Project Pitch

Objective: individually develop a specific project idea to propose as a group project.

Deliverable: a text blog post with a text description of a complete project idea, accompanied by two or more detailed drawings or hand-drawn sketches which illustrate the concept.

This assignment is intended to develop individual skill at resolving the general questions of the course into a specific project idea. The actual group project focus will be reached by consensus, probably from one or more of these pitches.

Please keep the idea within the general theme of the course: expressive dynamic behavior. Our core research premise is that physical dynamics create visible movements which reveal internal objectives.

Guidelines

This is more a brainstorming exercise than a commitment, so it is important to think broadly even if specific execution details are hazy. However, ideas will be disallowed which don’t fit the core premise or available resources.

  1. No purely mechanical systems: the resulting behavior must result from the interaction of physical and computational processes.
  2. The physical scale of the machine should be deliberately chosen with respect to the desired dynamic effect.
  3. The emphasis should be on the movement and behavior; excessively complex builds or fabrication processes are a distraction. The core idea should be renderable with laser-cut plywood and basic actuation and sensing.
  4. Water-based dynamics are strongly discouraged.
  5. No batteries: any form of mobility needs to remain tethered.
  6. No drawing machines.

Prompt Questions

Specificity is generative. The more details you can generate, the better you can communicate your intent. The following list of prompts may help you clarify details.

  1. What the main idea?
  2. What is the machine?
  3. What physical dynamic processes are involved?
  4. What is the narrative implied by the dynamics?
  5. What, where, how? I.e., exactly what does the viewer see and hear, over what timescale, and at what physical scale? Are there multiples? Is it repetitive in time? Is there a beginning or end?
  6. What question will be answered by making this work?
  7. What are creative constraints which would focus the performance on the chosen question?
  8. How does the physical form underscore the dynamic behavior?
  9. Where is the locus of agency?
  10. How is it surprisingly animate?
  11. Is there some sense of success versus failure?
  12. What kind of materials are needed? How do they support the concept?
  13. What kind of sensors and actuators?
  14. Where can we cut corners on implementation? Where can we not?
  15. Are there specific alternatives to consider?
  16. Is the behavior something a human can do?
  17. Is it part of daily life experience?
  18. What is the simplest mechanism which can achieve this?
  19. What are the fewest number of degrees of freedom which can achieve this?
  20. What kind of feedback makes the action controllable?
  21. How can the action be parameterized?
  22. Does the action suggest a narrative context?
  23. Does it involve a prop?
  24. Can it cycle automatically, or does it need human intervention?
  25. How can the movement be captured in a line drawing?
  26. What is the interaction between the parts?
  27. What is the free body diagram?
  28. Can the tempo be varied?
  29. What kind of proprioceptive sensing is needed?
  30. What kind of external sensing is needed?
  31. What kind of failures modes will it exhibit?
  32. What is the narrative potential of the failure modes?
  33. Is the process amenable to machine learning?
  34. What is the narrative potential of that learning process?
  35. Could the feedback process be mechanical? How does digital computation improve the result?