher, Pennington, and Walker about Cultural Probes and the Value of Uncertainty I really enjoyed reading about one of their favorite projects that they had done named "Dream Recorder". I found myself thinking about this idea and really connecting with it. Everyone has dreams, right? So it's not excluding in any way, which is really great.

It might be just because I just finished watching the Inception movie trailer where they talk about how dreams are filled with our secrets. They can be subconscious thoughts or memories of periods in your life. There's also research showing that we really only dream in a succession of images (not videos), but what we interpret from the dream and how we morph it into a story from the images can tell us a lot about ourselves and the way our brains are mapped. 

I think that a lot of people struggle with strange dreams or unusual dreams. How are we supposed to interpret these images? this experience? this message? We all strive for this knowledge of what does it mean? but really I think that the authors of the article are on the right track. It isn't about what it means necessarily. Part of the appeal is the uncertainty. 

Without truly knowing what it means. With this separation from the creation of the dream. How do you interpret it while you're awake? While you're conscious? What does it mean? How can it help drive inventions and creations to be more modeled for and targeted towards the consumer. It creates this new niche of study they call "probology". To study the Probes, or the volunteer subjects of this great human experiment. 

Even with the temptations as a scientist to analyze hard data and search for correlations and theorize causation, I think there does come a point where life can't be put into categories. It just is and you have to be able to interpret that or extract some significance out of that.

Final Project Proposal

            I started thinking about the project that I wanted to create as something novel and great. Something that I didn’t think that I had the capabilities to create or build on my own. I want to learn new techniques, how to use new tools while working on this project. I also want to keep in mind what I have access to or what I’ll be able to get access to. I then decided that I wanted my project to be something that really spoke to me. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fun, right? Half of the project is creating it. I think that for me, anything in the DIY biology field/niche is something that I would be really interested in creating. I’m really fascinated with robots and other related things, but I think that that might be a little too much of a financial undertaking as well as a bit of a time commitment with how much time is remaining in the quarter.

            I decided that a better issue to be focusing on would be how to make my project critical. What political statement do I want to make? What is the message that I want people to read from my project? I think that there are a plethora of social issues that I could choose from that I feel strongly about or that I feel are not talked about enough (because really, what issues are talked about enough?) However, I think that because we focused a lot on feminism and there was a little bit of controversy and push back from different groups, I think that that is something that I would like to focus on. Whether it’s something that I get them to focus on or think about, I think that it will send an important message.

            At first when thinking about all the possibilities that I could choose from for my project, I was a little overwhelmed. There are so many options; so many potential projects and I didn’t know where to focus. I also didn’t really know of any super original ideas that I thought I could pull off. I felt a lot better after realizing that you could do a project that has already been done/build off of their model and make into your own project. After discussing with Tyler in our mini-conferences, I think that a project that I would learn from, but is also feasible is creating the $10 Instructables Microscope. I think that by adding on certain components (artistically/visually probably), then I will be able to add that piece of feminism. I think that this also kind of fits nicely because we often talk about how there is an unequal proportion of men vs. women in the STEM fields. Although I’m not entirely sure how I want to represent feminism on my microscope, I think that another part of the project will be the fact that I, as a female, am making the microscope.

            I will continue to document the process of creating this project using pictures as I get the materials and start to assemble everything together. I will also include notes or inspiration sources as often as I remember to keep them. Project idea and instructions for baseline: http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-microscope-conversion/

Quote

‘Tell me about yourself,’ says a

stranger at a party. You can recite

your résumé, but what you really

want to express, and what the

stranger (assuming her interest is

genuine) really wants to know, is

what it is like to be you. You wish

(assuming that your interest is genuine)

that you could just open your

mind and let her look in.

— Louis Menand

Week 4 Readings

This week's readings focused on techno-aesthetics and the critical design of an object. I think we all already talked a lot about techno-aesthetics within our aesthetic hack reflection. However, I found Simondon's examples of techno-aesthetics interesting. For example, the Eiffel Tower, which is a radio tower, but is also a great tourist attraction. It works well for both and it is aesthetically pleasing. 

I thought that this was a cool example, but am also still thinking about how this relates/compares to the examples of things that are created purposefully to have these two different purposes, such as the two-headed wrench. I think that this is the difference and separation between critical making and critical design. The two-headed wrench had purposes in mind and thus had critical design. The Eiffel Tower on the other hand had one purpose in mind, but ended up serving two purposes. 

I like the idea that the aesthetics of the project are for the creator or the object. It is aesthetic to them. The aesthetics are what they feel when physically creating the object. How does it appeal to their senses? What are they aware of while creating it? And when thinking of the critical design of their project, does it make a clear point? Does it make the audience think of their purpose or the political statement they are attempting to make? What is the thought behind it?

----

This week in class, we got to focus on making with our table groups. A group to our right was working on trying to make a cube of lights, but figured out that they couldn't  make it into a cube. A group on our left made a very cool mini model of a record player. it was made of cardboard and paper and I thought that it was really cool what they had done. 

When we started working on our project, none of us really had strong opinions on what we wanted to build. We definitely didn't have the same ideas about what to do. We started by trying to combine the Arduino board with the Makey Makey board. However, we didn't end up figuring out how to best attach them and what that would end up creating. We ended up focusing on the Arduino board.

Our group worked on what we're calling 'Bee Bop Robot'. We used the board that the Arduino board and bread board were attached to as the base. We then made the connections to the servos (2) so that they would spin. We made makeshift wheels out of plastic bottle caps. We attached those using the holes in the board and wires. The wires didn't tie knots very well so we added objects under the wires to increase the tension and hold the wheels closer to the body/platform. 

While we were figuring out how to physically attach all the pieces with the materials that we had, we also had to figure out the code segment of the project. Most of us had taken CSE 142, but that didn't mean that I necessarily felt super comfortable figuring out how to code for the Arduino board. 

This was a photo of the final product of the robot/bug with all the essential pieces (no speakers).

The problem with using servos as wheels is that the motors only allow them to spin 180-degrees and then they have to spin back (and then forward again). We wanted ours to inch forward, so we designed rear legs for the robot from pieces of a plastic bottle and had them sliding downward so it could glide forward, but bent them at the back so that it couldn't/wouldn't move backwards when the motors rotated backwards to reset.

We had to change the direction the Arduino board was facing because it was getting in the way of one of the wheels. We considered what was critical about our design. I think that something really great about our design is that with the materials we were given it was not obvious that we could create a robot. We at first didn't have a second wheel (only one person had a plastic bottle in our group), but we ended finding another bottle in the garbage can in the classroom. 

We made use of resources and it was really fun to see the final product. When it was finally moving, I think that everyone in the group felt a sense of accomplishment. Also, you can see in the video above that our robot was struggling a bit to move and it's hind-legs would sometimes get caught in the fuzz of the carpet. We discussed its personification and how its pathetic attempt to move made us empathize with and feel its helplessness. This often lead at least one member of the group to feel obligated to help it along on its way.

We decided to add a speaker so that our bug would make noises. It was just a part of the appeal of the robot overall. I thought that we should add insect noises since our robot looked like a bug to me. We also thought about making "wan wan wan" sounds since it looked so sad sometimes. But we ended up just adding a beeping noise for every time that it moved forwards.

Aesthetic Hack

According to Simondon, techno-aesthetics is something that serves multiple purposes in that it is technical and aesthetic (On Techno-Aesthetics 2012). He describes this as an "intercategorical fusion". The object serves a very technical purpose, but it's also aesthetic to the maker, creator, and consumer. It is also something that has the potential to serve another purpose - one that can be discovered by the creator or consumer.

My personal hack was using my quick-boil water heater to cook pasta. There are a couple of different perspectives for the aesthetics of the hack. The time it took to cook the pasta was much shorter than it would normally be on stove top in a pot. Partially because I didn't have to wait so long for the water to boil. Also, the nozzle where the water comes of the water heater has a strainer so that I didn't have to get a colander to drain the pasta.

The trade-off though was that the pasta had a different texture than normal. I think that this is because of the limited volume of the kettle as well as the inconsistent source of heat. I had to keep re-boiling the water while the pasta was in the container to keep the water hot. The source of heat might also have not been uniform throughout the pot.

There were a lot of things that remained the same though. The pasta was still edible and it got soft like it would if you cooked it in the traditional way. The taste was pretty much the same. The smell, the heat of the boiling water, the steam from the water; those were all things that felt the same.

Although the volume of the kettle was not as big as I would have wanted, the size was also what allowed for me to cook within the pot. This was one of the margins of liberty that allowed this process to be possible. I think that maybe the fact that pasta only needs boiling water to cook is also something that could be considered a margin of liberty. Even further, the fact that water is a liquid and conforms to the shape of the container that you put it in made it so that the shape of the kettle didn't have to match the shape of a pot and there was liberties in that sense

The hack was successful because I still got the end product that I wanted (edible pasta for dinner), but the texture of the pasta was definitely change, which I think counts as an aesthetic feature to the hack. The point that Simondon continuously makes about creating and designing something that has an open purpose can be shown here as well.

The water heater was meant for heating pure water. It makes brewing tea really simple, easy and quick. It's made for boiling water for instant noodles (but pouring the water into the dehydrated noodles instead of the other way around). By using the tea kettle in multiple ways and more specifically in the way that it was not intended to be used, it became a product with the design that allowed it to be useful in multiple contexts. Its potential was increased and I think that that contributes to its aesthetics.

I think that there is definitely validity to what Simondon argues, but I also believe that the relevance is determined by the contextual details of the situation/hack. My struggle with this concept of techno-aesthetics overall is that it is very abstract and your interpretation or interaction with a subject really defines whether or not you view the object as having techno-aesthetic qualities.

There will be great variation in the interpretations, but maybe that's the point. Maybe that is what allows creators to make the discoveries within subjects that allow them to serve different purposes. Thinking about this idea specifically can force thoughtfulness about the subject and how it relates, but I'm not sure that it's a completely natural or "organic" thought process in response.

Feminist Gaming Controller

What is feminism?

It is common knowledge that the ratio of female:male participation in video games/computer games is very low. Why is this? Why do far fewer females get involved in science and technology-based activities? Where does this inequality stem from?

Commercialization probably isn't helping. There is just such a strong bias that has developed in the community, to the point where there is a term "girl gamer". Why is a "gamer" automatically referring to a male? Why do we use the term "girl gamer" in a negative way? It continues to push this concept of gender exclusion. Pink, dolls, make-up, dance, jewelry - these are not synonyms of a female. These things do not make up who we are as individuals or a as a group. 

How can you create a feminist gaming controller?

It's not by making a pink controller. Maybe that makes the consumer think about how it is now more "female friendly". But is that what we want? We are both continuing to create this idea of gender binary as well as pushing them further apart. Your gender does not define you. It does not determine the clothes that you wear or the way that you act or the things that you like. At least it shouldn't. Girl doesn't mean pink and Boy doesn't mean blue. Dolls vs. Cars. Why do we create these separations? 

As a female, I honestly don't think that making a pink controller is going to make me want to play a video game any more. In actuality, it probably makes me want to play less. It isn't feminist. It doesn't strive for equality between males and females like the feminist movement is aiming to do. It creates a split and it ostracizes women to a smaller niche of the gamer world. "You're a girl, so you should use the pink controller." Really?

I completely back the student in our class who spoke up to say that "the controller is NOT the problem; the game is." The game is the problem. When all of the characters in a game are males, women don't feel represented. Having a couple of provocatively dressed female characters is demeaning and it takes away any desire to play the game.

EnChroma - Color Blind Sunglasses

These sunglasses (that come in multiple styles/models) allow people that have color vision deficiency to see in full hues. Of course, there are multiple types of color blindness, but the sunglasses are effective for most people with color blindness to see. Color blindness definitely affects every day life by being unable to differentiate between colors, which come up more often in our lives than I think we initially realize: traffic lights, meat cooked all the way, picking out clothes, etc.

http://www.coolthings.com/tag/cool-inventions/

Size-Changing Shoes

These shoes change up to 5 sizes. This allows the shoes to be longer and more effective in children that come from areas that are less privileged and there may not be the resources to buy multiple pairs of shoes for them as they grow. During adolescence children's feet tend to grow rapidly and have a need to change shoes due to size changes multiple times within a year. Hopefully this new design can help address this issue and it is a useful product for those that it was intended for.

http://www.coolthings.com/tag/cool-inventions/

UC Berkeley

A similar class at the University of California: Berkeley

http://make.berkeley.edu/

Maker Fair Orlando 2012

Magical Bridge Playground

This was brought up by someone in our class as an example from their hometown. It really spoke to me. I think that this is a great example of looking critically at the creations that we have and taking the time to think to see if they are actually the best that they can be. Have we designed these spaces with everyone in mind? Who is our audience? Who are we excluding from these designs? I think that it can really be seen that there is a political statement to be made about the lack of equality and how our society is set up in a way that can definitely be exclusive to groups that we are not necessarily a part of or continuously aware of. Check it out: http://www.magicalbridge.org/

The Trace Project - Daniela Rosner

The videos that creators put up of their creative creations are so fun to watch!

http://danielarosner.com/

http://faculty.washington.edu/dkrosner/research/Trace-UW.mp4

Makey Makey

This is a really great video that shows the types of things that you can do with the Makey Makey invention kit on the Makey Makey site: http://makeymakey.com/

I think it's really inspirational to just see what types of things that people have done and are doing with technology and the types of ideas that they have had. It was also really cool to see what our class did with just an hour or so to play around with the things that we had brought to class and matched the themes of the games that we chose to play (that were controlled by the arrow keys, space bar, and/or mouse click).

Week 3 Readings

Throughout my lifetime, I have been taught about past rights movements (e.g. civil rights movements) and been able to witness them in motion as well. It always makes me think about what the norm was before and how it got that way. It seems that we have had a lot of issues in the past that we have overcome (or are still fighting to overcome), but something that I have consistently found is that there is a lot of resistance to the changes. Most of the changes (e.g. Black rights, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, etc.) in rights seem intuitively... well, right.

However, there seems to be (from my point of view) a correlation with age to resistance to the change. And part of this makes sense; humans inherently don't like change. If you've lived and grown up thinking a certain way and you know that it works, why would you change? It's a tried and true method. I can understand that.

The part that I am trying to understand, or that I want to know, is when our highly liberal generations grow up, are we going to become the conservative population? Or are we still going to want things to change? Will we allow the changes to occur? Are we going to go with the ebb and flow of societies changes and growing pains? If we become conservative, who are we to really say what is right or wrong? Where does that distinction come from? Who decides? When we will have gone too far?

This is where it ties back into the readings. With this idea that we are making computers our slaves. As we expand the technology, when do these machines become beings? When do they get rights? Do they get rights? Machines can't be treated like slaves, nor do we want to be enslaved by our machines.

Again, there was a lot of dense reading this past week. From the interview with Massumi (about Simondon) to Toscano, there was a lot of complicated text to sift through. There were a lot of new ideas that had never really crossed my mind. Do we treat our machines like slaves? Are we enslaved by them?

I think that the answer is ever-changing, but at the moment, I think we are a little bit of both. We treat our computers as slaves. Their purpose is to do what we want, when we want. However, machines have this capacity to capture our attention. We make this connection to them by personifying them and we empathize with them. They have control over our emotional wellness. It can be a great world that we create and build with technology, or it could end up being a really dangerous world that creates a dominoes effect of destruction.

It seems really dramatic, but it is really hard to tell what is going to happen. There are so many technologies that I have learned about in this class that I hadn't even heard of, so the magnitude of the techie things that are being created these days is large and it's something that I can't wrap my mind around. If this the stuff that is already out there, who knows what is being created or what will happen in the future. I think that the awareness of the direction that our world is going in is not high enough and the choices that we make are not necessarily conscious enough.

Instructables - Part 1

For my Instructables project, I decided to do a project similar to the 'Illuminated Tunnel Book' project that I found at http://www.instructables.com/id/Illuminated-Tunnel-Book/

The project is basically to make layers of an overall picture that when added together make a whole picture. The light added in the back adds an illumination aspect to the project. The finished piece is an art piece that can have sentimental value to the creator (as it did for the original author of this project).

I thought that the idea was really beautiful. When I was initially looking through the pages of creative projects that different people had worked on, I was amazed at the diversity of ideas and mediums for their creations. However, I also found that most of them were things that I wouldn't necessary find useful or things that I would want to keep. I picked this particular project, because I felt that it would be something feasible (in a sense of materials that I had available) and it would be something aesthetically pleasing. I liked the idea of recreating this, while putting my own spin on things. I liked being able to pick my own theme and my own pictures to be displayed. I thought that that would give a chance to make mistakes with the project and run into issues that the creator did not mention or showcase on the instructables site. 

The original creator, Cheezwedge, had an idea to create this for his wife as a gift for their anniversary. I thought that this idea was very sweet (and some of the users who commented on the post seemed to agree with me). The next thing that I had to decide was what theme I wanted or what pictures I could see being a part of this tunnel book. 

The first page that I made was the waves (front page). I used this picture as the inspiration for what I wanted the waves to look like. I started by making two straight lines along the long side of the paper that were equidistant from the edges. I then measured to the midpoint between those two lines and drew curves. I then moved the two curves in about an inch. I used that as the stencil for where to draw the designs on the subsequent pieces of paper. I drew the waves on free hand in the shape that I wanted them. In hindsight, I would have drawn this on the backside of the paper instead of the front, because I ended up flipping the pages over. (I didn't want the pencil marks to be visible). This also ended making the waves backwards from how I initially designed them.

I used this as the inspiration for the mountain patterns.

I decided that I wanted to do a mermaid theme. The fact that she's a mermaid doesn't quite get captured in the shot, which is something that I might try to change if I tried this project again. However, I didn't really like the other mermaid silhouettes that I found on Google Images. I think that the pose that she is making is a pretty stand-out moment in the movie 'The Little Mermaid' though, so maybe the viewer/audience would understand that reference.

My first try for the design. I wanted to make a mini version of the project with sticky notes so that I could see what I should cut out and what I should keep so that the paper would stand up correctly and be illuminated correctly as well.

I then made the mountains in the background. I made the mermaid figure last. I did this in order to best judge how large I wanted to make the mermaid silhouette. 

I then made the bindings of the "tunnel book". The original author made each fold about 1 inch. However, I did not want to try to bind multiple pieces of paper together and I only had 8.5" x 11" sheets, so I decided to make the folds about half the size that he had (0.5 inch). The original author only used four layers, so the measurements added up. However, I decided to do seven including the back blank layer. 

This is the project laying flat. 

However, when I bound the left side of the pages together and stood the project up (instead of laying it flat), I realized that the mermaid was too flimsy to stand on her own. She continued to lean forward instead of standing straight up like I had anticipated. The cardstock paper was not strong enough and she was too thin, so I had to think of a quick fix.

 

I decided to add backing in a way that was somewhat artistic (hopefully). I added thin strips of paper to hold her to the more sturdy parts of the paper. I was hoping that the strips of paper would look like light shining across the water or some sort of reflection. Some early viewers of the project said that the "mermaid" now looked like a rockstar in the middle of the ocean... or a mermaid rockstar. I suppose either of those work for me.

I then saw that she was staying as I wanted her now (standing erect) and decided that it was okay to add the right sides binding now.

This is a topical view of the project's bindings. I used the paper clips to hold the sides together as the glue keeping them together was drying. I didn't make the square cut-outs to make sheets align straight (the purpose of those were to make sure the layers of the book did not bend with the bindings). However, I felt that my binding folds were too small to cut the squares out and keep the layers glued sturdily enough to them. I did not think that it would make a huge difference, but it is noticeable when looking at the project from the top that the pages are bending somewhat.

 The full view of the project as it dries.

I bought cardstock paper for the thickness and hoped that it would help keep the project positioned correctly (and keep it from ripping). I also decided to buy paper that had double-sided color (each side was a different color). I thought then I would be able to add a white LED light instead of a blue light like the original author did. I also thought that it would be interesting to see how all the colors looked together as the white light passed through them all and the backsides were a different color.

I thought that this assignment was a really great experience. I think that a lot of times in classrooms, we get stuck in the same routine and just going through the motions. There is a lot that we miss by not actually getting our hands dirty and living the experiences. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to complete this project. I know that it probably will not be as technically savvy as some of the other projects in the class might be, but I enjoyed being able to take the time out of my day(s) to focus on just make something. There is a huge connection between what we have been reading and discussing in class about the significance of making and the maker movement to the projects that each of us have completed, regardless of the projects that we chose. In my eyes, the projects that we completed are our first (baby) steps into becoming part of the maker movement that has really spread its wings of influence in recent years.

Week 2 Readings

There was a lot of material in the readings this week. The translated piece by Simondon was particularly difficult to get through. The discussions that we had in class about the pieces were quite helpful though.

How did you get through the readings this week?

With a dictionary... #truth

Simondon's writing is quite ornamental, isn't it?

If he took his own advice about keeping things simple and pure then this would have been so much easier to read.

There was a lot of information in The Power of Making by Daniel Miller that really resonated with me. I think that because of the technologies that we have developed, many of us have ceased to be makers. Why? Because we simply don't need to. Other people, other things, other machines will make stuff for us. There is no reason to create.

However, I think that there is something really beautiful that happens when people create things. Everyone has a different perception of the world and a different way of interpreting creation. I think that these unique experiences that build up to make us who we are and the unique skill sets that we each have allow us each to create something special.

Different things will call out to different people. Different people have different passions to inspire  new projects. However, with the maker movement, I believe that we are starting to bring makers back. Bring back the inspiration and that novelty of it all. The best part is that we do get to use all of the technologies that have been developed to make our creations better than previously possible (or maybe more efficient). 

I always remember my grandfather's ability to make things. He was a skilled carpenter. The things that he could make out of wood with his own hands and a couple of tools never ceased to amaze me. I didn't understand how someone could know how to make of the things he did. The rocking chair, the rocking horse, the jewelry boxes. Where were his instructions? Who taught him how to do that? It wasn't even his profession. It was a hobby for him. It was his passion. 

I think that (recently) we as a society have become more and more obsessed with specialization and studying in very specific topics. We have to be smarter and better than the person next to; have improved performance compared to the people in our field. I don't think that this is the best route to go and I don't think that it leads to increased productivity. I think that what is really great about the maker movement is the sharing between the members of the community. It is so cool to see people working together in such a collaborative way.

Note: http://www.vam.ac.uk/      [Link to Victoria and Albert Museum]

3D Printing

What do you want to make?

What will you make? What are your ideas?

The 3D printer (or a similar one) that we have available in the Undergraduate Library on the University of Washington campus (Odegaard Library).

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"In five years, I am confident that everything will be made by 3D printers. Just send in a picture or model for what you want --> select the material -->  the company prints it and ships it to you the next day. Done."

https://www.youmagine.com/

A picture from the CoMotion Maker Space on campus. 

http://comotion.uw.edu/makerspace 

The first thing I decided to get printer from the 3D printer - Monster Pencil Pot

www.tinyurl.com/uwmaker