aram’s blog

Initially, it seemed hard to connect ‘weather’ and anything from ‘me’ whether it is personal or not. Once I decided to go with ‘personal’ direction, I managed to come up with the way to connect a possibly interesting habit of me and weather - shoes and weather.

People do care what to wear depending on the weather every day.  I don’t wear any mesh sneakers when it’s rain or snow. This simple ‘policy’ made it possible to keep all sneaker collections I’ve treasured in nice and clean shape, lasting longer than typical longevity of ‘just’ sneakers.

Map consists of three visual elements - a bottom of sole graphic for a map, weather icons on each directions, and geometric dots from the legend, that indicate each specific model of the sneakers.

From my understanding of ruleset, I tried to include as less letters as I could. I was simply afraid of letting me making a mind map, rather than a weather map.

Feedback:

1. No one asked why I named the title “Air Temperature Pattern”. The answer is, that I felt like word-playing implying “Air” is also Nike Air. Many of the sneakers I put on the legend are Nike Air Max series from late 80’s. I thought they really look like “pattern” when grouped, also have something to do with “temperature”.

2. Ramona made an important comment. I wanted to remember it exactly, so I asked her after class then I forgot what she exactly said! (a shame…) She pointed out that the way I explain the map is interesting because I sort of ‘reverse’ the reason why I discriminate certain shoes.

3. Sanjay immediately recognized almost whole thing including my intention, concept, and Nike-madness.

4. Hulya said that I didn’t seem to be a person who could collect that many shoes, never (in the elevator while we’re taking break).

5. Again, Sanjay sharply point out that he never saw me wearing some shoes in the legend - that’s true, because I also have a group of ’school sneakers’ in my mind. You won’t see me wearing all of them from the legend.

6. Alberto asked me if I cared less Asics Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 than any other because he found it on relatively ‘bad’ weather region. Knowing him wearing Onitsuka Tiger often, this seemed toughest question for me. I love them, but they don’t fit me well as much as Nikes do. And most importantly, weather dictates what I should wear!

thesixtyone is a browser- based game that turns music listening into an interactive adventure:

* earn experience points for finding cool music before other people do

* unlock a diverse set of achievements as you play

* level up and gain new skills to flex your influence in the community

thesixtyone is an experimental game that transforms listening to new music into a fun, massively multiplayer adventure.

Despite the incredible wave of creativity that’s happening in music, most people have a difficult time overcoming their underlying “musical inertia” — why bother with the typical tediousness of music discovery when you can fall back into the comfortable familiarity of your iTunes collection?

Tired of seeing great music fade into obscurity, we wondered if we could harness our experience designing video games to make something that could challenge music geeks and attract average people to the exciting frontiers of new music.

Since I was moved by Newtworked Cat from Tom’s book - Making Things Talk, I’ve always wanted to create something fun(ctional) thing for my beloved cat - Hani. Hani is four-years-old male cat, slightly overweighted because both of me and my wife have been too soft to spoil him. When he’s ‘talking’, that usually means more food even though he already had enough. Imagine your cat leading you to where his food jar is locked looking back couple times to check if you’re still following him - it’s almost impossible for me to turn him down feeding ‘a little bit more’ when he is being cute like that.

However, I decided to come up with something beneficial for him while we’re gone and he’s alone at home. No more excessive fat, Hani!

Parts:

• 1 Arduino Board
• 1 Bread Board
• 1 Force Sensor Register
• 1 Servo Motor
• 1 Empty plastic container
• 1 Cat food container holder

Code:

I referred the code from physcomp wiki - Servo Motor part.  My device doesn’t require complicated trimming of servo motor control, yet. This means most of codes are not edited.

Senario:

1. The cat sits on the pad which contains a force sensing register attached underneath.
2. 1 triggers a servo motor to run
3. 2 opens the hatch of food bin

The amount of the food can be controlled by adjusting servo motor’s angle.

video