Term 2 has come to an end last week. We have a month long Easter break, which is a fairly busy time considering it's supposedly a break. A lot of fun things will happen though. Studio trips take place during this month, with our studio heading to Tokyo next week (other studio trips include another Tokyo visit, a Euro-road-trip in a van, and Boston/NYC). Moreover, due on the first day of Term 3 are two 3,000 word essays.

Anyway, we're taking this opportunity to divorce ourselves from the specifics of the project, trying to see opportunity in everything around us.

p.s. All studio work is done with Tyson Hosmer, Michael Dosier, and Ryan Szanyi.
prnt scrn 24 - revisiting the anatomy of the creature, trying to simplify him - conceptually and computationally - with the goal that it has the ability to "build." We took the last two weeks of the term as a charette, we have been talking about these things attempting to "build" for a number of months, but we never actually set out to try it, so this was an opportunity of tackling that problem, with all its inherent complexities, before the term came to an end, so we can have time to evaluate the whole notion of building during the break, and come back with fresh eyes next month. I'll post a link to the videos once they are online.


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prnt scrn 30 - a quick "structural" study. We've been using a physics library that is heavily based on spring physics to build the creature. We attempted this quick study after we realized that once they start to build up through stacking, some members undergo tension forces, some undergo compression forces, while others remain at their rest length (or at least within a given tolerance). Here, red is in compression, yellow is in tension, and grey is at rest length.


prnt scrn 31 - an interjection, the last week was hectic, along with the final term presentation on Wednesday, we had a seminar presentation on Tuesday. A quick piece of interesting information. The first use of the term "robot," representing something similar to what we think a robot is, whatever that is, was in Karel Capek's 1920 play, "Rossum's Universal Robots." Capek's robots where biological, as opposed to machines made up of nuts and bolts, but the distinction between robots and human beings was that they were assembled. According to wikipedia, the BBC produced a 35 minute adaptation a 35 minute adaptation, which was the first ever sci-fi piece to ever be broadcast on Television. I will make sure to go through the play before the Hollywood film is released next year.

I'm trying to write one of the papers before I leave to Tokyo on Saturday (a lovely 27 hour flight), but my Tokyo research, compounded with how amazing the weather has become here, are not forgiving.