Hey Everyone!

Today at the end of class Sam and I told you a little about our final project, I’m just going to expand on it some more. We plan on using the MakeyMakey and creating an interactive dragon that corresponds with a pd patch of animations, sounds and videos. The dragon will be crocheted and have conductive thread in areas that will act as the triggers. The dragon that Sam is making is below along with her inspiration for what the finished object will look like.

For the metaphor aspect of the project we decided to incorporate a few different ones. Since we are doing a dragon as our interactive piece, we have to incorporate metaphors that are associated with the idea of a dragon. We are still trying to compile solid ideas for our metaphors but here is a list of some of our ideas in relation to where the trigger will be located.

Wings- ‘When pigs fly’

Tail- ‘Scared like a dog with a tail between his legs’

Snout- Something with fire

Elbow- ‘Funny bone’

Toes- ‘This little piggy went to the market, this little piggy…’

Our metaphors will be portrayed as different animations, sounds, and videos. Our project shouldn’t require too much research however, we may try to incorporate more on what the dragon symbolizes. The translation between the interactive dragon and the animations will be done using the MakeyMakey. Overall, the project should be pretty fun and Sam and I are looking forward to seeing the finished project and we hope you are too, Good luck!

Hey guys!

Here is a video of the Pd patch I created for the Arduino sensors. Analog A0 has the soft potentiometer, A2 has the flex sensor, and A4 has the temperature sensor. I have connected the potentiometer to the translation of the square in the x direction. As you slide up the strip the object moves towards 2 and down the strip moves towards negative 2. The flex sensor sends a reading to the color of the object. When the sensor is completely straight it remains white  and as the value increases towards 5 it becomes a dark pink color. The temperature sensor corresponds to the translation in the y direction. As you warm up the sensor, the object moves upwards and settles back down as the sensor returns to its normal state. The patch does work when all three analogs are on at the same time, however some of the readings interfere with each other. I found the set up of the arduino to be more difficult than that of the MakeyMakey. Also it is a little bipolar, but I think it is pretty neat and I’m glad I was able to get something out of it.

Enjoy!

Hey guys!

This week I finished the meme remix project. I decided to base my meme off of the new Miley Cyrus music video for Wrecking Ball. This video made many headlines for its provocative scenes of Miley riding a wrecking ball nude and barely clothed. I thought It would be interesting to remix her video with old videos of her as an innocent child, a growing teenager, and also popular youtube videos. I tried to mix the young videos of Miley in with the scenes of the video that are more ‘PG’. As the video becomes more revealing I mixed in videos of her saying goodbye to being Hannah Montana and some comedic youtube videos with phrases that relate to the music video.

In Pd I created a complex patch that has several sub-patches. The patch is interactive with an Xbox controller. In the beginning of the video I have included my main patch. I also give a preview of one of the sub-video patches and the main Wrecking Ball video patch. I have created this patch so that when a sub-video plays the Wrecking Ball video pauses and then resumes when the other video is finished playing. You will be able to see and hear this in the video.

I was unable to record a decent video of me using the controller but here are a list of the buttons that correspond with the meme:

X-starts Wrecking Ball Video

Y-plays top right

B-plays bottom middle right

A-plays bottom left

Right Bumper-plays bottom middle

Left Bumper-plays bottom right

Start-plays bottom middle left

Back-plays top middle

Up (Directional Pad)-plays top middle left

Right Stick Click-plays top middle right

Left Stick Click-plays top left

There is no specific order in which the buttons have to be clicked but this is my favorite remix!

I really enjoyed making this patch, however I never want to listen to this song ever again after how many times I have replayed it this week. I hope you enjoy!

Hey everyone!

This week I wanted to talk about the presentation we had last Thursday. Deborah Aschheim is the artist that created the sculptures that are displayed going down the stairs in Fuller. I found her work to be very fascinating and unique. Never before had I looked at memory as inspiration for an art piece. Deborah was very passionate about her work; I can tell that she is a very dedicated artist. Her descriptions of her piece made me look deeper into the themes and find beauty in something as simple as President Nixon. Deborah inspired me to look at things in another dimension.

When Deborah first began her presentation about her art with memory I was quite confused. How can you turn memory into art? I could understand taking a memory and using it as an inspiration but Deborah dissected the concept of memory. Her work focused on every sense that was retrieved in the moment of the memory. Was there a song playing? Did the house smell like a homemade meal? Was my polyester  sweater itchy around the collar?  Each detail of Deborah’s memory then became a node in a model of hundreds of them. This form of art is a new concept to me and has given me a greater respect for artists.

I found Deborah’s presentation to be extremely interesting. Is he inspired me to not look at things in the manner they are used. I am hoping to look at the next project with Deborah’s mindset and really surprise you all with something great.

Hey Guys!

So last week our assignment was to create an interactive drawing using the MakeyMakeys and Pd. When we were first assigned the project I struggled with coming up with a theme. Professor had suggested to us that our hand drawing be some type of map or story line so I decided I wanted my animation to tell a story.

My drawing portrays the familiar fairy tale. The prince is at the bottom of this path that leads to the princess’ castle. During his journey up the mountain he collects objects that will help him defeat the dragon and awaken his princess. My drawing has four triggers; the tree, the boulder, the castle doors, and the princess’ towers.

My home screen is an animation of the princess sleeping and her counting sheep in her dream. I traced a picture I found on google and added the sheep animation in PhotoShop. I got the sound off of free sounds. This animation is my favorite. I spent a lot of time on it and I am very satisfied with it.

When you touch the tree an animation of a horse appears on the screen. Using PhotoShop, I traced over a video I found on youtube of a horse on his hind legs. In Pd I inserted a sound file I got off of free sounds.

When you touch the boulder an animation of a sword being pulled out of the stone plays. I used a scene from a Disney movie as my inspiration. The sound was also found on free sounds.

The castle doors trigger an animation of a fire breathing dragon. This is the last animation before the prince reaches the princess. By this point he has collected a horse and sword. He is ready to slay the dragon.

The final animation plays when you touch the princess’ towers. This animation is a lot more simple and just symbolizes that they kissed. In the end the prince and his princess live happily ever after. Enjoy!

Sorry the Pd patches are so blurry!

Hey everyone,

My name is Adrienne Weishaar and I would like to share with you the work I have created with Pd extended.

My first piece is the Geometric Abstraction. I used circles, squares, and triangles with different colors,  scales, rotations and translations to give them the different effects. With metros and bangs I was able to click one centralized bang that started the animation of these simple geometric shapes. Here is my final piece.

My second piece is an Underwater Animation. This was a more challenging design for me but I am very satisfied with my final piece. For this project I downloaded the underwater scenery from a Google image. Using Photoshop I created the animations of shark swimming across the screen, a jelly fish swimming upwards, and a submarine peaking up from deep in the ocean. After I rendered each animation, I downloaded them into Pd Extended and added triggers to the animations. During the video of my final animation, you will be able to locate the trigger locations. All triggers are simple rollovers. Enjoy!