Audio Lines

Last fall I saw the 555 Noise Maker project online at the Bare Conductive website and thought it was wonderful. I really wanted to incorporate it into the Alum Rock Art & Design Thinking Camp I am running this summer through the Alum Rock Educational Foundation.
Today I got all the parts and will be listing where I purchased them all from.
Below is my test run at making one of these with my daughter:


To design this as a class project I will have the students assist me in soldering the wires to the clamps and we will be soldering the ends of the battery snap and speaker wires to breadboard pins so that we have plugin components for our breadboards.  For the art component of the project, we will be exploring line and pattern to create art that clips into the clamp to become interactive with sound. After we complete the project, students will envision how they could extend the project or pivot it in new directions.

I purchased all my supplies at HSC and Anchor Electronics. The conductive paint is from Bare Conductive.

Luz Rivas and DIY Girls have done this project and you can see some of their work here: http://www.bareconductive.com/make/diy-girls/

Very inspiring is what Lawrence Livermore National Labs is doing with 3D printing and conductive ink. There is a sample video at this link: https://manufacturing.llnl.gov/additive-manufacturing/designer-engineered-materials. It will be fun to show this to the campers so that they can imagine where this technology may go in the future.

U.S. 101 Interchange Project - Capitol Expressway/Yerba Buena Interchange

This coming Friday there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony for the completion of the pedestrian/bike overpass at Capitol Expressway and 101 in San Jose, California. This ribbon cutting will also celebrate the contribution of local middle school students to the development of the art enhancements for the Tully/101 pedestrian/bike overpass. Photos of the final transit art can be found at this Flickr set. The project was made possible by a generous loan of HP stylus tablets from the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College. Three classes of 6th grade students at Renaissance Academy at Fischer participated in this project in the fall of 2011. I conducted the workshop series in the art classes of Mr. Jesus Guerra. This project was a program of the VTA in collaboration with the San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs.

Tamale radial pattern design inspires laser cut steel pattern on entry gate pillar of pedestrian/bike overpass.

A student photo of a neighborhood fig tree was the source image for the pattern generated in the software tool Repper. The design inspired the pattern for concrete impressions on street dividers.

Student photos of the local neighborhood included images of Reid Hillview Airport. A student pattern created in Repper inspired the laser cut steel pattern included on gateway pillars to the pedestrian/bike overpass.

Past blog postings on the student work process:

http://okadadesign.blogspot.com/2011/11/student-pattern-reflections-on.html

http://okadadesign.blogspot.com/2012/01/student-patterns-for-freeway-art.html

http://okadadesign.blogspot.com/2011/11/it-is-interesting-challenge-to-begin-to.html

Past Blog postings on the fabrication process:

http://okadadesign.blogspot.com/2013/11/youth-art-in-street.html

http://okadadesign.blogspot.com/2013/11/student-art-on-street.html

http://okadadesign.blogspot.com/2013/09/progress-made-on-freeway-overpass-art.html

 

Synapse Tapestry installed at Albert Sherman Center

Today I received images of the Synapse Tapestry installed at the Albert Sherman Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. I will be making additional mixed media tapestries for this stairway passage.