Vibrobot 2010

Vibrobot 2010 was an overwhelming success.

What began as a simple exercise in exploring creativity techniques and the creative potential of some very basic forms of technology (a battery, a small motor, and some random materials), morphed into a collection of quite intriguing 'bots and mobile sculptures, all of which moved (one of the requirements) and several of which acted in quite unexpected ways.  

Students tried building and rebuilding their pieces, and documented their successes (and frustrations) along the way in order to develop a better understanding of how the creative process is not always smooth or linear. New ideas and approaches can  occur quickly, and accidents can lead to interesting discoveries and solutions.  This is all quite important stuff to keep in mind for future builds.

 

 

 

October 14, 2010

1/ Print-out and start work on the "take-home creativity assignment" found at the top of the course links at the right side of this page. Please bring these to class this week so that I can see how you are doing and answer your questions. If you can't remember how to do the creativity techniques on the take-home, please look at hte creativity slides that i used in class (these are also found at the right). These assignments will be due in class October 21.

2/ Bring your proposals for your "Tool or Toy " assignment to class. Each person will get one minute to explain to the class what problem area they are working on, and what they have been doing to solve the paricular problem or challenge that they have isolated.  The class will then provide feedback in form of solutions, encouragement or additional information or ideas. Use this as a sounding board for your ideas.

3/ We will have another build this week as well - interactive LED lamp sculptures

OK, week seven and we finally had a chance to see what everyone has been working on for the last few weeks.  The results? Kind of stunning, actually; I ran out of superlatives pretty early in the class.

For your edification (look it up!), I have included four basically random photos of projects. Can you guess what they are?

For a lot more photos of the twenty-or-so projects that were submitted, check the various individual blogs, where students document their builds, ideas, drawings, photos and other aspects of their work. These are linked to this page primariy as comments to the last week's entries, and as linkbacks. I will work to get these more organized in the near future to make finding this material a bit easier. In the meantime, though, check them out; some of the projects were too complex to prototype in this class, but the creativity, "failed" attempts, drawings, plans and explanations are amazing in many cases.

We are now on a well-deserved hiatus for a week, and then back at it. For this next part of the course, we will be looking at computation, simulations, games and systems. Hang on - this could get bumpy!

Week 6

Today was "work on your Tool / Toy project" day in the lab, and while the atmosphere was pretty relaxed and fun, people were WORKING, and I mean seriously, on getting their piece designed, documented and (somewhat) built.  The level of concentration in many instances was amazing.

This is really turning out to be an interesting project. Next week we will see the outcomes (both the builds and the documentation).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 5!

We started with everyone taking turns talking a bit about what they were working on for the "Tool / Toy" assignment that's due in two weeks.  This is a terrifyingly creative class, and the projects exceeded even my most inflated expectations.

Most people talked about their "problem finding", that is, what area(s) they were looking at to try to improve, or what problems they wanted to solve. Most were well onto the solution stage, talking about what they were making. Some discussed implementation issues like how to actually build their device or product, a few others wanted help choosing which of several projects they would pursue.

I emphasized the importance of perception in the creative process, and specifically how re-framing problems / challenges can lead to a lot of additional avenues to explore before deciding on the one best way to define the problem in any given situation. It is also critical to generate a lot of solutions to your problem before deciding on one to go with; generally, the more ideas you have, the better the final outcome.

Next, we turned to today's build - creating hanging sculptures / lamps. Specifically, your assignment, should you choose to accept it (and most of you did)  was to take some old coat hangers,  leotards, and LEDs, and turn these into pairs of simple, elegant shapes that glow in the dark and could eventually be hung from the ceiling in an installation later in the term. As usual, you came, you saw,  and you conquered.  A few of you will continue your builds for part of next class.

And you know what else I am going to talk about, right? Yes, coat hangers!  I mean, what could possibly go wrong with a bunch of people cutting, bending and generally playing with straightened, springy pieces of sharp metal in the close confines of a computer lab? So I spent the entire build saying "please put on your eye protection" about 500 times. And how was YOUR day?

Week 4: A relatively quiet day, with the emphasis on "relatively".  No physical builds, but exploration of the role of perception in creativity, some field work on "problem finding",  and some conceptual / design exercises involving new life forms and voice-activated, haptic and implantable computing. We took a closer look at the next assignment (Tool / Toy) , and starting collecting material for our next build, where we will be using leotards, coat hangers and ...?  Next week, a quick look at Tool/Toy proposals and then we get back to the serious business of making stuff.

Week Three - Vibrobot Challenge

Ah, week three and already we are constructing some beautiful, strange objects. This was more of a "process class"; the challenge was: (1) to create a novel object that could move primarily through the vibration of a small electric motor, and (2)   to document the process on one of the team's blogs. As the blogs, photos and videos below indicate, there were A LOT of interesting approaches (scroll down to the botton of the photos, then click on "links to this post" to see them). Each team immediately grasped the nature of the challenge and -- once again - dramatically exceeded my expectations. Have a look (and we are REALLY sorry about the mess) ...

Welcome to the CMA "Explorations in Creativity and (In)tangible Media" blog. This is intended primarily for students presently in the course, but others are welcome to have a look around and watch some videos of students' work.

Working individually and in teams, students in this course build physical and virtual objects that use various digital and analog technologies to solve a series of creative challenges or artistic provocations. Initial builds will take place during class workshops, and students will soon start to work independently on larger individual and paired projects. Materials so far have included fabric, metal, wood, electric motors, and various other recycled electronic cast-offs. We will soon be working with electromagnets and microcontrollers. We are exploring robotics, soft and physical computing, tangible media, and perhaps some kinetic sculpture.

Students can explore and combine their interests in a variety of areas. While they learn some basic design and technical concepts in order to build their pieces, the emphasis here is squarely on creativity and self-expression; the underlying technologies themselves are considered important only to the extent that they allow us to create interesting works.

More formally, this course is constructivist in its approach; for the most part, students will be working with both tangible objects and modelling software (Starlogo TNG) in iterative cycles designed to engender deeper understanding of core course concepts and phenomena. In particular, this course is intended to move CALL students beyond works whose final form is screen-based, non-interactive linear image streams (such as film and video) and conventional desktop interaction (such as traditional web design). Key concepts are creativity, design, systems thinking, modelling, simulation and game design.

We came, we saw, we broke ...

Hi:

Yesterday was our first "Break and Make" project of the term, and in this edition, a number of discarded ink jet printers came under the hammer (in a few cases, quite literally) of our diligent and gleefully destructive students. Mechanisms were explored, tons of parts were salvaged and sorted for future projects, and only 6 people were injured, all of them mildly. A real success! I'll post a few pictures shortly. I remind you that we are looking for damaged or discarded cell phones, portable cassette players, and both desktop and laptop computers for future sessions.

As well, in class we had a brief introduction to diodes and transistors, which work as one-way valves and switches, respectively. I then announced that -- for those who are interested in learning more about basic electronics so that they can build BEAM robots or computer interfaces later in the term -- bonuses of 2.5 marks would be given to people who use our kits to complete any circuit (the simpler the better) that uses (a) a capacitor, and (b) a transistor (5 marks if you build both circuits, obviously). To get the credit, you must show me the working circuit during my office hours and briefly explain how they work, or document the circuit with video / photos and post these and your explanation of how the circuit works to our blog (and email me so that I know you have done so). I am around if you have questions during your build, and I also refer you to the "everything that you need to know about electronics" in the blog links for a really clear, simple overview.

Also, I announced that students could work in 3C.5 independently on their projects (email me for the door code), or can leave materials there. This is a trial run only, so everyone must follow the rules. These are: (1) NO soldering in that area, (2) clean-up when you are finished, which includes putting tools back, (3) no sawing or power-drilling unless you are checked-out by me first on how to use these tools, (4) Unplug the glue guns when you are leaving, (5) always wear eye-protection and work gloves (seriously).

Finally, if you haven't done so already, start researching your toy/tool/kinetic sculpture project so that you can get started on it in class next week, and -- as I mentioned in this week's class -- send us the web link to your work on the vibrobots if you want the marks for documentation.

Over and out.