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.

3D Printing Mobile Cart out on the street

Last Sunday my son and I had a blast engaging the public in 3D printing via our mobile cart. We stationed ourselves next to Roy's Station in San Jose's Japantown during the Nikkei Matsuri festival and printed out netsuke. Here is a link to our photos and an article in the Mercury News mentioned our 3D printing pop-up event.

Synapse Tapestry

completed sculpture

Over the past few days I have been completing this tapestry sculpture for a neurological research center in Boston. I shipped it off today in a bicycle box. To fit the 5ft x 4ft piece into the bicycle box, I designed the sculpture to separate into sections that snap and hook together. I have two more tapestries to make in this series.

part of assembly instructions

Detail of 3D printed element on sculpture.

3D printing mobile maker cart prep work almost completed

T-shirt design by Cole for workshop

This coming Sunday my children and I will be engaging the public in 3D printing via a mobile maker cart in San Jose's Japantown. I am working on a website for the project as I will be engaging students in this activity in the coming school year. Here is the project site in the works. Here are the netsuke designs we have created in Tinkercad and hopefully more will be added to this collection on Sunday if visitors wish to explore making their own designs in Tinkercad.

Sample glow in the dark netsuke

It was very interesting to read information about netsuke on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nets/hd_nets.htm. I learned that because there was a great deal of regulation of Japanese clothing according to rank and station, the netsuke was a way for the rising merchant class to display their wealth. Since these small purse counterweights could be easily hidden, netsuke could be a whimsical outlet for themes and motifs that ran counter to the officially sanctioned cultural norms of the Edo period.

Netsuke 3D printing with a mobile maker cart

On April 27th we will be bringing a 3D printing mobile maker cart to Japantown in San Jose and setting up next to Roy's Station on 5th and Jackson. We will be 3D printing small objects, Japanese netsuke, for the public (free). A laptop will also be set up for visitors who wish to explore designing their own netsuke in Tinkercad. Here is a past blog posting on this project.

Cherry blossom design created in Tinkercad.

Mouse netsuke created and shared in Tinkercad.

Sketch for the pop up event's T-shirt design. by Cole (14 yrs old)

With the help of Melinda Po, I conducted a trial run of printing from the cupcake maker cart on site in Japantown, San Jose.

Glow in the dark cherry blossom printed from maker cart.