Ready for your first bot?

I've chosen the "Symet" to be your first "warm-up" project. Symet is one of the simplest BEAM robots that you can build. It uses only a few easy to find parts and it is a good introduction to a solar-powered independent creature. Another great advantage is that there is a site with complete and detailed instructions on how to build it so you can refer to it as well. This project only takes a few hours at the most, so it should be up and running by next Thursday.
Check the list of parts on the link above and get them at any of the 3 or 4 Radio Shacks in town.

Also please check the list of Workshop Materials on the right column. I linked to very inexpensive ones that I have found if you want to order them online. Although we have some of these materials and/or tools in class you will be able to advance much faster if you have your own. You will be glad you have them long after this class.

The "Nice to have" items are for those of you who have more than a passing interest in how electric or electronic things work.

Let the Blogging begin...

Jolly green trash collection-creation team posted via phonecam

the Soul of the Machine

The Mechanical Poetry of Arthur Ganson

When you and I use the word design, we use it to mean a complex in which the various components are ordered in respect one with the other. That's a design in contradistinction to randomness. There is a deliberate, deliberate placement and ordering. So I say then that human mind is gradually discovering. If you are looking at a plurality of generalized principles, there is a great A Priori Design of Universe. And the human mind has access to the rules and the design of Universe a little glimpse of it, because as we keep pulling the curtain up slightly we realize that there is a lot more than we don't know.

Buckminster Fuller

Listen

Arthur Ganson is an artist-engineer with a great inventive and whimsical mind. Some of his sculptures remind me of Remedios Varo, a surrealist spanish painter that worked and lived in Mexico City when I was a young student. Her work influenced me very deeply. When I first saw her paintings and her sculptures (made with bird and reptile bones), art, and the poetry of art as a way of life opened before me as a beautiful and misterious way that I was determined to follow. As with any way, you sometimes get lost. When I found Arthur Ganson's sculptures it was like a wake up call to stand up and continue walking along that beautiful and misterious way of poetic discovery and exploration.

Remedios Varo (1913-1963)

If you would like to buy a DVD with most of Ganson's work and the process of creation, you can get it here
Read more about Arthur Ganson at this Smithsonian site.
If you are interested in the work of Remedios Varo (and you should be) there is an Amazon link to the right.

Showtime!

December 6 from 7 to 8 at the REVE (Old Norman Gym /Digital Worlds Institute)

People, people, one line only, please!!! Those with children can go first. Don't fight! There is room for everyone, well, almost for everyone. Sir, go to the end of the line, you can't cut in, no, you can't bring your chickens, fire regulations, no sir, but you can leave them at the Library, lot's of worms there (sorry). The show will soon begin...

Puppet Motivation

Hey guys. I just recently stumbled across Jan Svankmajer's stop motion animations and they are really inspiring... you should check them out if you can. He's a puppet artist from Prague who is known for influencing the work of Tim Burton, but in my opinion Svankmajer's stuff is more interesting. If you haven't seen his rendition of Alice (in wonderland) you should!!-- they have it at the library.

Getting there...

9

7

4

3

2

Happy Birthday Tom!

The High Priest of Calavera and his Acolytes
wished secret wishes for you as the candle of
life gave up its spirit.

Time Flies When You Are Having Fun

So now we only need to rig them, paint them and make them come alive. Hmmm... let's see, we also need the scripts, sound, lighting and effects, and oh yeah! we need to rehearse!. Right, to rehearse and rehearse again. Are we missing something? let me think...

Performance Night!

Finally done. After some frustrating rehearsals (what's new) the final performance went without a glitch. Great job everyone who participated. The people in Arizona were impressed and we got some very good feedback. We also learned a great deal in the process. And the piece was so appropriate, what with the Wilma playing Woswo!

Now the performance with Egypt looms ahead. That will make a great triangle, Gainesville, Chile and Egypt, wow! Oops! I almost forgot the audience in Illinois this time, at the Super Computing Conference. So it's more like the squaring of the triangle. Hmm, now that I think of it is more like a pyramid...I guess it's late.

Thanks to Lorena, Natalie, Renee, Andy, Pat, Salam, Anthony in Gainesville and Nicolas, Hugo, Jaime, MariaJose and Joaquin in Chile and to James for channeling the magic to the unsuspecting audience in Arizona and other parts of the world!

Gift of the Wind

You are all invited this next Thursday 20th and Friday21st to the international collaborative performance of The Gift of the Wind. At the REVE at 5pm. The piece is only 5 minutes long. So make sure you get there on time or you will miss it!
Thursday shows are at 5 pm and 5:30pm. Friday Shows are at 4:30, 5 and 5:30pm.
We are collaborating with Chile and transmitting to Arizona State for the International Fine Art Deans Conference.

Soul of the Machine

Arthur Ganson is an artist-engineer with a great inventive and whimsical mind. Some of his sculptures remind me of Remedios Varo, a surrealist spanish painter that worked and lived in Mexico City when I was a young student. Her work influenced me very deeply. When I first saw her paintings and her sculptures (made with bird and reptile bones), art, and the poetry of art as a way of life opened before me as a beautiful and misterious way that I was determined to follow. As with any way, you sometimes get lost. When I found Arthur Ganson's sculptures it was like a wake up call to stand up and continue walking along that beautiful and misterious way of poetic discovery and exploration.

Remedios Varo (1913-1963)

If you would like to buy a DVD with most of Ganson's work and the process of creation, you can get it here
If you are interested in the work of Remedios Varo (and you should be) there is an Amazon link to the right.
This is a link to a dynamic geometry representation of Ganson's "Cary's Chair" sculpture. It helps you understand the mechanics of that wonderful piece.

Steppenwolf

Hey Arturo I just noticed your comment about the quote on my blog- it's from Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf- a glorious book I must say. Here's another: "..the bourgeois today burns as heretics and hangs as criminals those to whom he erects monuments tomorrow"
I just finished Daniel Quinn's Ishmael- another powerful novel.