Monday, September 28th, 2009
In this week’s lab, we practiced using a multimeter to measure amps and voltage. It was also the first lab where we didn’t use the Arduino. Instead, our breadboard was powered by a wall wart.
A classmate taught me how to solder correctly; he likes to hold the soldering metal between the soldering wand and wire, and then drip the metal onto the joint. Here’s the finished product:
After I soldered this, I twisted the wires, and soldered the other ends to a header pin. I then hot glued the area around the header pin to form a secure connection, and reduce the stress on the wire.
Then I measured the voltage of different circuits– series and parallel, switch and potentiometer. I spent a good fifteen minutes growing increasingly frustrated because I couldn’t get any reading on the multimeter. A classmate then pointed out that I needed to remove the plastic covers on the tips (doh).
In the help session, I learned that when measuring anything, the multimeter needs to be set at a higher value. For example, if your LED is using 2.5 volts, the dial needs to be pointing at 20. If you have it set too low, then the meter will blink a seemingly random number, and then return to 1. Also it was hard for me to get the multimeter to respond when measuring the voltage of an LED when it was attached to a switch or potentiometer. I had to either press really hard against the legs of the LED, or wrap wire around the multimeter probes.
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
First of all, I thought it was amazing that E.M. Forster wrote this in 1909. Within the first few pages of
The Machine Stops, I think understood the purpose of assigning this reading for class. The short story is about striking a balance between technology and our normal, human lives. It’s about using technology to enhance our lives, not dictate it. And I think it’s something we should always remember whether it’s designing a prototype for Physical Computing, or building a new toy for a gang of eight-year-olds. Sometimes we get so dependent on technology that we lose sight of our roots. I think this is easy to do, because of all the momentum and hype that often surrounds new technology; everyone always wants the coolest, newest gadgets! Eventually the momentum gains more speed and we forget who we were pre-technology. For example, Kuno, the son of the main character, Vashti, wants to see stars again, and Vashti cannot even fathom this because she is so wrapped up in her role as a technological slave.
As I read
The Machine Stops, I was constantly reminded of one of my favorite Pixar movies, Wall-E. Wall-E is set one hundred years in the future, in an era where Earth is uninhabitable because it is so polluted that nothing can thrive. Instead, they must live on a spaceship which orbits the planet. Like Kuno, the Captain also longs to be back on Earth. Everything is run by machines, even Auto, the autopilot, and as a result, people are disconnected from real-life interactions. They live in pods, and instead of walking, they float from place to place in said pods. If they happen to fall off, a robot will arrive at their side shortly to lend a hand. They drink, instead of chew, their food, which is delivered and made by robots.
In Wall-E, the fall of Auto, paralleled the fall of the Machine. When Kuno and his mother Vashti kissed at the end, it was such a huge turning point in the story. Much like the scene in Wall-E when the Captain walks for the very first time. My friends and I laughed at this– it seemed so silly, I could never imagine being so huge that I cannot walk. Even the simplest actions, such as walking or kissing or any sort of touch, we take for granted.
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
Sunday, September 27th, 2009
Last Friday I visited the
Tree Museum, a public art project by Katie Holten. To be frank, the highlight of the field trip was seeing Vito Acconci set up his new installation in the front lobby of the Bronx Museum.
On paper, I thought Katie Holten’s idea was fascinating and noble– one hundred trees selected to celebrate a boulevard one hundred years old, and one hundred different stories to match the diversity of the trees and community. It used existing resources, was something accessible to almost everyone, and it integrated the community. The problem, I thought, lay not in her idea, but rather, the execution.
First off, the trees are difficult to find. I am giving her the benefit of the doubt and assuming that when the exhibit opened on June 21st, the trees were more clearly marked. I saw one with a neon green ribbon, and am assuming that they were all pegged like so at the exhibit’s birth. The second hurdle I found was that once you dial the number and extension, the message is extremely difficult to hear. I’m not sure if it’s due to the audio quality, or the voice of the speaker, or both. Even with my headphones that turn the rumble of buses into a mere whisper, I still was straining to hear the voice on the other end. The messages were diverse, like the pamphlet had promised. The first message from the tree outside of the Bronx Museum was about an apple tree that resides behind the museum. Other messages I listened to ranged from a man playing drums to a high school student talking about the genus of the tree.
Below is a photo of the single ribboned tree:
Another thing I didn’t like was how the transcripts are not available online. As a web developer, one of my main concerns is making websites accessible to everyone, regardless of whether you are blind, deaf, or using IE5 on a Mac. I feel like she took wanted to make the exhibit accessible, public, and community-based, so she could have taken the extra step and put the transcripts of the interviews online so the deaf can read them. Also, some people don’t have phones, so it would be nice if each tree had some sort of scrolling marquee that transcribed the message into both English and Spanish.
All in all, I liked Holten’s idea to celebrate the 100-year-old Grand Concourse. I think to make the exhibit better, however, she could have used better sound and/or voice actors, and made the trees more identifiable and obvious that they are a part of an exhibit. If I were walking past a tree, I would not notice the green sticker at the base. And also, it’s rare for someone in passing on the way to work to stop and listen to what this tree has to say, especially if the sound quality is so terrible.
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Thursday, September 24th, 2009
For this assignment we were supposed to create a black-and-white Processing sketch and use two variables, a string and integer, as the inputs. I looked at Sol Lewitt’s work for inspiration:
I wanted to do something very similar– tiny bricks merging to form a bigger picture, much like a mosaic– but quickly discovered that this is difficult to do if you don’t know Processing and waited until the day before the assignment is due to learn.
So I tried my best, and will definitely hit the books this weekend to learn Processing!
Theme and Variation Sketch Posted in Visualizing Data | No Comments »