Inspiration for this week: dada

George Antheil composed this piece for a variety of mechanical instruments including player pianos, an airplane propeller, and a siren. It was originally for a film, but the score works on its own.

He also co-invented frequency hopping for steering torpedos (with Hedy Lamarr)!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballet_M%C3%A9canique

I got to see a “live” fully automated performance of this at the national gallery many years ago:

Interactive Theater

Chance and I went to Bricolage Production Company’s latest creation, Project Amelia, tonight. It’s “a next-level immersive theater experience that invites you to the R&D lab of Aura, one of the world’s most innovative tech giants, to participate in the launch of a groundbreaking intelligence product like no other.” Their words, not mine. It’s a cool take on traditional theater with lots of clever uses of simple interactive devices that we could make for this class. You wear an RFID tag bracelet throughout the show to interact with various games and demos that are aimed at teaching guests about the power of artificial intelligence. The show runs for a few more weeks, so check it out!

Project Amelia

Life of a Blind Girl

https://lifeofablindgirl.com/2018/05/16/21-things-i-couldnt-live-without-as-a-blind-person/

This blog post goes through some current technologies and products that are really helpful from the perspective of someone who is blind. It was really interesting to see the impact and potential of current technology in supporting those who are differently-abled in navigating through their daily lives with more ease and comfort. It’s also helpful to know what’s already out there and being done. I would definitely recommend taking a read through!

Morphing Matter

I was reminded of this today upon seeing Ghalya’s smart flower.

Dr. Lining Yao is right here on campus, where she runs the Morphing Matter Lab. In the video below from Google Design (9 minutes in) she demonstrates a flower printed to self fold into a flower. And then later she shows materials that morph when exposed to moisture (16 minutes in), and even later a soft robotic bunny that has tendons that actuate to hug you (29 minutes in). I recommend watching the whole video!

Lining Yao