Adam Jankelowitz

RMIT Commuication Design Student

[adamjankelowitz]

Reflection

Through this class I have learnt about the nature of Arduino and processing, both which I previously knew nothing about. I now better understand the purpose of each program and how they can interact to bring a generative element to the creation of digital art using code. I am happy with how my concept evolved through the course of the project. I feel that I justified its reason to exist and built upon what others have previously done and a unique way. It’s unfortunate that this is still a work in progress and that I did not manage to create art using my project. Despite this, I think that I have made a clear concept for what I ultimately wanted this project to produce, which means that with more time I would be able to achieve this. I needed more time to build a greater understanding of my processing code and experiment with it.

Thank you Karen for all your help and dedication throughout this class.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 13: Final Exhibition 

I unfortunately had to leave the final exhibition early, but what I saw of everyone’s works was really great! My project was still in development so I was unable to show art being created from the table’s movements. Despite this, people were able to get a good understanding of my project’s purpose and the foosball men moved fluidly while connected to the Arduino with wires.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 12

Diagram of the project in its desired final form. Here the table is shown to have a MPU-6050 on each row, maximizing, the impact of player movements on the art. I have also visualized the desired artistic outcome, with a variety of colours, shapes and stroke types being used.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 12

Diagram of my work is its current form, outlining how it works.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 12 Discussion

This week we had a class discussion that was extremely relevant to the phrase “slave to the algorithm”. We discussed ‘Surveillance capitalism’, talking about the digital revolution and the implications this has for businesses in our society. Our use of technology and the internet makes us lab rats to the companies who provide us with these services, as they constantly monitor our behavior for their own gain. It’s a scary thought.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 12

Arduino related items that I ordered arrived, including longer wires than I had available. These will allow the handles on the table to move fluidly while connected to the Arduino board.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 11

Attaching the wires directly to the MPU-6050, allowing me to attach it to the row so that it turns with the foosball men.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 10

Diagrams shown in my milestone review, outlining eventual progress of the project.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 10: Milestone review

I presented my progress, showing my Arduino code being used to see MPU-6050 values. I also showed diagrams for what I want my project to evolve into, including a ball tracking camera. 

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 9

We were given Arduino sensors and tasked with finding out what they were and categorising them accordingly. With some research, I was able to figure out that mine was a temporature and humidity sensor.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 9

Due to a cold, I unfortunately missed the week 8 work-shop introduction to using Arduino. I needed to make up for this in week 9, attempting to use a Gyroscope and Accelerometer (GY-521). Using tutorials online, I have been trying to execute some sample code, allowing me to see changing values when the GY-521 is tilted. I have been struggling to make the values show, but will hopefully achieve this very soon while experimenting from home.

[adamjankelowitz]

Fish on wheels

This project uses the direction of a fish's swimming to move a small car. Like my current concept, it uses computer vision colour tracking to track the fish, with the fish being a bright colour making it easy to track. The ball for my foosball table will have to be the same.

Link to a video of this cool project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNmL6hSNKw

[adamjankelowitz]

I am now expanding on what I will require for my newly changed concept. A GYRO Accelerometer can be used on the handles of the table, tracking it's movements, while tilt sensors can be placed on the men, tracking their back and forth movements. Computer vision colour tracking will probably need to be used to track the movement of the ball, using a camera to follow its movement.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 7

This was an important week for the development of my project. Using a small foosball table, I tested my concept, discovering issues in the process. A difficulty I had was making the foosball men simultaneously play and drawing fluidly. The pen was unable to make marks without the players stopping on the paper, making a natural foosball match unplayable.

Though I initially thought that a purely analogue machine would be more easily achievable than one using code, I have realised that this is actually not the case. I now will be finding ways to translate the movements on the table into coded markings, which will allow me to still achieve the initial concept of art created through a competitive game.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 7

We linked our ideas based on their requirements and discussed what we needed to do with people working in similar areas.

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 6: Project Pitch Presentation

After considering many ideas to use for my initial pitch presentation, I decided that I liked the concept of generative design achieved through an unrelated human activity. Using a foosball table was my first and ultimately my best idea for this, with the moving of the foosball handles moving the foosball men attached to pens to create markings, documenting each movement in the game, while also creating a generative art piece. In my presentation I showed diagrams of my concept, as well as hand drawn prediction of what some game-play with with table could create.

I received very helpful feedback for my concept, allowing me to further consider the possibilities of the device. It was suggested for me to use a wooden base rather than paper, preventing the base from moving or tearing. Another suggestion for the base was to print images on the base. 

[adamjankelowitz]

Week 5

Rosemarie Fiore is an artist who experiments with generative design using physical machines. Her use of a pinball machine to make paintings creates an interesting result and is inspiring to me, as I consider creating a game based analogue device.