This machine was designed to help break tunnel-vision college students out of their mundane daily commute by encouraging them to notice their surroundings and awaken their imagination.
- What was your research question or hypothesis?
I wanted to know if I traveled on the busiest routes on campus, could I find something in them that would make the journey more lively?
- What were your inspirations?
I was really inspired by children and how they view at the world through curiosity and wonder. As young adults, I find we’re losing this whimsical way of looking at life, and I wanted to challenge myself and others to bring that back into our day to day.
- How did you develop your project? Describe your machine or workflow in detail, including diagrams if necessary.
I began by identifying common activities children did and then looking at common activities on campus to try and find any potential for a project. I eventually decided to walk the busiest routes on campus and pay attention to any defects or irregularities in my surroundings. I then photographed these elements and ran students from various majors and years through my machine, asking them to tell me what they saw in the images.
- In what ways is your presentation (and the process by which you made it) specific to your subject? Why did you choose those tools/processes for this subject?
I chose to use a Nikon D3300 and an Ipad and Apple Pencil for this project. The Ipad and Pencil allowed me to record the pencil strokes of the student, so I could combine this with the video footage later in editing. I was initially planning on using a Cintiq tablet, but I figured it was more powerful and complicated than the students in my project needed. The Ipad and Pencil are also more familiar to a notebook and crayon used by children, and since that was the spirit I was trying to invoke, I felt that would be more appropriate.
- Evaluate your project. In what ways did you succeed, or fail? What opportunities remain?
I think the overall idea was successful! The students that went through the machine laughed a lot and mentioned that they wanted to look out for fun irregularities more often.
I also wanted the pen tracking to be synced to the students visual pen strokes in the video, but I realized after the fact that the time-lapse feature I used on the Ipad sped up the capture so when I brought it into Premiere and tried to edit the time back to match it just became a little choppy.
I think technically I could have edited the footage better if I had more knowledge of Premiere Pro and filmography. I still can’t figure out why the video will only export in vertical form. I think maybe it had something to do with my camera settings. I don’t think this is a failure exactly, but a steep learning curve I’m still on the way up from.