Seek and run around a lot

So I ran around the entirety of Botany Town Centre on Sunday in search of an oven tray to wire up and tap dance on. This proved to be completely unsuccessful so I ended up calling a few hardware stores who informed me that they only had corrugated sheets of metal. Just as my time was running out, I discovered in a dusty corner of my workplace a large metal board on which I think there were once magnets stuck to. As it has been in our store longer than I have been working there (almost two years), I figured it was alright to borrow. I dug my tap shoes out of an equally dusty corner of my room and started attempts to make sure they all wired up properly. I was very pleased that both creating the animata the programming didn't take as much time (or sanity!) as I thought it would and I have the basic concept of my programming done. Successfully managed to wire up my tap shoes by unscrewing the metal plates and running the wire underneath then up through the hole with the screw. It was then I discovered that the metal plate didn't actually conduct due to a layer of paint. After hunting down some sandpaper and scrubbing at it for an hour, I managed to get it conducting. This was later fixed up with an electric sander which put my manual sanding efforts to shame. After this it was only a matter of tidying up my programming, making final tweaks and attempting to make my mess of wires a little more aesthetically presentable.

Faced a slight problem on morning of presentation when I managed to cut clean through the wire with my tap shoe so a quick reqiring and change in technique made my presentation go relatively smoothly. I enjoyed seeing what others who presented had managed to come up with but wished that there'd been more. As with the first animata project, I liked seeing people's personalities and interests come through in their ideas, music and how people relate to it being a common idea. The first ideas which always came to me around movement were that of dancing as within dance, there is a huge scope for variety of movement. I really liked the presentation which converted the physicality of the movement, in the idea of the strength excerted in lifting weights into an animation of arm wrestling which conveys that strength and physical tension, while also making it varible and interactive.

Was overall very pleased with my outcome for this section of the project, in conception, production and presentation and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. I still feel my concept was a little simple but limited myself to work from the simple upwards depending on time constraint which is what did limit me in the end. Regardless, visual documentation of my final sort of interface and movement is as follows in three videos to give an idea of the relationship between the foot/dance movements and the effect on the skeleton.

Not sure if I jumped the gun a bit on the next part of the project which looks more at the synthesis and relationship of the input fromm the human interface with the visual aesthetic and what it controls on screen as I tried to make these link together in my theme of 'Dancing Dead.' Yet I am still feeling a little overwhelmed by the next part of this project and the short time frame.

For the first time in this course I feel like I've hit my first block of ideas, so far I've always had something come to me which I've run with, developed, modified and refined but always around one initial 'ta-da', lightbulb moment. Have a few sort of ideas at the moment which I need to research into tomorrow in hopes of generating one of them into something real. I think it is as we keep increasing variables that I am starting to lose sight of the big picture and lack a real starting point. Like, at first it was the animata, then it was the animata with programming and HI, then it was the animata with the programming of the wearable HI and now it is all that linked in a cohesive idea and instead of animata, the introduction of video provides a much larger scope for visual representation.

Still feeling quite buzzed about it, just waiting for my lightbulb moment.

Hype

So we pulled apart the disposable cameras yesterday in search of harvestable pieces and succeeded mostly only in getting a few electric shocks, one of which had floored and caught between laughing and crying for a few minutes. Not doing that again but a valuable lesson was learnt.

Upon researching a bit, I found someone else who using the same sort of piece from a disposible camera and trying to figure out how to attach a switch to it. Ryan was actually wanting to at some point create a ring flash for a camera out of the pieces and similarily also found someone wanting to make a strobe flash. James had some ideas as well but also explained to me how it was possible to soldier wires onto the circuit board to use the flash charge button as a switch which could actually be a useful switch to attach to the bottom of a tap shoe as almost a pressure sensor. I am finding it interesting how circuit boards can be so easily manipulated from their original function, especially as circuits are not really something I have much experience with but am enjoying getting my head around.

In the end decided it would be too difficult to attach at circuit to the bottom of the tap shoe and tricky to maneouver so as to trigger it. Also ran out to buy some switches from Jaycar (which I got on trade discount - good to have contacts) but probably won't end up using them now as I am afraid to crushing them in attempting to put enough pressure on them to trigger them. Plan now is instead to simulate the same sort of switch on a larger scale using the metal plates of the tap shoes wired up as one half of the switch and wiring up a metal surface on which to dance to complete the circuit and trigger the keys. I'm thinking, oven trays.

In terms of animation, am thinking 'Dancing Dead' so follows a sneak preview...

From here on in, plan is to buy oven trays, start my programming, and link up my circuit board with my plan for wiring up said oven trays and tap shoes.

Destructive Technologies!

Tuesday's project was not one for anyone self conscious as we were presented with the task of animating a photograph of ourselves using Animata. Creating a mesh and bone structure which would allow movement then gave way to a myriad of often humorous movements which often resulted in distortion so it was important to be able to laugh at yourself. What began for me as a simple shrug pose, uncertain yet eager then turned into perhaps a dance movement which would send you edging away from anyone ever performing as such.

Where some people liked the distortion effect, I aimed to keep my animation relatively realistic. It was my first time doing any sort of animation but I found it a relatively easy process, only suffering with the lack of the undo function. The common observation was that I look kind of like a genie, so when came time to add a scene, I went with this and the final result I was quite pleased with.



Extra layers were courtesy of stock photography off DeviantArt with credit as follows:
Genie Bottles - TexelGirl-Stock
Hand - marchetoo

Following on from this, we were given Apple IR Remotes and yet another piece of software to create a patch to operate our animations with. This proved to be a lot trickier. It was my first experience with any kind of software like this and where with something like Animata and the Lego Mindstorms software, it was easy enough to pick up visually and make things work. Using MaxMSP I felt a lot more like I was working blind and clung to the basic structure we were given to get us started for dear life.

Ryan and I spent an hour or two trying to figure out how make the length of the animation 'bone' change in length in only small increments. After a long winded do-it-yourself maths lesson we had someone what figured it out. At which point James came in and showed us how to do the exact same thing in a much simpler way in mere minutes. It was however a good learning curve and by forcing myself to experiement and interact with the software, I got much more out of it in terms of understanding than if he'd shown us from the beginning.

It also gave me something to work with to keep going from and develop and after a bit of a late night and early morning and an unexpected adrenalin rush, I managed to create a fluid motion where the bone extended to a maximum value and returned to the minimum and that was an extreme sense of satisfaction from having worked through my technical problems and figured it out. By the time I finished, I could control the waist, arms and knees from the remote in three different types of movements. Success is as follows!The really interesting thing is trying to contantly visually make the connection between the patch, the animation and the movement to get them all to work cohesively. Or at all.

The area between AUT tower and the 3D labs today saw the strange sight of 40 odd students wandering along, each carring a keyboard. Once these were torn open, we began the delicate task of tracing back the pathways to the circuit board to then reprogram. At the 3D lab, we undertook the even more delicate process of soldering wires onto the circuit boards. Again, this was something I'd never done in my life and though we left about 3 hours later and feeling perhaps a little light headed, my wires were soldered on.

Unfortunately, only about 4 or 5 of my intended keys are working so I might have to go solder a few more wires on depending on what I chose to create for my wearable interface. with which to control my Animata animation I am feeling very excited about this project and my first few ideas were either using tap shoes and tap dancing or something with chain mail armour. As with the last project, it will be important to think about how all the elements will come together, that is, how it is worn, the movement which will trigger the 'keys' and the animation and how it moves.

Again I feel it is a challenging project in terms of both the concept and then practical creation and programming and then also with the short time span. After leaving the studio today, I quickly followed up on an idea I had me going out to my work in a photolab and pulling apart some disposible cameras for the circuit boards which control the flash. Not sure if they are at all useful for anything but I sure had fun pulling them apart and trying to figure out how to make the flash go off. The hard part is not giving yourself a shock and seeing how long before your coworkers get annoyed with the constant flashes.

When the wheels on the bus don't go round and round.

It all started to go wrong when Tony lost a wheel. In the first five seconds. It is safe to say that our presentation of West Side Story could have gone miles better. In fact, I think the only way it could've gone any worse is if our robots had gone up in flames.

"You! Cut up posters!"
"You! Put up the posters!"

The day of presentation I still wasn't sure if it would all come together. Most of Friday was spent running on adrenaline. Right up until the last minute, Ryan and I were furiously programming as fast as our laptops, software and NXTs would allow. In retrospect, I feel it was when our group first really came together as a collective whole. At the last possible time slot we had, whilst waiting for the group before us to set up, ready or not, we were loading the NXTs with the programs.

"You! Bring me Maria!"
"You! Bring me Tony!"
"You! Go to the kitchen and refill my water bottle!"

Delegation at it's best. But when it came our time to take the spotlight, it was well and truly a team effort with all 10 of us setting up set, lights, backdrop, machines, speakers, seats, tables, laptops, cameras, tripods and every other vital cog in the West Side Story Machine. At times through the process I often felt our group was fairly disjointed with perhaps a lack of communication at times between those working on the logistics and visual aesthetic and those of us working on the programming but those last 10minutes before it all went to custard, we pulled together to what could've been a pretty damned awesome show...

...if Tony hadn't lost a wheel. Hindsight is always 20/20 and so in retrospect, the smart thing to do would've been to restart those first five seconds but instead, we watched the robots stumble around in some half hearted choreography. We were prepared for only minor readjustments of pathways with spotters ready at every corner and edge of our stage.

We didn't recieve too much of a crit at the end as, well, there wasn't a lot they could comment on for lack of a proper presentation. We knew well that things perhaps didn't look that fantastic and in itself this lack of critique was more painful than any critique we could've gotten. Regardless, I am confident we have enough paperwork and planning to pull it together and can redo filming of the choreography, perhaps section by section. A major flaw which would've arisen even if Tony hadn't suffered a tragic injury would've come from the fact that where we were more or less confident of each individual section of choreography, we had never quite strung them together, partly because of the sheer size of the program which the NXTs and software suffered with and consequently kept crashing.

Again in 20/20 hindsight, I had an idea which would've offered a humorous solution whilst still in keeping with the spirit of presentation. I half jokingly suggested that it would've been funny if we'd had a 'half time' or intermission where while we'd reposition the robots to proper formations, we could pull curtains and pass out juice and cookies.

Performances over, everyone flooded out of the room eager for the weekend. The West Side Story crew could only laugh and pack up our stuff. Beanbags provided a wonderful safety net when the adrenaline rush finally crashed, sanctuary until we could gather the strength to go back into the world.

It was definitely a challenging project trying to bring so many elements together and in quite a large group with the additional challenge of learning the software and the robots. I felt I had a bit of a leg up with my performing arts experience in that I knew how to put together a show but in the end, it all came down to the collective which pulled together well in the end. The programming half of the group I mostly worked with I feel we got to know each other quite a bit from working in close proximities for such condensed periods of time (with much more to come!) To some extent we had minimal control over our groups with again some element of random assignment. My group was formed on the basis that Louisa and I had already met and established a friendship on orientation, before even day 1 while Ryan and I had eyed each other up in terms of creative and enthusiastic potential over the first week or so. I also enjoyed the atmosphere of hard work and enthusiasm that was building over the entire group of BCT students over the past week.

On that note, I really enjoyed seeing what the other groups came up with. I was impressed by the Swan Lake Presentation as a whole in their ability to convey narrative through the movement and construction of their robots, aided by the slideshow. I thought the ballet as a style of dance would be hard to represent so I thought it was clever that they instead chose to represent the narrative and meaning behind the dance instead, whilst some of that grace and elegance of ballet still managed to come through in their choreography.

Though it was of a bit of a disadvantage in terms of audience accessibility, I liked the concept behind the Black Grace group's presentation in the corner of the room as it reflected the theme and ideas behind their dance. They mentioned they had trouble representing the scene which was very minimalist but again I liked their use of pattern and the significance behind the images they chose to present as part of their set. I would've liked to see more of the choreography as their robots looked cleverly constructed and their intentioned behind the choreography sounded good.

I liked the Stomp group's use of the buckets and noise makers and I feel it managed to tap into the essence of Stomp where the focus is not just on the dancers, but in the sounds which result from their interactions with their environment and others. One of the most amazing things about Stomp is how the performers perform seemingly 'random' actions which fit perfectly into the pattern and rhythm they create and it is perhaps this randomness which helped the group representing this play on this element of the random, wheather it was intentional or not. They mentioned they had started by trying to choreograph based on compositions down to the beats and bars, similiar to my approach in breaking down the music into a storyboard and timeline, but as we have all found, it is difficult to program the robots exactly due to overwhelming variables. Though I feel their set could've been a bit more successful, I liked the concept behind it of the 'robot trash' which showed their background research into Stomp.

In anycase, all things aside, I think we all throughly enjoyed the show and had a few laughs...and maybe just a few tears too! Perhaps I will stop here as many have complained of the length of my blog entries...

Dance with the Devil

There is a fine line between taking charge and bossiness. As performance time draws nearer and I feel myself getting more stressed, I may have been a bit short with people lately. I am more used to working on projects individually so I always find it a little trickier readjusting when working in a team. I always try to tear myself in ten different directions and do everything at once. Last few days I've been focusing on programming whilst trying keeping an eye on the set being constructed and lo and behold, it stands completed! I find it hard to trust others in a group to do their role and to a good standard, especially when they require a little encouragement to get going, as opposed to by their own initiative.

Am torn at the moment between nervous dread and excitement. Set, costumes, choreography, programming, projection, lighting, sound; all of it has been looked into and now it's a matter of pulling it all together and pulling it off. Ideally, today would've been the dress rehearsal but as I'm sure most people are familiar, if it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done. Tomorrow morning will be stressful trying to make sure all of it is actually going to come together, but I'm looking forward to actually presenting.

I just hope that the ideas we are trying to convey are going to come off. We have relied mostly on style of movement, relationships within the movement, colour and symbolism and lighting as means of conveying our ideas, these methods attempted to keep consistent throughout the production process. It is like a combination of my projects last year in photography, design, and media studies, combining elements which subconsciously trigger thoughts and emotions in people and manipulating them as such to evoke the reaction you want. There is always of course the element of bias where each individal will bring different thoughts, experiences, viewpoints to their interpretation of what they see, especially in that we have all been dealing with the same nuts, bolts, software and brief. In any case, I am looking forward to see what other groups have done, having only seen bits and pieces, mid-construction.

I am still feeling limited by the software, even though I am feeling more confident in using it, it is a little buggy to use, crashing quite frequently especially when handling the larder files. Otherwise, I am glad we have managed to get ahold of good lighting equipement, learning how to pull at the resources available is I think a good thing to be learning early on. It is incredible that it is all coming together in such a short time, and in an even shorter time, the light, cameras and robots will be packed up...

Lights, camera...

It is wonderful seeing people's reactions upon telling them what I am working on at university. I am also really beginning to enjoy the atmosphere in the BCT labs, with everyone milling about at work on something or another as our shows begin to take form. A small crew of us from my group sat typety-typing away programming after sitting and sussing out our choreography. Most of our programming is in a draft state which we can refine once we can rehearse in the space to sync up the robots. It feels good to be able to have something physical to show for a day of work.

Speaking of atmosphere, despite a few hiccups in terms of logistics, technology and fire alarms, I found relevance in our lecture on Monday to our studio project where Charles spoke to us about his backgound in art, architecture into the creative technologies. When he spoke about architecture, he spoke about creating an atmosphere within a space which essentially we have to do when creating the set for our robo-dance. Our set aims to enhance and help convey the messages, ideas and themes behind our dance sequence and the musical. Upon planning of our set, we discussed the painting of the walls red in terms of symbolism; hate, anger, passion, love, suffering and blood, all prominent themes in West Side Story, all interrelated. The set is in very early stages of construction as of this moment.

We decided to stick to this idea of symbolism when planning how to embellish our basic structures of robots which we currently have. We needed some way to identify key traits of each character that wasn't too complex so as to distract from the dance but prominent enough to clearly distinguish the characteristics, while also complimenting the existing lego construct. We discussed ideas of a shell - and a few of us when to check out the nuts and bolts of the laser cutter and 3D printer - but in the end decided to experiment with actual literal costuming. A simplistic white covering for the control pad for Maria - white for purity, innocence, naivety - with small white frills around the edge - femininity, delicacy - and around her 'wrists'. For Tony and Chino, neckties - masculinity, formality of the event - of opposing colours to indicate the opposing tensions between the characters, gangs and cultures.

So I pulled out and dusted off the sewing machine and dug into my resources of many years careful hoarding of 'things that might come in useful.' I am still unsure as to how well the fabric will compliment the Lego but only one way to find out. If not, we will have some neckties at the ready should we encounter any people who are 10" tall...

Mambo!

So, onwards an upwards with creating our show. We managed to split off an delegate roles to try get the most productivity out of nine people. I volunteered to start sketching together some choreography as I am familiar with the process of putting together a dance from many years of experience in not just learning a dance, but actual choreographing also. These were relatively simplistic choreographic formed on the basis of combining actions, formations and pathways and so this was an easy approach to adapt in the choreography of our dance.

It was in 2006 that I was in a stage show of West Side Story and after doing any intensive show, you never want to see it again. Having gone back now three years later, I found I am at the point where I can really enjoy it again. I had to do a bit of reading up on it before it all came flooding back. Essentially it is a more modern Romeo and Juliet love story which, and like Romeo and Juliet (and unlike most musicals) it doesn't have a happy ending. The main characters, Maria and Tony fall in love (at first sight - eyes meet across the room, soft focus etc.) but it is a forbidden love as she is Puerto Rican while he is American and so they are caught in the middle of cultural tensions and intense gang rivalries between the Jets (Americans) and the Sharks (Puero Ricans). Maria has already also been promised to be married to a Puerto Rican named Chino.

To achieve the main to themes through our choreography, we recut the track of music into four sections. An introduction, a section with all three robots (Maria, Tony and Chino) to establish the tension between Maria torn between what she should do - marry Chino - and following her heart and her feelings - running away with Tony. The third section is a slow dance which is to reveal the gentle, peaceful characteristics of Maria and Tony and their love. The fourth and final section is a 'dance off' between Tony and Chino to represent not only Maria's choice, but the gang rivalry between the two gangs and ultimately, the social context which this represents in them musical which comments on the American society at the time. In the segment of video we were shown, it is predominantly a partner dance so I think it works well that we have three robots to work with as it is good for conveying a lot of the tension of the storyline.

Actually planning the choreography proved a little trickier. I flapped my arms for a while trying to figure out a good way to physically record it and finally decided on a storyboard approach which I have been working on this weekend, which can then be converting over into programming.

We did some research on what we can do with the programming to make the choreography fit together smoothly and fit the different sections while also corresponding with Ryan who was part of the sub-group building the robots and is moreso familiar with the programming of the robot kits. Ideas we considered were using careful choreography and timing for synchronised movement, programming the light sensor to follow coloured lines for set pathways, programming bluetooth for the dance off to trigger the opposing robot when movement has finished, and callibrating the ultrasonic sensor so the robots can detect each other and move accordingly, such as in the slow parter dance. Similarily, we also considered ways of making them follow each other in a pathway, possibly again by ultrasonic sensor or even light as we found in this video:



So Ryan went off over the weekend to have an initial tinkering with the programming while I edited and recut the music and then deconstructed it into smaller sections which I then analyzed in terms of the music on the storyboard which we can use to slot in separate movements. Whew. It all still seems like a lot to bring together and though we got the basic structure of two of our robots build, we are still waiting on a third kit and we need to figure out how to customize them a bit more to reflect the individual characters.

Goal for tomorrow is to start on programming. Ideally it would be fantastic if we could get it all done, or relatively sussed anyway. Aim high! 5 days until showtime.

Let's Dance!

I've been thinking a lot about the issues around the limits of programming that I've been discussing on my blog in my last few posts and through the discussion that arose upon presentation of our character-bots. Essentially in this project we were looking to convey a more the human aspect of our characters where we are pushing on the boundaries of where exactly we draw the line between human and machine. The characteristics which we were trying to convey of our character are limited by the simple fact that it is a machine and we can only program it to give the impression of being and personality which is something that develops over time in reaction to events in our lives and the environments in which we reside which shape us. Essentially, we can program a robot to mimic our primary senses (touch, sight, sounds etc.) but it is almost like a sixth sense which you cannot create in a sensor which define us as humans. I believe that this is the boundary, you cannot program a soul.

Perhaps I am reading too much into it. It was interesting none the less to see how everyone approached this challenge and this boundary. We spoke of the group dynamics beginning to arise and the frustrations some faced with the programming for lack of experience. Speaking personally, within my group it was almost a case of too many engineers, not enough engines. The four boys who I was working with were all hands on deck enthusiasm for building and creating while I tinkered with the programming. I have been using computers since the age of about 7 (ish?) so well over half my life so I am fairly computer literate and can usually just start tinkering with any software to try figure it out. I've grown up in a family of engineers so very much have that mindset of determination to fix or make something better and understanding how it ticks. (This comes in handy at my part time job where every single machine likes to have its temperamental moment.)

I do realize that this is not the case for everyone but I have found that people do naturally fall into where they are comfortable and knowledgeable and the purpose of having a diverse mix of abilities within the 45 or so of us, is to learn off each others strengths and knowledge. Again, I do speak from experience and realize this is not necessarily the case for everyone. At the end of it all, I think James summed it up well where he said that we should "embrace the frustration" and to think about "how do you determine success?" When spirits were low on Tuesday afternoon and the word 'fail' was thrown around a lot as many were demoralized at the many unsuccessful attempts to complete the challenge, I kept trying to encourage everyone that we had not failed, but merely not yet succeeded in the challenged. I was reminded of again James' words from day 1 where he said that we shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes and that was in fact what we were doing, through trial and error and mistakes we were learning, and learning is after all succeeding. Why else would we go to university (and pay large amounts of money to do so!) if not to learn.

I was pleased and slightly emotionally attached to Chester the Jester (despite the fact he lost an arm during the presentation in all this enthusiasm) so we big a farewell to him and each other as we reshuffled teammates.

I think we all had a sense of growing panic as we were shown four clips of different styles of dance from classical ballet, modern contemporary, cheesy musical dancing from West Side Story and a percussional movement piece from Stomp. Irony is a funny thing. I wrote earlier this week in my blog about how I'd love to make my robot dance in such a way that it was interacting with other robots. Yet when actually presented with the brief which involved just that, it suddenly seemed very overwhelming. Yet, I am still stupidly excited about it all. I was already squirming in my seat at the last two clips; I had my three or so year stint in the performing arts during high school but have been dancing since I was about 4, everything from Ballet, to hip hop, to contemporary to tap. I saw the live show of Stomp about 4 years ago and am very excited to go see it again this May (if my funds are right) and West Side Story has special significance for me as it was the last big performance and musical I performed in.

So essentially, I am stupidly excited about this brief as it is reminiscent of my performing arts days but incorporating all my other insterests as well. It will definitely be challenging to bring it all together but I think if it is done well, it will be very impressive. Our first group meeting resulted in a big brainstorm and the ultimate question: where do we start? Once we get started and going it won't seem so huge and I think again we have pulled together a very multi talented group so we have many strings of talent to pull at. So to move forward we need ideas and so we go forth to research.

Our dance clip to recreate, interpret and represent is, of course, the exerpt from West Side Story.



I am also reminded of my best friend who has moved down to Wellington to dance study at the New Zealand School of Dance, who performed alongside me in West Side Story and has an absolute obsession with robots.

Spin me round, round.

I don't think anyone was more surprised than we were when our robot made it a good 2/3 of the way down the hallway. The mob of BCT students followed Chester the Jester down the hallway eagerly while we trailed behind, confident he wouldn't make it. The fresh batteries must've given him that boost he needed to make it that far at least before crashing into the wall. It was interesting to see how the other groups approached the challenge as no one could really consitently make it to the finish line, even those who has chosen to use sensors. I still think sensors are the way to go but with a little more refinement in the programming and familiarity with the software and the robot. The frustrated mood from yesterday was lightened a bit as we looked at what everyone had created and shared ideas in both design and programming.

I also think we all breathed a sigh of relief upon finding out what our project for today was. This time, our only limit seemed to be time, the pieces in the box and our creativity as we were to construct and program our robot to express the character we had created. In keeping with our ideas of the Jester, we brainstormed circlular pathways to mimic the shape of it's hat and the juggling balls and sound effects or music. In terms of construction, all the really stuck was the idea of a Jester's hat so it was to the internet for inspiration.

Searches for 'Jester' didn't yeild many responses and so we widened our criteria to anything that related to juggling or circles or performing. I again found myself thinking about creating a program which enabled it to dance which brought me to this video which I enjoyed.

We also liked the idea of a Ball coaster but decided it was a little to complex so from here we decided to just start with a base and just modify building onto that. We started with the Striker as we definitely wanted to attach arms so just thought to attach two instead of one. We followed the instructions to build the 3 motor chassis but modified to use only two motors so we would have the third to operate the arms. While the guys got to work with the pieces, I began the programming. I played around with rotations and circles to create a series of rotations and figure 8s.

We faced a few constructional difficulties in terms of making sure it balances, stays upright, rotate the arms in the right direction and so that the arms don't hit anything. We found it was a lot harder constructing from our own ideas as all of these elements had to be taken into account which we took for granted with the step by step instructions. The programing was easier as there was not set path or pattern we had to follow but I had trouble converting over the path I wanted it to take into the programming.

When the programming and construction was complete, Chester danced around in circles and loops flailing his arms wielding two balls. The closest we could get to juggling but we were pleased with him and even managed to have a few laughs.

There is so much more I'd like to be able to do with the programming as researching on the internet has shown that it is incredible what other people have accomplished with the exact same pieces and software. It does make me wonder what the limits of the programming and construction truly are. Rather appropriately, if I may add, the Futurama episode on tonight featured all the robots being activated to destroy humans who struggled to survive not just the attack, but rather also seemed to have more difficulty surviving without their aid. It is incredible how much we rely on machines and they have in fact been programmed to make our lives easier but how little we know about their programming which enables them to operate as such.

Overall, I enjoyed this project more than yesterday's one as I felt it gave us more creative license to create and modify. I'm still finding it challenging using the programming software to convert my ideas into the robot's actions but I'd also like to have a bit more of a go constructing as I haven't done much of that yet. I think that is why the last two days have been frustrating at times as we are not capable to commute our creative ideas over to to technological aspect just yet.

Tomorrow we start our first brief for real and I am eager, perhaps also because it is entitled 'Robo-Dance...'

Trial and error. More so error.

Yesterday was truly a test of everyone's endurance and patience. Given kits of Lego Mindstorm to go forth and construct a robot which would go forth and become our chess piece, we set about excited, reminiscent of childhood days of playing with Lego and the like. As the hoard of colourful and exciting pieces of all shapes and sizes, all hands on deck we got to constructing, with only minor hiccups when we couldn't find the odd piece or where it was mean to slot it. Our creation slowly took shape but when it came time to program it, things got a little difficult.

It was again like the protocol challenge, where we were given the starting point and the destination but our established protocol was challenged by the obstacles created by the walls so today the challenge was to program our robot to reach start to finish moving by protocol. Given a myriad of sensors we could program, my initial idea was to direct ours by sound. That is, in keeping with our Jester character, it would move forward two units and then diagonal one unit. The diagonal direction would be decided activating the sound sensor, moving towards the direction from which it hears noise which would be us clapping, like an audience entertained by the jester.

This proved to be a little difficult to measure the amount of volume which would trigger the sensor so we then decided to map out the journey. After some measuring and calculating, we used the robot itself to measure and record which direction to turn to then be programmed. This again caused difficulties as the path was influenced by many variables, the main one of which was the deteriorating battery life. After many attempts at reprogramming and remapping, we ended up as far as halfway down the hall.

It was a frustrating activity and we wouldn't have lost as much enthusiasm and motivation to keep trying if we hadn't had so much variation in our trials. If we were to keep going, I'd go back to the drawing board and program it's navigation as controlled by the sensors and now after having thought about it, like when we were the subject moving from point A to B by protocol, we still had the ability to make decisions based on judgment calls as decided based on our senses. We too were subject to variables when we made our journey, such as the one hour time limit, the impending rain and the fact that our batteries were perhaps a little flat too. The only way to overcome these variables is with judgment calls which is what we should have programed our robot to do.

Though it was a frustrating project which left us all completely exhausted and perhaps a little short with each other and stepping on some toes, what we achieved is a very steep learning curve in programing. I haven't had any experience in programming before and so what I picked up on was that you have to take into account all variables and be very specific in what actions you program as the smallest tweak can make a huge difference. By programming an element of decision making, it saves having to map out every single 'what if' that could occur along the way.

Onto the intertubes to look at what others have been creating with the same myriad of parts, I looked at discussions of what can be something different to create. Like many of the conversations we overheard and perhaps had ourselves, we joked about our robots smashing through the walls, doing our homework, programming it to program itself, teleporting and other such fantasties. Though these do seem very farfatched and perhaps not completely feasible with the pieces in the kit, it is that same sort of idea of the ability to make judgement calls and think for itself which is what I think is an element of what drives creation, which brings us back to creativity. To achieve new things, we have to think big regardless how ridiculous it might seem at first. Thinking about what else I could program it do, by taking advantage of the sensors, I would want to make it so that the robots interact with each other and move as such, like a dance, but so that they actively seek out each other for interaction. Much like, in fact, humans,

It didn't take this follow robot long to catch my eye so I leave you with a robot that has achieved what for me has only ever resulted in a square hole in the wall. I watched amazed last year as a group of people from my form class every morning would sit and solve rubix cubes. By programming the light sensor to read colour and precalculate the moves, it is able to solve the rubix cube in 60 faceturns.

Now I'm impressed.

Cutting just a few corners.

There seemed to be a mutual consensus that the protocol activity was a little more challenging than the situational shuffle. What came through in presentation was a myriad of interpretations in the initial challenge, to the journey to the presentation and we dug below the surface to think about exactly why we each got to what we had before us on the walls.

Like many other groups, I will definitely admit to perhaps not reading through the instructions as thoroughly as I should have which then made the task a little more difficult when it came time to navigate through the city and we too felt the crunch of the one hour time limit.

Intended or not, I feel that time constraints are often good for pushing creativity and you're forced to refine back your ideas to the best and basic which again brings me to a quote, something along the lines of "a design is finished not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away." Some of us got a little caught up in all the special abilities we could give our characters as opposed to a simple protocol and method of movement. James made an interesting point that this is something that perhaps comes with our generation of gaming where characters often have a myriad of these special ablilites and so that was what a lot of us chose to immediately bring to the activity.

Some groups chose to present focused more on the route or path, some on the characteristics of their piece and others on what they encountered on the journey. Lots of groups played with the imagery of the chessboard and squares while some removed it altogether. The character my group came up with, The Jester, moved two forward and one diagonal which we mapped out in square photographs and cut out shapes of the building which represented these unites moved, hence focusing more on the path. It wasn't as strong visual impact as it could've been and if I was to do it again, I would've probably chosen a different medium to try move away from something so similar to what we did the previous day.

As a class we discussed the importance of this variation of presentation mediums and scale and choosing what is most suitable for what you are presenting. I found it easy to stick to one of my strongest mediums, that of photography and my easy access to a proper photo printing lab so I have identified this as a comfort zone I need to move out of, perhaps by taking a different role within the group.

We again touched on the purpose or meaning behind the activity and I liked the point that was made relating the protocol of the chess piece to the protocols we create for ourselves in life through our ethics and morals which then define the paths we take and decisions we make. Relating this to my thoughts on the activity, I saw the meaning as an exploration of the infinite amount of possible paths through the city which can then go to say that there are an infinite amount of possible paths to take through life and as we each abide by our own protocol and set of values. Like the chess pieces, these paths often intersect or one's path is obstructed by another . Unlike the chess pieces, it is these interactions which can perhaps change our protocols or way of thinking which can then alter our paths and this again brings me back to the concept of social interaction as means of exploring and creating.

So with our first week of the BCT over, after both some pyscial and mental exercise, I feel the acivities were worthwhile and successful both in the generating ideas and friendships. I think working on the walls of the studios was a very good method of working as it was very hands on and it means that within the shared space, we can go around and interact with the groups' ideas and methods. Within the same space of one week, I've spent a void of time on cramped busses, run a few circuits of the city in rain, shine and howling wind, uphill and downhill, snapped a hundred or two photos (yet I myself only managed to turn up in one) , learnt about 20 names and forgotten half, and somehow managed to injure my knee along process. Imagine what can be achieved in the next 23 more to come!

Jump to the left, step to the right.

In presentation of yesterday's journey, we incorporated colour, photographs, and the sketches and drawings we accumulated at the cards' bidding. We used the cards to map out our path along the wall with the different coloured card to distinguish the different categories of actions. That is, move, rotate, record, wait and 'variable'. This presentation gave a sense of the exploration and movement which was at the heart of our journey.

In presentation, review and discussion of our journeys with other groups, we found that we each had a slightly different interpretation of what had happened. I spoke my ideas about how we were using different elements and senses to explore and interact with the city in a new way. I also found myself later thinking about how I commented that people might've thought we were tourists from our actions and in fact, it is that same concept with which tourists stop to observe things that perhaps those who are more familiar with the area might overlook. Because we are familiar with an area, we are in a way desensitized to it and are more focused on a destination than the route or the things along that way. By removing the element of the destination, we too were able to discover these smaller things.

Another group spoke instead of the roles we each took upon to make the journey happen and the importance of these role and teamwork in any situation. This was something I hadn't thought about and in fact it was an important part of the journey as we were each part of both the journey itself and the documentation.

To build on this, another group saw it as a catalyst for building the foundations required for us to work together over the next three years. Not in just the teamwork of the journey, but in the social interaction along the way. Journeys are often a shared experience, both among those participating and then recounting what happened and what has been achieved. Which is in fact, what we were all doing.

For the next part of the morning, we looked at the simple concept of chess pieces and how combination of their movements allowed for an almost infinite combination of possible games of chess. Creating our own new chess piece and set of movements proved a little bit challenging as we kept thinking too obscurely which would've later proved extremely difficult as we had to then make another journey from Britomart back up to Aotea Square, moving only as this piece would.

Once again armed with only the skeleton of a map, off we went. This time, we had a route and a destination and so focused more on the streets and buildings to navigate and calculate our movements and paths. The purpose of this was to again explore the city in a new way, on a new route and like the infinite possibilities of games of chess, to realise that there are an infinite amount of paths by which one can navigate around the same general area.

This time we were not assigned particular roles but we fell into them naturally, becoming used to working in a team. So looking at the weeks' activities in terms of compound meaning building on each other, it was all about finding new ways to approach the familiar to build new paths of understand, whether in a physical location, amongst our social interactions and also as the attitude and mindset to apply to our approach to the creative projects we will be presented with over the next three years. That was what I personally got out of it anyway. That, and a bit of sunshine, exercise, 'fresh' city air, and ran into some people I know on the streets of downtown Auckland while making some new friends along the way too.

Come Walk With Me

One was left once again to ponder the meaning of the day’s project given only a title – situational shuffle. In relation to the yesterday’s activity, I guessed that it would have something to with reassigning groups and seeing how small changes would affect our data and social maps. I think we were all a little puzzled when given a pack of cards, chalk, and a basic map of Downtown Auckland with only the raw skeleton of streets and buildings.

We took off into in groups of four to follow the bidding of the cards. With no destination and only directions, we walked around blocks, rotated like eggbeaters and marked our trail on the footpath whilst taking note of objects, passing traffic and people, dialogue and objects.

Where it at first seemed like some wild goose chase with no goal nor destination (and to the general public we probably came off as tourists, what with the map and camera), I then thought about it again in terms of yesterday’s activity. When comparing our social maps and geographical maps, they are both formed around some commonality. Our social maps were created around the common interests within a group while excluding the things that weren’t held in common. Geographical maps are generally focused on roads and driving routes while excluding all the other little things. It is that which is left out that is only discovered upon deeper examination, whether through social interaction or physical exploration.

Which brings us back to today’s activity. Stripped of any detail, our blank maps defined only the basic paths for us to fill in these smaller, perhaps deemed insignificant things. We mapped the city not in terms of any particular destination or route but instead in trees, communication devices, machinery and also in that which will not remain constant such as passing pedestrians and traffic, fleeting conversation, information pamphlets and discarded objects.

I defined the purpose of a map yesterday as a group of geographical locations which have been logically collected and compiled to clarify information about a location. So if we keep to this definition, what have we learnt about downtown Auckland and what purpose will it serve? Perhaps it will not help you if you’re trying to find your class for a lecture or somewhere to eat lunch and it could be debated just how ‘logically’ it was collected but it was about exploring the city which some of us know so well, in a completely different way and defining it as such. If one was to follow our map, directions and markings, they too would be on the lookout for these more often overlooked aspects which are in fact, significant. After all, is city is more than just roads; it is compiled of people, cars, trees, signs and machines. Like our social maps, we often interact based on initial commonalities around our interests, likes and dislikes and interests but it is rather when we bring something new; an opposing viewpoint or belief, a different experience that leads to discovery and new ideas.

So if nothing else has been achieved today, there are probably some confused pedestrians wandering around Downtown Auckland City trying to decipher the myriad of chalk scrawls and arrows along the footpaths.

Social Mapping

Day one of the BCT (orientation and administration aside) so the 'social' aspect of today's project seemed apt. It was all very secret yesterday with all to be unveiled only today, leaving one to contemplate over night exactly what social mapping would be. Well, the gears of my imagination were in overdrive anyway.

My first thought was the ever popular social networking sights where anyone can network with people they know or once knew, friends of friends or even friends of friends of friends, as means of sharing photos, stories,
blogs and the like.

And it fact, it turned out to be a similar sort of concept. So we all start as post-it notes and from there we are the center of our own network or constellation if you will, scattered across the wide expanse of wall that we are to map. From ourselves, we branch out into our interests, our likes and dislikes and walks of life which define who we are.

Like so.

It is at this point we stop to think about what we have done thus far. It seemed logical now to link up our common interests which in reality draw us together to complete the network or map. I thought about the purpose of a map and in that it is to understand a greater area than that immediately around us and how it relates to where we are as well as all the places we can go and all the paths we can take. Hence, a similar result achieved through social mapping. On a larger scale besides our favourite TV shows or least desired vegetables, it is our common circumstances and interests which brought us all to the BCT and which will allow us to learn off each other from our diversities to extend our networks and our maps further.

It was on this note, I remember a quote I heard once which seemed to fit this train of thought: "If I give you an apple and you give me an apple, we each have one apple. If I give you an idea and you give me and idea, we each have two ideas."

So with a new colour of yarn we began to visually represent these interests and connect our constellations to reach a final result which was perhaps a little visually confusing and chaotic.

After exercising our creative sides, it was time to adapt it over onto the technological side to visually represent the same information generated through computer software. The purpose of the same sort of visual representation known as network analysis was to collect and clarify a set of date. This again comes back to the idea of a map where geographical locations have been logically collected and compiled to clarify information about a location. What we have achieved is the compilation of data about each individual to visually represent ourselves and how we relate to each other for the purpose of being able to understand and then extend our network and ourselves.

The hardest part of the activity was getting the finished diagram printed.