Instructable!

Here!
It was a good time, folks!
Now I'm going to rest.

The final stretch!

Almost there!!!!!!!
REEEE.
Made my Instructable, have my project ready, now all that is left is to actually bring the beast up to school and amaze my classmates!

Week 10-14

Just been super busy with the final, making good progress and documenting it all on my phone as I go along!

Week 9!

Didn't do much, ordered my materials that needed to be ordered and they'll be in by the end of the week!

Project Idea!

Okay, so.
Gonna build a little walk in exhibit of sorts.
Attach lights to it that'll sync up to music.
The lights will h hanging from the ceiling!

Materials needed:

-Leds (Ordered! Two five meter strips and one sample strip!*
-Plywood or some other reasonably cheap building material (in the process of getting)
-a spool of silky black cloth (in the process of getting)
-Door hinges!
-Aurduino (Got one!)
>Laptop (Got one!)
>Power tools (Got 'em)
Gonna blow your minds, I hope.

Chapter 3 and 4 notes

Our minds control motion and senses that can be manipulated into thinking something that is not true, but it feels true. These are called phantom pains.  Our brains are just not wired the way technology is. Humans can not do the regular things that computers do like remember a long list of instructions or sequences.

There is a feeling of being in another place and not the place you are really in. For example, when you are in a car chatting away on the on the phone. You are physically in the car, but your mind is elsewhere, you disassociate with your physical form in the favor of your mental one! The idea of telepresence has the same notion. It uses technology to control something in another place. 

Phantom Pains are a pain in the butt, huh? Feeling something and KNOWING that your body is missing that limb, but your brain is like 'nah man, your arm itches...scratch it.''

Neural Opportunism: Data processing bandwidth 

Our perception is limited! 

Meta knowledge: Rapid decision making

Baseline knowledge: stable source of information

change blindness: pretty much not remembering what you just saw
Fovea
Intentional blindness: failing to notice something that's in front of you when you're distracted by something else.

Week...uh...8?

Ahhhh.
My group forgot to do the reading, I was the only one who actually did it.
I felt bad because Thomas was upset and it felt like it was my fault for not reminding them.
I hope they don't get in trouble.
Also I made a thing.

I tried uploading a video of it messing with a fan, but it refused, oh well.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Walker-Robot/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Playful-Puppy-Robot/
-Simple design and layout allows for easy modding and changes to the physical design
I personally plan to scale up the concept of the Puppybot, should funds allow, while adding the ability to walk on its own and avoid obstacles like the simple walker robot.

The Bad *but it's so cool*
http://www.instructables.com/id/EZ-Robot-Controlled-Lost-in-Space-B9-Robot/
http://www.instructables.com/id/chicken-walking-robot/

The Ugly:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Ugly-Duckling-Robot/

Some notes from chapters 1 and 2

-It was Manfred Clynes who actually first suggested the term “cyborg.”
-The Cyborg deliberately incorporates exogenous components extending the self-regulating control function of the organism in order to adapt it to new environments.
-As an acronym, cyborg stands for Cybernetic Organism or Cybernetically Controlled Organism
-The first cyborg was a white lab rat without a name, this rat had a simple implanted Rose osmotic pump
-The Rose pump was named so after its inventor, Dr. Rose.
-Rose incorporates a pressure pump capsule capable of delivering injections at a controlled rate.
-People with pacemakers could also be considered cyborgs to a degree!
- Cochlear implants electronically stimulate the auditory nerves, because of this, they enable many profoundly deaf humans to hear again
-However, they are currently limited by requiring the presence of a healthy, intact and non degenerated nerve
-We humans didn’t always keep precise, objectively measured time.
-Information appliances are characterized by three central features:
1. An information appliance is geared to support a specific activity, and to do so via the storage, reception, processing, and transmission of information.
2. Information appliances form an intercommunicating web. They can “talk” to each other.
3. Information appliances are transparent technologies, designed to be easy to use, and to fade into the background. They are poised to be taken for granted.
-A cyborg is a being with both organic and biomechatronic parts.
-The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline D. S. Halacy's Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman in 1965 .
-Donald Norman, a cognitive scientist, said that technology products we use today need to be learned how to use them and is not simple and reliable.  -Tangible computing is when the human is interacting with technology, and the interaction is meant to be as natural as possible. This displays technology being created to be used with the human interface.

Week 7

We had critique this week, people seemed to like my project, which made me happy.
I'll be working on it at home, tweaking it so it's perfect for turning in towards the end of the semester,
We were introduced to arduino, it's simply amazing.
The codes reminds me a lot of Java script coding wise, so I think I can ease into something fairly easily.

Week 6

Nothing to see here, move along folks.
Just worked on my noise project at home, nothing special.

Billy Bastard

Billy The Bigmouth Bass: A lesson in patience
In the end we still couldn't get him to sing proper, but at least he can change pitch based on light.
I'll redo him later, yes.

It was a fun project, just very tiring and stressful towards the end.

Week 5

Odd week, no classes for the most part so I just went home and worked on my project from there since it was quieter and more comfortable.

Week 4

This week was fun.
I had to make some shoes out of paper towels and tape, should've taken some pictures.
Made a few noise circuits, still undecided as to how I am going to integrate them into the upcoming project.
Speaking of projects, the class really liked mine, it made me feel warm inside, but I was also a little embarrassed.
I hope my classmates don't think I'm weird.

Week 4 Reading

Uh.
Well.
It was a lot to take in, even with the repeated readings of each chapter, I still found myself getting confused by some of the terms in the reading.
In one experiment, using a radio scanner, Mr. Dunne maps the spaces emitted by 'objects that dream', such as baby intercoms, electronic bugs, and cordless phones. All of these objects invisibly leak their information out past their boundaries of buildings, and into Dunne's moving car. Dunne scans neighborhoods from the streets and electromagnetic fields are measured and mapped for their 'dreaminess'.I felt a spark of inspiration as I came to better understand how the world of electromagnetic waves shape my everyday life, even if I'm not aware of them.
The world of electronics and the world of science stand toe and toe, and that, to me, is fascinating.
Come part two of the reading, I was somewhat freaked out by by the seemingly endless capabilities of modern day electronics. The touch responsive art piece of Peter Stathis's Satori TV turns its head towards you when touched. It's an example of how even every day objects like TV and radio can be manipulated into being more human like. And if you don't think that's awesome, then I'm sorry, you must be a boring person.
I am left with one lingering question that has been gnawing at me, how much longer until WE become the entertainment for the technology? How much longer until there's a family of androids gathered around a cage to watch the latest 'Battle Humans', jeering and leering as we flail helplessly against each other.
I feel like it might be closer and sooner than I am comfortable with.

Project 1: A narrative

As I sat outside on my front porch in the dead of night, I had begun to rethink my project choices. My mother had told me she would be home within ten minutes, and an hour had almost passed since then. Of course, me being Miss Sunshine, I began to fear for the worst, she had been driving all day, what if she had gotten into an accident, or worse...what if she had gotten kidnapped.
Thankfully, she answered me after my tenth attempt to reach her on her cell, she was fine and was just down the road.
Her reaction was everything I hoped for, she was happy, thrilled one might say.
She had set down her luggage on the porch and fumbled about for her phone, chattering excitedly as she took a photo to send to her friend.
While she was doing that, I recorded her reaction, though it had to be cut short when she went in for a hug.
All in all, I'd say this project was a success, even if it only surprised one person.

Week 3

Short, short week, only one class because of the Holiday.
We started playing with noise, the amount of it in the classroom almost bought me to tears, I had to fight back the urge to hold my head and cry when one of the circuits somebody made started to scream like a sadistic songbird.
The fact that I couldn't get my circuits to work only furthered my frustrations.
Good week overall 7/10.

Group Project Of One

For my 'group' project, I want to make a bunch of throwies and just...plaster them around the neighborhood. I live in a nicer part of the city, so here's hoping I won't get arrested for vandalism!
Instead of rare earth magnets, I might use something that could adhere to any surface...like sticky tack, or maybe some type of malleable glue.
Rare earth magnets are expensive, you see, and I'm on a tight budget this semester due to an upcoming surgery.
Regardless, I might throwie one of the trees in a nearby park, I'm sure the children will be thrilled, if any stop to play that is.

Week 2

We started soldering this week!
Fun times were had by all, and I've found out that I'm the only one in my group...
I'm lonely...
But!
I'm going to make a potato clock and hide it at the farmer's market, I'll make it go off when people walk past it with a remote!
Edit: I forgot my photos, oops!

The Art of Noise

Some interesting Facts I found out upon reading this little book:
-Primitive people attributed to sound a divine origin.
-It was attributed to respect and was revered by priests
- Middle Ages music did progress through the development and modifications of the Greek tetracord system.
Actually, this entire things reads like a Manifesto almost.
What with the 'we must break through for this to happen', and so on and so forth.
The writer is really pushing how important music is, it's almost as if it's his life that's on the line here when it comes to music and sound.
Overall, this was a really passionate piece, and I can appreciate that, it's nice to see somebody that's that passionate about their loves and hobbies for a change.
Very informative, all while retaining a personal, almost chatty sort of tone,not overly scientific, but the facts were an added bonus.
I enjoyed reading this piece very much.

Week 1

During this week we did what is to be expected of the first week of classes. Intros, Syllabus, all that good stuff.
I borrowed some of my dad's tools for this class.
I also made this

Fun times.

Electricity

Electric performance art can be deŽfined as the theatrical display of electrically manipulated human bodies.
Three types of Electric Performance exist:  pieces that treat the human body as a material object and demonstrate its electrical properties, pieces that  deal with the vulnerability of the human body and how much electrical shock it can take before damage is done, and finally cybernetic standpoint and view the human body as a kinematic system whose motions can be steered by means of electrical control signals.

The first Electrical Performance is The ElectriŽfed Human Body.
Greeks are to thank for kick starting this discovery, after studying the conductive qualities of amber, they gave this phenomenon a name...electricity.
For thousands of years, the word did not mean much more than that.
Fast forward to 18th century France, were a man by the name of Stephen Gray had just announced a discovery that would blow the field of science off its feet.
His discovery was that  the electric power to attract small particles can be transferred from one object to another by simply placing these objects close together.
This is now known as Electrical Induction.
These performances employ the human body as a prop...as a static and passive object. They are used to demonstrate the properties of tissue and of other organic and inorganic materials.

Next is the type of performance that tests the body's limits. Once the true power of electricity was known, it wasn't long before scientists set out to do all manner of 'humane' experiments...mostly on animals. While a shock that would cause only a headache or bleeding nose to a human didn't seem like much, to a small animal such as a rat or rabbit, the effects could be quite detrimental, prehaps even fatal.
Perhaps the most famous and well known example of animal electrocution is the case of Topsy the Elephant. Topsy was an Elephant who had preformed on Coney Island, but had gone on a rampage that had resulted in the deaths of 3 people. Her execution was decided, she would face death by electrocution. In 1903, the Electrocution of Topsy the elephant was filmed, and showed just how powerful and scary electricity could be.

The final type of Electric Performance is Muscle control signals. Basically, one could stimulate certain nerves and muscles with a small shock, garnering a reaction of say, a leg kick or a smile. It's pretty creepy once you think about it, as the reactions are done completely involuntary of the subject, dehumanizing them in a way.