Author: Tori Mondello

Aaron, you really hit my interests with this one. Surprise, I do like other things other than theater! I grew up with a Speech Therapist Mother, so I was always tagging along to see her patients at work. She worked with children, so I would play with them and help with therapy when I could. Reading this really brought out my childish fun playing with those special needs kids.

I found a lot of connections between this reading and the one we read about how aesthetic can relate to function. How the more simplistic the design, the more aesthetically pleasing it can be and, therefore, it will perform its function better. These connections were great to find between the readings because it really brought together the concepts.

Another thing that fascinated me was the conflicting ideas of simplicity vs. universality and their constant struggle to dominate the world of design and engineering. On one hand, it makes sense to have one thing in your pocket that does every task for you. But then it also makes sense to have highly specialized objects that can perform the task perfectly. It’s a matter of prioritization: performance or space? Universal “platforms” may take up less space in your household than four different objects, but they may also perform the functions worse than the individual objects.

The reading also brought up the culture around disabilities and the progress that humanity seems to be undergoing in regards to such. For example, I didn’t even thin about having to wear glasses as a disability. But it is part of my identity and it’s true, I do look forward to getting new glasses every once in a while. But when I was younger (I got glasses when I was six) it was something I was shamed and ridiculed for. It’s incredible to see how far we’ve come in just the past decade. From bullying a child for wanting to see properly, to selling glasses with fake lenses. I hope this progress continues with the more apparent disabilities. And such, as this progress happens, how does the connotation of the disabilities change? I hope there will be less shame around the culture regarding them, but as for now, it’s already apparent that there’s been extreme progression towards acceptance.

I could probably write 2000 words on this reading about my thoughts and where my mind went while I read it, but I’ll stop here for your sake. I might even send the pdf to my mom!

Where is Tori’s mental state right now? You may be asking yourself. Well, last night, I had a dream where everyone just asked me if I was okay and told me to drink water.

So I decided to make a game where you would always win. No matter what. Because that’s the kind of support I need in my life.

The game is pretty basic. A bunch of circles go through the screen, bouncing off the walls like a kid who’s just discovered coffee. Your mission is to click on each ball, thus, vanishing it. There is a counter in the top left corner so you can keep track of how many balls there are left. And there is also a timer running. The catch? You have no idea how long you have. I’ve set the time t be between 10 and 30 seconds, although once you reach that time, you can reset the timer.

I should say that for some of the code, I used Amy’s catching ball game code as a reference to understand how the class may work. But the rest I figured out using my understanding of how it all works.

Here’s the video:

And here’s the main code:

int totBall = 30;
float xPos;
float yPos;
float spd;
int counter = 30;
boolean timer = true;
int x = 1;
boolean time = false;




Ball Ball[] = new Ball[totBall];


boolean timeIsUp=false;
float timeTillOver;

void setup() {
  fullScreen();

  noStroke();

  for (int i = 0; i < totBall; i++) {
    Ball[i] = new Ball(5, 100, random(1, 5), random(1, 5));
  }
  timeTillOver=millis()+random(10000,30000);
}


void draw() {
  background(0);

  if (time == false) {
    for (int i = 0; i < totBall; i++) {
      Ball[i].run();
    }


    fill(0);
    rect(0, 0, width, 50); 

    fill(255);
    textSize(30);
    text("Number of Balls:", 20, 30);
    text(counter, 280, 30);
    text("You Have Limited Time", 1500, 30);



    textSize(80);
    if (counter <= 0) {
      text("YOU WIN!", width/2-150, height/2);
      timer = false;
    }
  } else {
    textSize(60);
    text("TIME IS UP", width/2-150, height/2);
    textSize(30);
    text("press SPACE to resume", width/2 - 165, height/2 + 60);
  }

  if (timer == true) {
    if (millis() >= timeTillOver) {
      time = true;
    }
  }
}

void keyPressed(){
 if(key==' '){
  time=false; 
  timeTillOver=millis()+random(10000,30000);
 }
 
//maybe make a hard mode where they all turn black? or increase in speed?  
}

and Ball Class

class Ball {
  float xPos, yPos, spdX, spdY, size1;
  color clr;
  boolean disable = false;
  
  
  Ball(float x, float y, float speedX, float speedY) {
    xPos = x;
    yPos = y;
    spdX = speedX;
    spdY = speedY;
    size1 = random(35, 55);
    clr = color(random(0, 255), random(0, 255), random(0, 255));
  }
  
  void display() {
    
    if (disable == false){
    
    fill(clr);
    if (mousePressed    
    && dist(mouseX, mouseY, xPos, yPos) <= (size1/2)
     ){
      counter -= 1;
      disable = true;
    
    }
    ellipse(xPos, yPos, size1, size1);
    
    }
  
  }
  
  void move() {
    yPos += spdY;
    if (yPos > height || yPos < 50){
      spdY *= -1;
    }
    
    xPos += spdX;
    if(xPos > width || xPos < 0){
      spdX *= -1;
    }
  }
  
 

  void run() {
    move();
    display();
  }

  
}

 

Gosh, interactive media is so cool, right???

I don’t really have a cool story to start this blog off with. A lot of sleepless nights went into this. I really wanted to perfect the rectangle placement and see the different widths and heights of the rectangles so I did things in a bit of a difficult way.

A lot of this process was me experimenting with everything we’ve done in class and things I’ve wanted to do for a while. For example, getting two things to be two different, changing colors on screen. It seemed so simple, yet I had no idea how to go about making it happen. Once I started playing around, though, I shortly discovered how it would work. I went about it by writing what I thought would work and then placing the lines in various places. I would then run the code and see if my wishes had been fulfilled. After a few minutes of this, I got it!

I explored making my own functions, using different tabs to keep myself organized, and the sheer frustration of everything breaking. I was sitting in D1 at about 10:00pm. Kyle was across the seating area, trying to talk to me. I couldn’t reply to his questions though. I was staring blankly at my screen. All of my code. My wonderful code had somehow fucked up the formatting and I couldn’t move my cursor from line 17 or undo, redo, or do ANYTHING. It was the most frustrating ten minutes I have ever endured. And then I remembered the magic of ctrl+t. Auto-formatting seemed to fix the issue, or fix it enough for me to be able to reformat everything and get on with putting the final touches into the project. One thing still remains, however, this little glitched wiped out the background picture on my laptop. Now, instead of my happy beach, it’s just a black screen.

Anyway, here’s the thing:

Here’s the Code, separated by the Tabs I had it in

void setup() {
  size(780, 490);
  rectMode(CENTER);
  
} 



void draw() {

  background(255);
  stroke(0);


  rectangleDraw(i, width/6, w1, h, 0, 0, 0, 4);

  rectangleDraw(i, width/6, w2, h, 0, 0, 120, 4);

  rectangleDraw(i, width/10, w3, h, 0, 0, 200, 4);

  rectangleDraw(i, width/10, w4, h, 0, 0, 300, 4);

  rectangleDraw(i, width/6, w5, h, 380, 0, 0, 4);

  rectangleDraw(i, width/6, w6, h, 480, 0,0, 4);

  rectangleDraw(i, width/6, w7, h, 582, 0, 0, 4);

  rectangleDraw(i, width/5, w8, h, 635, 0, 0, 4);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 30, 550, h1, 0, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 10, 250, h1, 0, 0, 2, 21);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 250, h2, 0, 0, 2, 180);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 86, h3, 160, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 255, h2, 250, 0, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 180, h4, 355, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 105, h3, 253, 20, 2, 120);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 7, 40, h6, 285, 0, 2, 20);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 20, 120, h6, 325, 0, 2, 20);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 18, 105, h6, 253, 0, 2, 45);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 15, 40, h6, 365, -8, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 45, h2, 310, 0, 2, 182);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 86, h3, 390, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 20, h3, 485, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 20, h3, 525, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 13, h3, 557, -25, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 15, h3, 590, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 26, h3, 626, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 26, h3, 710, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 35, h3, 748, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 10, h3, 778, 0, 2, 105);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 30, h2, 420, 0, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 70, h2, 520, 0, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 10, h2, 610, 0, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 70, h2, 662, 0, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 20, h2, 710, 0, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 30, h2, 745, 0, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 20, h2, 775, 0, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 60, h2, 435, 0, 2, 281);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 20, h2, 527, 0, 2, 281);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 35, h2, 575, 0, 2, 281);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 10, h2, 632, 0, 2, 281);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 40, h2, 702, 0, 2, 281);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 7, h2, 740, 0, 2, 281);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 7, h2, 752, 0, 2, 281);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 20, h2, 771, 0, 2, 281);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 23, h4, 480, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 23, h4, 520, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 46, h4, 627, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 8, h4, 686, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 8, h4, 700, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 25, h4, 730, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 5, h4, 750, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 3, 3, h4, 760, 140, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 150, h2, 450, 0, 2, 180);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 40, h2, 605, 0, 2, 180);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 6, h2, 670, 0, 2, 180);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 6, h2, 690, 0, 2, 180);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 6, h2, 703, 0, 2, 180);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 20, h2, 722, 0, 2, 180);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 44, width*2, h5, 0, 255, 2, 225);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 30, 40, h1, 454, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 30, 30, h1, 545, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 30, 30, h1, 600, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 30, 20, h1, 635, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 30, 30, h1, 680, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 4, 6, h1, 725, -18, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 30, 15, h1, 743, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 30, 7, h1, 763, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 14, 15, h1, 778, 0, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 35, h3, 416, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 18, 30, h3, 362, 74, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 120, h2, 435, 137, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 18, 20, h1, 520, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 16, 70, h1, 520, 45, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 9, 10, h1, 580, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 6, 10, h1, 604, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 10, h1, 620, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 20, h1, 665, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 10, h1, 690, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 10, h1, 745, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 10, h1, 775, 20, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 9, h1, 630, 47, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 9, h1, 670, 47, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 43, h1, 707, 47, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 27, h1, 747, 47, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 27, h1, 747, 47, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 19, 27, h1, 767, 77, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 7, h1, 737, 75, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 43, h1, 637, 75, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 37, h3, 533, 136, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 15, h3, 575, 136, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 20, h3, 605, 136, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 10, h3, 642, 136, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 20, h3, 670, 136, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 15, h3, 716, 136, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 5, h3, 760, 136, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 5, h3, 770, 136, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 25, h3, 658, 105, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 17, 25, h1, 700, 75, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 10, h2, 745, 180, 2, 0);

  rectangleDraw2(i2, 12, 10, h2, 775, 180, 2, 0);
}

int h1 = 3; 
int h2 = 7;
int h3 = 5;
int h4 = 21;
int h5 = 1; 
int h6 = 4;

int w1 = 25;
int w2 = 20;
int w3 = 15;
int w4 = 6;
int w5 = 4;
int w6 = 3;
int w7 = 2;
int w8 = 1;

int c1 = color(random(255), random(255), random(255));
int c2 = color(random(255), random(255), random(255));

int i;
int h = 780;
int translate = 0;
int iRange = 6;
int a;

void rectangleDraw(int i, int iRange, int w, int h, int x, int y, int translate, int a) {

  for (i = 0; i < iRange; i += w) {
    pushMatrix();
    stroke(c1);
    float frequency = (i*(map(mouseY, 0, 490, 0.001, 0.1)))+(frameCount*.01);
    float angle = map(noise(frequency), 0, map(mouseX, 0, 780, .1, 7), 0, PI-2.5);
    translate(i+w/2 + translate, height/a);
    rotate(angle);
    rect(x, y, w, h);
    popMatrix();
  }
}



void keyPressed() {
  if (key == ' ') {
    c1 = color (random(255), random(255), random(255));
    c2 = color (random(255), random(255), random(255));
  }
}

int i2;
int iRange2 = 17;
int wi = 25;
int hi = 5;
int x2;
int y2;
int b = 2;
int translate2 = 25;


void rectangleDraw2(int i2, int iRange2, int wi, int hi, int x2, int y2, int b, int translate2) {

  for (i2 = 0; i2 < height/iRange2; i2 += hi) { 
    pushMatrix();
    stroke(c2);
    float frequency = i*.002+frameCount*.05;
    float angle = map(noise(frequency), .0, 200, 0, TWO_PI);
    translate(0, i2+hi/b + translate2);
    rotate(angle*.1);
    rect(x2, y2, wi, hi);
    popMatrix();
  }
}

 

Not gonna lie, I was not super excited when I loaded up the link and saw that the video was forty minutes long. But as I started watching it, I totally forgot about the time and just got interested in what Casey Reas was saying. The time passed much faster than I expected.

One of the first things he said was that artists brings order amongst the chaos that nature creates. And I’m not sure I really agree with that. But I also don’t know what artists do in that sense. Because they don’t necessarily bring chaos? Maybe they do bring order? But does nature bring chaos? There are so many ordered things in nature, between all of the patterns you find and the processes that keep it running smoothly, there’s not way it can be classified as “chaos”.

During the last lesson I didn’t quite understand what the purpose of “noise” was. The lecture really helped me understand it, though. The best example was that one where the lines all followed to the same target. If he didn’t add the noise, or “jitter”, then no matter how many lines he added, it would just be a perfect circle around the target. However, with the noise, you could see the individual paths that each line took to reach the target.

One of the distinctions that I was most passionate about that order does not mean unemotional. Order in art does not mean that no thought or emotion or style went into making the piece of art.

I had never really thought about this before, but it seems really logical after reading about it.

More Attractive Product –> User Feels Good –> User Can Think Creativly

Being able to go through the three different levels of the brain and showing how they work on an individual and collaborative scale. An interesting distinction that the reading made was that the visceral processing analyzes a situation and responds to it, but behavioral processing analyzes the situation and adapts the behavior accordingly. This distinction is very slight, but it’s important for understanding the applications of these different levels.

One part I really resonated with was when the reading outlined the musical aspect of behavioral and reflective processing and how reflective may often drop out while behavioral remains. I don’t know how many times I’ll play guitar and mess up as soon as I start thinking about what my next move is. This behavior, everyday/fixed routine sort of processing is what allows for muscle memory to form and it seems that reflective processing, while it does have its place, has to be supplemental to that muscle memory.

An example that I clearly remember is one day, my flute instructor played an entire song while I listed off what I did over my weekend. Once he was done playing, he repeated back to me everything that I had done over the weekend. This, I believe, is an example of behavioral processing helping him to keep playing while his reflective processing takes over the weekend plans.

I’m interested in how I can implement these processing levels in my future designs, now that we’ve read about how they truly impact the user experience.

Now it makes sense why they wrote a hit musical about Hamilton! Although it seems like they strayed a bit from Margaret’s story…

Seriously, though, Hamilton’s stories is just incredible to read about. It’s inspiring to hear the story of a woman with such talent working in a field that was so dominated by men at the time. And not only that, but being a working mother in the 1960’s! Damn girl!

It reminds me of that Hidden Figures movie they made about Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Jonson who also worked at NASA and were the brains behind an operation. I wonder if Hamilton was also hidden, just as the three women in the film were. It’s funny. In the article, Hamilton says she feared that if she made a mistake, the press would point back to her and blame it all on her. Which is true, if she had made a mistake that cost the mission, she would have been ridiculed and shamed by the entire community, but throughout all of her success, how much recognition did she get? How many other people like Hamilton have we hidden away?

int faceShapeX, faceShapeY; 

int rectWidth, rectHeight, rectX, rectY;

ArrayList<Polygon> polygons;
PShape[] shapes = new PShape[3];




void setup() {
  
  
  size (1500, 1200);
  faceShapeX = 1000;
  faceShapeY = 480;
  rectWidth = 200;
  rectHeight = 70;
  rectX = 350;
  rectY = 300;
  
    background(255);   
   
}

void draw() {


 if(mousePressed){
   fill(80,30,0);
   ellipse(mouseX, mouseY, 40, 40);
   
 }


  fill(250, 219, 172);
  ellipse(faceShapeX, faceShapeY, 600, 700); // face shape


  fill(250);
  ellipse(858, 389, 80, 50); // left eye
  ellipse(1126, 389, 80, 50); // right eye

  fill(240, 209, 162);
  ellipse(997, 500, 40, 170); // center nose
  ellipse(970, 572, 37, 17); //left nostril
  ellipse(1025, 572, 37, 17); // right nostril

  fill(230, 190, 190);
  ellipse(999, 654, 150, 30); // top lip
  ellipse(999, 684, 150, 30); // bottom lip

  fill(0, 100, 0);
  ellipse(854, 389, 45, 50); // left iris
  ellipse(1125, 389, 45, 50); // right iris
  fill(0);
  ellipse(854, 389, 20, 20); // left pupil
  ellipse(1125, 389, 20, 20); // right pupil


  line(988, 424, 953, 568); // nose line
  line(1007, 424, 1042, 568); // nose line
  
  line(819, 384, 808, 373); // left eyelashes
  line(825, 376, 817, 361);
  line(836, 369, 829, 354);
  
  line(1162, 376, 1171, 366);  //right eyelashes
  line(1150, 369, 1157, 356);
  line(1139, 366, 1142, 348);


  fill(0);
  triangle(930, 331, 825, 299, 816, 328); // left eyebrow
  triangle(1050, 331, 1160, 299, 1169, 328); // right eyebrow
  
  
  fill(200,240,230);
  rect(rectX, rectY, rectWidth, rectHeight);
 
 fill(0);
 textSize(21);
 text("Give Me Hair!", rectX+30, rectY+45); // how do you make this bigger???
 
 if (mouseX > (rectX)
  && mouseY > (rectY)
  && mouseX < rectX + rectWidth 
  && mouseY < rectY + rectHeight) {
    
 fill(200,240,230);
 rect(rectX, rectY, rectWidth, rectHeight);
 
 fill(0);
 textSize(21);
 text("Beautiful!", rectX+60, rectY+45);
 
}

}

 

The hardest challenge I had to overcome was my hair. How do you program super curly hair??? And I really spent a lot of time trying to figure out some different solutions. I went through the entire “Examples” menu in Processing to see if there was a spring I could use to mimic my hair.

One issue I ran into was that I did this mostly on the airplane while I travelled this spring break. Therefore, I didn’t have wifi access. I couldn’t look up how to do things, but this challenged me to just sit down and figure it out.

My solution, of course, was to just pass the responsibility to someone else.: I’ll just have the interactor draw my hair to complete the self-portrait. There’s probably some deep meaning behind this about like, my own personality being completed by others, but really, I just wanted a more creative way to make my hair!

The text on the side, if you hover over it, changes to say “Beautiful!” ideally, that would happen only after the interactor has drawn hair. I don’t know how to do that so…

Yeah soooo my midterm didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.

I had this beautiful idea in mind of an interactive stage where you could control the lights and play with different designs and lighting choices. It would be a way that kids could discover the magic of lighting design and be a new outlet into the world of technical theater.

In reality, it ended up being two weeks of pure frustration and sleepless nights. In the end, I’m not very proud of the product, but I am proud of the process.

It started very big. I wanted to include both set and lighting: the lighting would change color and intensity and the set would move around a little model stage. Whoa! Slow down! So once I realized how impractical that was, I decided to focus in on the lighting aspect.

I split it into three categories 1. White Lights 2. Patterned Set Lights 3. Moving Servo Lights

The white lights would be immobile and would turn on and off with just the push of a button.

The patterned set lights were originally going to turn on and off and blink to a pattern with a button, but then I decided to just make them blink for simplicity’s sake.

Finally, the servo lights would be a bit more difficult to pull off. They would be attached to a servo, which could move up to 180 degrees, controlled by a potentiometer, and would also be able to change color, which is also controlled by a potentiometer. In total, there would be two servos and two common LEDs (Stage Left and Stage Right).

While the end product ended up not really working the way I wanted it to, the process of getting to this end product was extremely beneficial as a beginner IM student. I learned valuable skills like using sketches of circuits and breadboards, both solderable and solderless, to limit mistakes made and organize your work so you don’t get your wires confused.

One of my biggest challenges was the organization of the Control Board, which was at the front of the stage, and its connection to my redBoard, which was at the back of the stage. I didn’t know how to tell which wire went to which appliance as my color coding system was flawed (Red for power, black for ground, other colors to separate the appliances, but that didn’t really work).

My solution came in the form of masking tape and four wooden blocks. My first step was to elevate the stage so the wires could slide underneath it, rather than having to wrap them around the sides. This helped me use less wire and also made the connections more direct. The next step was to draw a little diagram in my notebook that labelled each appliance I was using from #1-#6.

Then, I followed t

he wires and put a little masking tape label on the end of it, dictating which # appliance it corresponded to. This helped me keep the wires organized. I could then put the control board where it resided, at the front of the stage, and plug in all the wires without having to ch

eck and make sure I had the right wire, which greatly reduced

the time needed to install the buttons and potentiometers.

In the end, I got frustrated and I think I fried my redBoard a bit because weird things started happening. Potentiometers would do things they weren’t supposed to, lights would turn on and off randomly. Maybe I got a Phantom of the Model Stage…

 

…..I feel called out.

But this reading brings up an extremely important point: just because it’s already been done, does not mean you should not do it.

My theater professor always says, “It may have already been done, but is hasn’t been done by YOU”. So maybe we’ve seen a Tilty controller before, but your own personal interests, strengths, and creativity can make it into something really interesting that should be pursued. The fact that something has already been explored before does not mean that it should not be explored further. Maybe there’s a hidden gem that the first explorer did not find before. Okay I feel like I’m gonna start getting metaphorical so I’ll change the subject.

Overall, this reading was really generative for ideas and reflective on how the class has been going so far. I saw my peer’s projects in some of the ideas presented, but I could also recall projects that the reading did not bring up. Not that those are more valuable or more creative, just that they were different.

Time to make stuff that’s already been made!