November 2018 – Page 9 – [OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Xindi Lyu-Project 12- Proposal

For my final project I am planning to create a jigsaw-puzzle game in which the players can piece together simple geometries to form shapes of extinct animals. After the puzzle is complete, there would be information about the animal popping up by the side of the completed form, and the silhouette would be replaced with the actual appearance of the animal. The “game” would start with a menu which allows the players to chose from several puzzles for different animals. Each puzzle is for only one pre-assigned animal and the puzzle pieces are also not randomly generated. There would most likely be only one solution for each puzzle. After the puzzle is completed there would be a button that allows the player to exit to the menu. I think this could be realized by creating objects of geometries and incorporating with “mousepressed” functions to move the geometries.

menu

puzzle

finished puzzle

Kyle Leve-LO-Week-12

For my project I decided I wanted to incorporate music. One project that I discovered that relates to my project is the company Magic Music Visuals. The company has created a software that creates visuals for music performance. This software is able to be used in both live performance and with imported audio.

Link: https://magicmusicvisuals.com/video

Another project that has inspired me is a music video created by Zoon Designs for Olafur Arnalds’ song “3055.” I had never heard this song before, however I was captivated by how the visuals correlated to the music and enhanced the overall performance. Music can already portray so many emotions, however with the addition of a visual component, those emotions are heightened even more.

The music video for “3055”

Jenna Kim (Jeeyoon Kim)- Looking Outwards- Week 12

For our project (collaborating with my partner), we are planning to make an interactive digital story for young children.Therefore, I looked into educational related digital projects. One project that I looked over is “Puppet Parade, made by design I/O. It is an interactive installation allowing children to use their body to move large puppets that are projected on the wall. Another project is “The Uber Game- Financial Times”, which is an online game made by the Financial Times. It is a form of journal that is also a game built from interviews. I admired “Puppet Parade” because i love the idea of children’s’ telling their own story depending on what kind of movement they do. “The Uber Game- Financial Times” is also admirable because it was made in a fun way to tell a story (interviews/ journal) through interaction game. They are created in two different ways, but they are very similar because they only tell a “story” through interaction; they’re not just in a form of writing or reading. I would love to do a project similar to these to make reading or delivering a message in more communicative way.

Vicky Zhou – Looking Outwards 12

In my research for generative and computational artists, I came across a visual artist/programmer/designer that I really admire — Marcin Ignac. A lot of his projects deal with data visualization and generative art in visually engaging ways, many times involving the manipulation of interesting 3D spaces in aesthetic qualities. In particular, I find “Continuous Transition”, “Instancae”, and “Noise Particles”, projects the most visually stimulating, with “Instancae” being the most visually engaging. “Instancae” is a branch of a bigger project “Flora”, and it is interesting because it is a generative plant project that involves several different “plant” forms to generate output, and focuses on translating natural elements (biomimicry) onto a computational platform. I also really admire his “Continuous Translation” project because it dives into an interesting break down of undulation, that I would want to further explore in my final project. Although several of his projects do allow for interaction, “Continuous Translation” is more so an already finalized project; I would want to explore more so how the user can input data in order to manipulate the wave.

Vicky Zhou – Project 12 – Proposal

For my final project, I would like to explore more in depth interactions developed around the concepts of gravity, springs, undulation through particle systems. To do this, I believe I will go about creating these interactive experiences through objects, or possibly turtles, depending on how I want to construct the interaction through a particle system, or a more self constructed system. Ideally, I want to create a flat plane of sort that undulates at a given frequency and amplitude, which can then be manipulated through a user’s mouse input and/or keyboard input. The most desirable outcome would be to have the plane react to mouse interaction, however, depending on how fluid the plane is, I predict that it might be not interactive and/or can only be manipulated through three forms, which will be then created through a series of clicking 3 or so keys.

I am currently between two layout ideas: having my flat plane be of a face on view, or placing it it some sort of perspective.

Kade Stewart – Project 12 – Proposal

I would like to create a game where you are a paper airplane. Because you have no on-board propulsion, you are constantly trying to fly through hoops that give you more energy. Beyond this, you go through levels that each have their own quirks. One level might require backwards controls, and another might require you to mash buttons instead of actually pressing the arrow keys. There might be some obstacles for the player to dodge, and their will probably be some meters on-screen saying how much energy you have left and how far you’ve gone.

Beyond this, I would like to show the data collected from keypresses, just because I think this would be interesting. It might give the player insights as to how they can do better, if they’re pressing keys too much, etc.

Connor McGaffin – Proposal

For my final project I am interested in exploring the intersection of physical aesthetics and music playback. When I go to concerts, one of the largest factors in my opinion of the performance is the quality of the visuals used to accompany the artists. I am interested in making this sort of experience more accessible through a music player. I will likely have several different songs to choose from and different visuals to accompany them. I would still like to ground the visuals in some literal manifestation, so I am considering using an interface which resembles a turntable.

Sometimes at parties I see people use their Chromecast or Apple TV to stream music on, which only displays the album cover and song title. I imagine this program to be used in this sort of social setting, where it is not necessarily the primary focus of the occasion, but accompanies the energy in an appropriate fashion.

Below is a rough digital sketch of what the program may look like. Centered is an abstract representation of a record player, surrounded by graphics that accompany and supplementally visualize the music.

Connor McGaffin – Looking Outwards 12

From the beginning of this course, I have been interested in exploring the intersection of the visual arts and music. Additonally, for the past five years or so I have been into vinyl records, and have reignited this passion after coming to Carnegie Mellon and joining WRCT.

I recently downloaded an app called djay2, which simulates the process of live mixing with records. It has been fun to play with, but has a slightly intimidating interface to those who have no experience with real live mixing.

interface of djay2 as formatted for tablets

The only visualizations of the music in djay2 are the scrolling bar at the above the turntable and the picture disks themselves. This limitation inspired me to search for more unique audio visualization, and in this process I stumbled upon the video for “Coast Modern” by Coast Modern.

I am particularly drawn to this project because of its graphic nature. Daiana Ruiz , a visual artist whose work often explores the living as a person of color, created this video for Coast Modern. I feel that her visual sensibilities of this piece are aligned with my usual visual approach. I admire this video’s efforts to push two dimensional shapes to their farthest affordances.

With both of these projects side by side, djay2 provides a very literal representation of music, while Daiana Ruiz’s work is far more interpretive. I am interested in how this more interpretive style could be incorporated into a project like djay2 while still maintaining its basic functionality.

Xindi Lyu- Looking Outwards-12

For my final project I’m planning to do a jigsaw-puzzle interactive game for the players to get to know animals that had become extinct. Based on this idea I searched for art projects and artists that are related with deconstructing geometries and had some interesting results.

The first inspiration is this puzzle. The Earth Puzzle by generative design studio Nervous System has no defined borders. You put it together how you want it and you can just see where it takes you. This gave me the inspiration of making the game in the form of “puzzle” in order to provide better experiences for the players.

The second project I found interesting are these paper toys. The Japanese paper engineer Haruki Nakamura (previously) continues to design delightful toys using simple materials. This provided me an inspiration to deconstruct the animal shapes into simple geometries as puzzle pieces.

These two projects are both associated with animals and geometries, but the difference is that the first project is more focused on generating but the second is more focused on deconstructing an existing subject.

In the end, I decided for my final project to be a jigsaw-puzzle encyclopedia.

Joanne Lee – Looking Outward 12

For my final project, I plan to create a virtual Rube Goldberg machine geared towards children ages 5-9. Because my project is not necessarily “art”, I took inspiration from a media sample and contest design. One project that I found relevant and interesting was a media sample of a simple Rube Goldberg machine being explained on Sesame Street.

Sesame Street explaining how a simple Rube Goldberg machine works.

I was unable to find the year of this media sample however they call it the “What Happens Next Machine”. I found it to be useful to see how the machine was shown and expressed in very simple terms and helped me to better understand the type of terminology and level of difficulty I will implement in my actual experiment. Something that this media sample lacks is interactivity due to it being shown via television. I believe learning is done best through interaction and trial & error!

At the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, children are able to tinker with the Rube Goldberg exhibit to complete everyday tasks.

Another project I found was the Rube Goldberg exhibit at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. At this exhibit, children are able to activate chain reactions in order to complete every day tasks. I think this is a great exhibit because as a child, I was very fascinated by Rube Goldberg machines and still am! It is important to foster creativity in children and by using these inefficient machines to complete every day tasks, it helps to keep the creative juices flowing! I don’t think they overlooked anything large, but I would like to increase accessibility to these interactive exhibits by creating my own virtually. I hope my project turns out well.