Small Tasks

For Tuesday, March 28:

Take a moment to review the requirements for the Event project, which is due 4/13.

In a blog post, please write ~100 words on the following:

  • Title your blog post, Nickname-EventProposal
  • Categorize your blog post, Event.
  • Perhaps you have ideas about the technical approach you’d like to explore in capturing your location, but aren’t yet sure about the location where you will apply this approach. If so, describe the system you’d like to make.
  • If you have an event that interests you, write a brief description of it. What interests you about this event? What opportunities does it present?
  • Write some thoughts about the form of media object that your project might take.
  • Cite relevant prior work that may be informing your thinking.

For Tuesday, February 28:

Take a moment to review the requirements for the Place project, which is due 3/9.

In a blog post, please write ~100 words on the following:

  • Title your blog post, Nickname-PlaceProposal
  • Categorize your blog post, Place.
  • Perhaps you have ideas about the technical approach you’d like to explore in capturing your location, but aren’t yet sure about the location where you will apply this approach. If so, describe the system you’d like to make.
  • If you have a place that interests you, write a brief description of the location(s) that you are considering as the subject for your “Place” project. What interests you about this site? What opportunities does it present?
  • Write some thoughts about the form of media object that your project might take. Will it be a map? a collection? an immersive environment? a ‘standard’ digital object (image, animation, video, GIF)?
  • Cite relevant prior work that may be informing your thinking.

For Tuesday, February 7:

The previously-scheduled Looking Outwards about openFrameworks addons has been postponed; my apologies for this change of plans. Instead, we need to get cracking on our Portrait projects. Therefore:

Please write a brief blog post outlining your current plans for your Portrait project. (Recall that the Portrait is due Tuesday, 2/14.)

  • Title your blog post, nickname-PortraitPlan
  • Categorize your blog post with the category, Portrait
  • Please write about 100 words — a paragraph explaining what you’re planning or hope to achieve
  • Feel free to describe more than one concept, if you’re still uncertain
  • Please include an image of some kind, such as a photo of a page from your sketchbook, or a screenshot of work-in-progress, etc.
  • If there is some relevant prior art you’re inspired by, please mention it.
  • Kindly take care to keep the name of your portrait subject anonymous.

On Tuesday (2/7) in class, we’ll meet to discuss your projects. On Thursday (2/9), we’ll have a workday: no lectures, just work.

For Tuesday, January 31:

Follow the instructions for your operating system to install an openFrameworks development environment. Be sure to have all downloads and installed IDE’s before class.

For Thursday, February 2: SEM Blog Post

For Thursday, February 2, create a blog post which documents, in a simple and modest way, your experience with the Scanning Electron Microscope. This assignment is equivalent to a Looking Outwards assignment. (It will not be graded, but it will be checked.)

You will have worked in groups of 3’s with the SEM microscope, for a total session duration of 1 hour for your group. During this time, you will work with our host, Dr. Donna Stolz, and her assistants, to produce at least two images of your samples:

  • An image of your sample at millimeter scale
  • An image of your sample at micrometer or nanometer scale

Another way of thinking about this is

  • A familiar view
  • An unfamiliar view

You are asked to :

  • Create a blog post, with the title:  nickname-SEM. 
  • Categorize your blog post with the WordPress categories, SEM-images.
  • Retrieve your SEM images (in TIFF format) from the CBI lab’s online Downloads website.
  • Convert these SEM images to JPG format, using Photoshop or something similar, and publish them in the blog post. Please describe what we’re seeing in the images: what did you scan?
  • Write 100 words (approximately a paragraph) describing some things you learned.

For Thursday, January 26, 2017:

The Pitt Scanning Electron Microscope can display objects down to just a few nanometers in size, such as a virus. This is an utterly remarkable device. To prepare for your session, I ask you to please read the following three resources, beforehand:

  1. Skim through the Wikipedia article about SEM imaging (3-5 minutes)
  2. Browse this gallery of SEM images (3-5 minutes)
  3. Read four pages (which were originally numbered 112-116) in Robert Hooke’s 1665 classic, Micrographia, a historically significant book about his observations through various lenses. In particular, You are asked to read the 4-page section “Of the Schematism or Texture of Cork, and of the Cells and Pores of some other such frothy Bodies”, in which Hooke describes, for the first time ever in scientific literature, the discovery of cells. (This is the passage in which the biological term “cell” was coined.)

Here are links to three different versions of Micrographia. Please note that Hooke’s original pagination appears differently in each of the following PDFs. Hooke’s printed page numbers, 112-116, appear as:

For Thursday, January 19th, 2017:

  • Review our course Syllabus and all course documents below it.
  • Connect our course calendar into yours.
  • Install Unity3D for your laptop/OS.
  • Bring in a dry item, smaller than a pea, for the Scanning Electron Microscope.
  • Please read “A New Dimension in Filmmaking” by James George.
  • Log into our WordPress website, and create a brief post which introduces yourself. Explain your interests in taking this course, and your hopes for it. Please maintain your anonymity.
  • Fill out the Doodle
  • Complete the FERPA waiver