Bachelor of Creative Technologies – AUT
The year may be over but I am on holiday now so I can do what I like, and it just so happens that what I want to do is learn more about design and technology!
Currently I have two projects more or less on the go. One of these is very much mechanical engineering while the other is more electronic product and software design. Stay tuned to find out what I’m on about =)
Well the year is over now so I thought I would reflect on what I think I accomplished this year.
I feel my personal ability to work within a team to ascertain my role fluidly and to a certain extent make sure that everyone else does well in theirs has improved immensely over our most recent project, that being the ’santa’s reveal’ viral video we completed for Heart of the City in conjunction with the Lemonade studio. This project in particular was very involving for me as it dealt with real world circumstances including fuck ups, deadlines and the occasional clashing of ideas. Another project I feel I did well in was the animatronics, the sensation of going from a five minute sketch to a functional design that had the potential to work was phenomenal. I can even say with certainty that I would enjoy producing mechatronic designs for a career, given that robotics and mechatronics are featuring more and more in both the military and transport design. Asides from that I feel my overall level of attention needs to improve next year as together with unforseen setbacks I feel that a greater level of detail in terms of the philosophy and logic behind my design solutions is necessary for the kind of results I hope to produce.
However I still have some reservations. To be brutally honest in this last semester we have had almost no support in terms of the process in our studio projects. I understand the concept of following your own or your groups direction and support each other before the staff can support you (due to numbers and time constraints) but at this point I feel like we have had no teaching as to ways in which to develop (note not ways in which to do because that really would be time consuming and pointless)
I do not mind that our route was not prescribed for us. In fact I prefer it that way because being hand fed is for the basics, what we are learning is a wholistic creative method that works for us. This is something that is very hard to teach by all accounts, however having a staff member I can ask (email or face to face) a simple question is for me at least a huge part of what makes a learning environment ‘work’. This ability to leverage the experience of these hugely qualified people to help inform and support our own progress in our projects is incredibly important. I just hope that the university understands how hands on this course is in terms of human resources and provides some more intellectual support to us third years as we complete our degree.
-Joe.
Timeline
Well it is nearly the end of our second semester and it is now time for our final project. Because of the way our course has worked out this year we have decided to take these last four weeks and use them to complete a second ‘phase’ of our last two studio projects. The first of these projects was called ‘Imaginandi’ and the result was a product that could be created (more or less) with todays technology. This was not quite in line with my original intentions, rather it turned into a kind of excorsism of an internal demon that told me there should be a way to make a flying car that is both practical and attractive. Now that I have completed that goal I feel I can return to the project and take it in a more creative and fanciful direction with more input from fanciful contexts that do not exist in our present zeitgeist.
To do this I will return to the point at which I departed from that line of questioning in this project and continue much the way I intended to in the first place.
I am not going to lie about this, I was quite disappointed in the final result of my animatronics assignment. So disappointed infact that I won’t be posting the final video up on this blog any time soon. Because of the amount of effort and time involved in getting to that point however, I am determined to give it the time it deserves and create something different. To this end Hanan and I have decided to buy a new Arduino Mega and program our hexapod robot to move in a lifelike way.
When we first started thinking about the design of our creature we took inspiration from many sources, mainly because to our knowledge mammals and reptiles do not have six legs and insects do not usually grow to 50cm in length. We were exploring the idea of the more unusual mammals such as the pangolin and the porcupine and then developing the concept further with the materials and techniques available to us.
The Quetz is a creature native to the South American rain forest. Its strange features and six legs make it unique among reptiles. Incans believe the creatures are aids of the gods, doing their will. Traditional stories feature them leading people to treasure, or often as not to their death. The creature is similar to the mammilian Pangolin or Armadillo in that when it is threatened it curls into a ball with its hard scaley skin protecting it. Spines frame the face and extend down the back, leading to an appearance not dissimilar to the giant headdresses of Incan gods.
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Version one of the design is about done, with all lasercut files exported into illustrator. Front this point we intend to build the first hexapod and begin experimenting with programming, appearance, different proportions etc.
After our first meeting we have a rough idea for a potential structure for our game.
Initially I was thinking of having an RTS where teamplay was a huge factor in wether a team won or lost, but due to the ‘come and go’ nature of teams in most RTS systems we decided that an MMO was more suited to the style of play we are going for.
Testing rendering straight out of solidworks with the maxwell plugin.
