Thinking of Robots

A collection of creative people working on their hack projects

[thinkingofrobots]

[thinkingofrobots]

Cross Stitching: Mario

I completed this project as a Christmas present for my bf. I haven't done cross stitching in over 5 years, so my skills were a bit rusty when I started this Mario piece. After many hours and finger-pricking incidents, I was happy with my final product. I ended up framing the piece.

Cross stitching is basically an embroidery method where you make X's in a tiled type material called aida cloth to create patterns, pictures, or written messages. Aida cloth has easily countable square-like patterns where these X's are made using colored thread and a needle.

For any cross stitch project, you'll need the following: - A loop to keep your cross stitch cloth tight - Aida cloth (cross stitch cloth) - Cross stitch thread (various colors) - Needle - Scissors

Cross stitching is a lot of fun and even cathartic! Go ahead and give it a try. =)

Leesh Xxo

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thx-journal.net - Gratefulness Journal

thx-journal.net is an online gratefulness journal I wrote. Keeping a regular journal of positive things in your life for which you are thankful is one of few proven interventions for increasing your sense of happiness.

I've maintained a few versions of this project over the years; the main goal of this version was to make a version that was publicly available and looked decent on mobile devices (and to try out a few pieces of web tech like HAML and Heroku).

It's a pretty no-frills app right now in terms of what it does; it's basically a very simple private text blog (if the notion of a private blog makes any sense). I am personally more interested in simple things that introduce a novel behavior or routine than a super-complex app that can do a billion things and broadcasts everything you do with it to social media.

[thinkingofrobots]

My friend Alice has an art exhibition in Stockholm, Sweden titled Slippery Contours.  It focuses on identity and memory and the transient nature of both.  For her website I wrote some simple Javascript to adjust the tint and look of her site depending on the time of day.  Notably, it's very visible in the day time but dark and opaque at night (Stockholm time).

Check out the site if you're interested in learning more about the show.

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Fit Reminders

The idea:

Fit Reminders is my fresh look at health apps - it's not about doing intense circuits or getting your swell on at the gym, it's the little things that you do throughout the day that really impact your health.  

How it works:

I have a simple PHP backend that pushes a fitness reminder to me every half an hour, do a stretch, sit up straight, drink a glass of water.  The goal here is two-fold: 1) do healthy things 2) remind me to take a break from my desk and the computer screen.

Results:

After awhile I stopped paying attention to it, and it needed a second layer of motivation (outside of it being good for me), to keep me going - a reward system, social motivation?

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Whatchu know about Old Gregg??

[thinkingofrobots]

I'm new to Unity3d and as a little experiment, I'm making a "carpet" dance by manipulating the Y values of random vertices based on the volume of the audio source.

Music: DJ Shadow - Organ Donor