robots and dynamic @rchitecture

So today we did a bunch of tutorials and simple tests. First we set up the hardware of a micro-controller, which connects to our computer, which reads digital data from the computer and communicates with the board/micro-controller. It was literally using four programmes at once, and most of my class had Master's degrees and we even had two PhD students (alrighty then). But it was FUN and everyone was wonderful!

Tomorrow we're going to learn how to create a robot and control it with our smart phones and even use the K!nect to identify points from which to acquire data.

Oh, this is a fun video of a guy who used the software; the video is called W@ter C@lligraphy Tr!cycle. Here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbRTnVnbS94

Also, here are some pics where I was able to use data from the board to plot points, give the points thickness (ie a radius like a pipe) and use data to randomly vary the length of the pipe in one direction. I took photos of the pipe as it changed height. This is useful for say, artwork or design or even architecture that would move with interaction (say a certain word was said or certain number of people entered a room and the form of the piece would change/ bend, etc). It's interesting stuff! Our prof even did a design whereby it collected (via his Smart phone) a number of tweets within a certain radius of where we were located, and it caused a design with LEDs to change colour based on certain words that would trigger the change.

Anyways, it's node based, which is good, because a few years ago I did a comp internship randomly (my only real foray into vfx) and the programme I had to learn was Nuke, which is a node based programme. So huzzah! A lot of it is a LOT like 3D Pr0jection mapping! Double huzzah!