For the second week the assignment was to make a creative switch. Since we learned in class how to create one with a pushbutton the idea of the homework was to come up with creative ways to “cut” the power supply and reconnect it in an interesting way by exploring different conductors.
Read MoreStarry night: Week 2 process
For my second week assignment I had to follow some instructions:
One element controlled by the mouse.
One element that changes over time, independently of the mouse.
One element that is different every time you run the sketch.
I decided to create a new concept and not to continue my self portrait since that would reduce my options. I focused on the concept of a night full o stars that appear in random places each time the sketch is opened. I used the background as a tool to make the randomized stars disappear over time by assigning it an alpha value of 20, therefore each time that 5 backgrounds accumulate on top of each other the previously drawn star would disappear from the screen and since I placed it (and the stars) within the draw function, the sketch is generating them on loop.
Read MoreWeek1: Intro to Physical Computing
The following is a reflexion on two readings: “The Art of Interactive Design” by Chris Crawford (Chapter 1 and 2) and Bret Victor’s, “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design”.
I believe the authors dedicated a fair amount of time on defining what Interactivity is, and what it is not, however I would like to expand more on my personal opinion about what interactivity is (or at least should be for my personal interpretation).
In my opinion the differentiation that is being done by Chris Crawford regarding Interaction Designers and User Interface Designers is too focussed on age and capabilities, but he doesn’t talk about the fact that a User Interface Designer can also be a, Interaction Designer (and viceversa), I’m not saying this should be the rule, but it definitely is a very recurrent mix of capabilities.
It might come from the fact that the profession has changed so much over the years and probably it was different when the book was released, however I believe that the mixture between Mathematics and Engineering with Arts and Design could definitely be achieved by one professional.
In general I believe the concept of Physical Computation should go beyond just understanding who communicates with who, and expand more to the analogy of how the interactivity could augment the senses of a human being. It goes beyond trying to understand if a rug is interactive ir not. The power of technology should be used as a tool to provide humans with more developed senses and enable them to achieve their goals, overcoming their disabilities (mental and physical) with the help of Physical Computing.
Last but not least, I want to take a moment to talk about an issue that I am deeply concerned about. As a women being involved in Engineering and Tech environments I have faced sexism in a lot of different expressions, verbal, phycological and physical. Since we are in an era of women empowerment I have started to realize the material that we read and the videos that we watch as part of a class or our professional education should encourage us as women to overcome our mental barriers and also the industrie stereotypes.
I found the introductory video to be very sexist, I am aware that my Latin American descent might be influencing me to interprete the material in a different way, however I believe a blog that allow us as students to express our reactions is a great tool for us to also raise our voices regarding important issues in the society.
Male characters in the video
Male character winking this eye to a girl
Female character explicitly saying no.
Female character hitting a wall
Male character making fun of a female character
Male character blowing a kiss
Female character clearly rejecting the male's offenses.
This might me my own “Rant” however I strongly believe that it is important to empower women in our industrie and the materials that we use during our lessons are a great point to start that women empowerment.
The Met Sound Walk
This Blog Post is a reaction to the John Luther Adams’s Sound Walk that guides the audience from The Met Fifth Avenue to The Met Breuer and viceversa. I prepared myself to be able to walk at the same pace as the audio was indicating, which meant that I had to memorize the streets that I had to follow in order to avoid be checking for directions at the middle of it.
Read MoreComputation for social and health impact
As an Industrial Design Engineer I tend to focus on design and problem solving, however it is not always the case that I get the chance to work with computation (to be honest this is the first time that even use this term to define what i used to call technology). Trying to explain what “Computation” adds to my professional goals is something that I have been trying to do since I applied to ITP, therefore this post could (or not) give me more clarity about the social and health approaches that I would tike to give to my carear.
Read MoreDrawing with code: Week 1 ICM process
The following is a documentation of my first week work with p5.js. I have worked with code before therefore I thought I knew what I was doing (but maybe I don’t). I watched the first two videos and then I was too impatient to continue so I decided to jump right into the coding.
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