The Swipe-O-Matic

Modifying an existing physical object from Darri's bathroom:

Darri excitedly creates the "WIPE" cut out:…

As we looked through the Sky Mall magazine, we were inspired by several devices--a mood sensor (which we expected just…

For this project, we wanted to use sensors to develop alternative ways to interact with the game "Lunar Lander".

The first step was to have the GoGo Board communicate with NetLogo; by chance, an extension has been developed for this exact purpose: the GoGo extension. The plugin is fairly easy to use (you don't even have to install it, since it's part of the original NetLogo installation).…

Blog WriteUp

               Our assembled SkyMall product is an automated pet-care machine. Instead of being tethered to your annoying cat or dog (or harp seal,) you can have greater freedom around the house. Is your dog or cat giving you the sad eyes treatment? Are they meowing or barking up a storm? Are they scratching up your furniture because you aren't giving them the complete and utter attention that you promised them as you were adopting them from the local animal shelter? Well…

created by: Jenny Moryan, Nicole Roach

For our “SkyMall”-esque product, we decided to create a Love Compatibility detector.  We thought this would be a fun, completely superfluous item that could definitely be available on SkyMall. The basic idea is that two people would click on a touch sensor and it will present the percentage of compatibility on the output screen, and turn on a red light to show attraction (for compatibility over 50) or a blue light to show lack of…

Background:

For my nametag I knew that I wanted to make one that went with my nickname as opposed to my real name. For those who don't know, my full name is Andrea Monique Miller but I respond to both Andrea and Monique. A few of my friend's decided to call me MoMo, a variation of my middle name, and since it was so symetric I decided I wanted to use it as the name I would use to create the nametag.

The inspiration:

I was…

For my nametag, I sought to reproduce the cover of the symbolic-systems classic "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. The…

I figured that if I was going to get to use "mass production" techniques I…

Initially I couldn't decide which artist to choose. I almost went with Matisse because his fern cutouts are interesting and would work well with the laser cutter, but I kept coming back to Monet.  I love Impressionist art and the water lily paintings always make me feel peaceful.

Because the Japanese bridge features prominently in Monet's paintings, I decided…

When thinking about nametag, different things came to my mind as an initial inspiration but they all shared something specific in common, and that was being connected to Iran, my home country which I am missing a lot nowadays. Among all, I chose Aazadi Tower, Freedom Tower, because of several reasons. Aazadi tower has placed in the square with the same name. This square used to be the main heart of all political events that happened in Iran during past four decades. This tower is the most…

My nametag was inspired by the work of Swiss-German painter Paul Klee, specifically his painting Landscape with Yellow Birds:

Klee was fascinated with the artwork of children, especially their freedom to use representative signs and symbols, and I think this is clear in this…

My inspirations were Frank Lloyd Wright's windows. I love the way he uses colors and geometry and I thought a similar design would work well for a name tag.

So I sketched my idea in Photoshop first.…

4/14

I have always played video games, and in the past few years, I have realized that they are an art form like any other.

I started out with a Chocobo, a bird that is ridden like a horse from Final Fantasy, but realized that it would be too complicated to do 3d feathers.  Then, I moved on to a Moogle, a cute humanoid creature with wings and a weird ball over their head from Final Fantasy.

To start out, I used a picture of a moogle online:…

When I first saw the laser cutter in action, the words that came to mind were: precise, stark, contrast, simple, clean... all which led me to the images of Ansel Adams.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy photography, but I am not steeped in the art itself.  My rudimentary knowledge of Adams is that he was king of capturing light,…

I love cartoons and cartoon-like drawings, so I wanted a nametag with the same sort of style. I first considered an acrylic etching of one of my favorite characters from the cartoon Adventure Time,

but I thought I should draw a design myself, and I don't quite have the drawing skills to draw any of these guys!

Instead, I thought of an artist…

The influence for my name tag was the Russian artist Kandinsky.  He is one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting.

I have always been inspired by his use of color. I chose that particular painting,  because if exemplifies the use of color and the notion of shapes being…

When brainstorming different possible artists, I thought of many impressionist painters. I instantly thought of Monet and his paintings of water lilies. These are always my favorite for any museum. I have pictures of one of the paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago. The layers of color and the flowers that appear to float on the lily pads are really beautiful to me.  This image is one of the water lilies with a bridge going across which I saw at the MET in New York several years…