The first failure that I want to address is that I failed to create a 3D printed model of campus. Since I came up with the idea for DuckSpotting: Tracking Tracktown’s Flow of Students, I knew printing a 3D model was something I wanted to incorporate into my project. However, even after taking almost 350 pictures from all angles of the EMU, uploading those pictures to PhotoScan, and doing the photo alignment process, it only produced a patchy image that was not very recognizable. I think the lesson that this taught me was to be as efficient with time as possible. What I mean is that I only started the 3D printing process a week before my presentation date. That game me little to zero time for trial and error, and it turned out that it did not work out so I had no time to try for a better model. The BBC article “Viewpoint: How Creativity is Helped by Failure” mentions the phrase “practice makes perfect.” I believe that trial and error is necessary to any final product, and I did not give myself enough time for that stage. I thought it was really interesting how Ed Catmull, the president of the animation company Pixar stated that their movies suck when they are in their preliminary forms.

He stressed the importance of the iterative process, full of revisions and reworking past drafts. It is inspiring to hear that the president of one of the biggest animation companies in the world still experiences failures just like I do, and failure in a sense has gotten him to where he is today. It has gotten me to start thinking of failures as more of a rebuilding and revision process, than a negative one that has no answer.

The second failure that I want to address is was not able to collect the data that I would have liked to get. In hindsight, by setting such high expectations for myself for a 10-week project I was setting myself up for failure. My vision included heat maps, color coated by mode of transportation (foot, bike, car), major (business, journalism, English, etc.), and living arrangements. However, that would have been a project with a much longer time period than the one I had. Although the lesson I take away from this failure is not “set lower expectations,” I still learned something. Failing at this aspect of my project taught me to time manage better. Although my complete vision would have been difficult to complete on time, I think that I could have gotten more research if I started working on my project sooner than I did. Relating to the BBC article “Viewpoint: How Creativity is Helped by Failure”, I believe that failure is necessary to create a great final product. The revision stage of any project is usually overlooked, mainly because of how groundbreaking or cool the final version is. However, the final version would never have came to be without the hours turned to days turned to weeks and even years of reworking. An example that the article talks about which I liked is of Isaac Newton. Isaac Newton is credited with creating the theory of gravity, and rightfully so. As the story goes, Newton was sitting in his garden one day when an apple hit him on the head.The story skips many steps and claims at that moment he discovered and invented the theory of gravity. However, there was probably a lot of time in between that apple hitting Newton’s head and the finalization of the theory that the story forgets to mention. That thought process between the initial inspiration and the final product was very important in contributing to the theory of gravity as we know it today, and that is the same case for many revision processes. This story highlighted for me the importance of revision, and a positive attitude when confronted with “failure”.

Last Thursday, Kris Kirkeby came in and talked to us about her career as a scientific illustrator, and later did a butterfly drawing exercise with the class. As a drawer myself, I was immediately interested by her presentation, which was mainly images that she had drawn. She is so talented and some of her illustrations in her presentation were so realistic that I did a double take on it they were real or not. Kirkeby stressed how difficult it is to find a job in her field because many companies do not set aside a budget for drawings. Today, she is a freelance scientific illustrator. She is very lucky to have gotten the jobs she has held, and having the right connections when she was just a young artist/scientist in college were the key to taking the first step into the business. She has done work for children’s books, high school and college textbooks, art exhibits, and drawing journals to name a few. Some of her work:

I think her work is really amazing and full of life, talent, and beauty and I hope to be able to draw like this in the future. Relating her work to my project, I want my project to have great visuals such as the ones she draws. Although cliché, I believe that a picture is worth one thousand words, and I just want my project to be as interesting, visual, and interactive as possible.

Following my creative display #2 presentation, I received a lot of peer feedback; some praise, some constructive criticism, some recommendations, a little bit of everything. Here are some questions (bolded) that people wanted me to clarify, with the answers indented below the questions:

• How will the Heat map be made?
  • I will make a 3D printed model of campus, and draw a red line for every pedestrian path, a blue line for every bike path, and a green line for every car path that is present in my time lapse.

• What sort of comment are you making with this data/What is your social issue?
  • I am looking at convenience, and trying to show how traffic flow patterns affect people’s routes and walking-times to their destinations on campus.

• How large is the area I’m studying?
  • I am looking at the busy intersection of University St. and E 15th Ave.

• How does it relate to your artist?
  • My project is based around Daniel Miller, who looks at how systems and ecologies function on Earth. I was inspired by his piece titled “Contained,” which features a model of Chicago, fully equipped with seemingly natural elements such as a sun, a moon, and fog. I am trying to model my final creative display after this piece of his.

• How are you counting the people?
  • I am only counting the pedestrians, bikes, and cars that are visible in my time lapse.

In my final blog page, I will address these questions and their answers more directly, so there is less confusion. Now, here are some aspects of my project that people liked:

• My title, “DuckSpotting: Tracking Tracktown’s flow of students”
• How I incorporated three different aspects into a new project, making it my own
• My presentation and ideas were explained clearly
• I am putting a new perspective on the seemingly boring paths that people take to get where they want to go
• The subjects I’m incorporating into my project are relevant to my audience, since they’re all University of Oregon students

Some recommendations people had (bolded), with my responses to them indented:

• Start 3D printing ASAP
  • I am!

• Add layers to my heat map
  • I am adding different layers by making pedestrian, bike, and car paths different colors

• Consider trying to answer another question in order to show the relationship between multiple heat maps
  • Similar to the last recommendation, the different colored paths will show the breakdown of people’s means of getting around

• Go hard on this project this weekend!
  • DUH! #NoDaysOff #IDontGetTired

• Add LED’s to the project so people can turn them on and off, making it more interactive
  • Great Idea, going to try and make that happen!

• Add layers to my heat map
  • I am adding different layers by making pedestrian, bike, and car paths different colors

It was nice to hear a last round of improvements that I could add to my project, because I truly believe they will make it that much better. The only risk of my project not being completed is time and time-management. I have to be productive and efficient with my time if I want to be proud of my final product. I can’t believe this term is almost over and my project is being finalized, I’m so excited to present next week!

Taking the tour of the Oregon Contemporary Theater the same day that I attended the show was a really cool experience because I got to see the backstage and rehearsal areas that were used to make the show as great as it was. Something that I took away from the tour was how much detail and precision was needed to execute a play, even at the small-production, low-budget level that the OCT was producing it at. I didn’t get to asking any questions, but I still wonder two things:

• What was their budget?
• How much time was needed for preparation and rehearsal of the play?

Seeing the seemingly huge amount of work put into such a small production blew my mind at how much time and money a major production needs to be as good as possible. My guess would be hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of work. For “Silent Sky” I would still guess that months of work was put in, but not as much money as a bigger production play.

The Broadway musical “Wicked” probably cost a ton of money

The smaller scale play “Silent Sky” probably cost less money

Seeing “Silent Sky”, and the detail that was put into making it as good as it was, it made me want to create a perfect final project, made up of a perfect blog site and a perfect visual. Although that has been my goal since week one, this play inspired me to do so even more. However, it’s tough to get that kind of inspiration at the end of week eight, especially when my final project is due in less than two weeks. That being said, I still want to do all I can to make my project awesome, and I credit a portion of that motivation to the on-point production and direction of “Silent Sky”.

After hearing about how both under appreciated and breakthrough Henrietta Levitt was in her day, it made me wonder how many other women and people have not gotten the credit and recognition they deserve for their findings over history. I bet there are tons. Scientific discovery is something that happens every day, and can sometimes be overlooked. Sometimes it is inevitable to happen, but when it happens depends on people themselves. For example, although Alexander Graham Bell was credited with inventing the telephone in 1874, the American electrical engineer Elisha Gray was also a pioneer who’s work was very similar to Bell’s around the same time. The Italian Antonio Meucci was even working on the idea of a telephone in 1849, and in 2002, the US congress officially recognized him as being the inventor of the telephone. Although Alexander Graham Bell is the name everyone knows, Gray and Meucci both had huge parts in the invention of it, if not bigger parts than Graham Bell himself. That story goes to show how some names can be swallowed in time and forgotten, and the wrong people get all of the fame and attention. The same thing that happened to Gray and Meucci happened to Levitt, and just like them, she is only being recognized in the modern day as being a pioneer in her field.
Proof I went to the show:

Me and Ryan before the show

Me and Julian before the show

The show program

My ticket to the show

Some of the great inventors and scientists will be lost in time, but I am interested in finding out the under-represented breakthroughs and hearing their stories. Let the researching begin!

Today, a speaker came in and talked to us about the materials used to manufacture commercial goods that are eventually sold to the public. Those materials include cotton, leather, wool, and polyester, each with a different set of characteristics that differentiates it from the others. We looked at comparing and contrasting them, and finding out which ones were the most sustainable. I learned that there are different categories that sustainability can be measured by. There is water sustainability, land sustainability, air sustainability, and electricity sustainability. Based off of those categories of sustainability, we looked at ten different materials and their qualities in regard to sustainability. Here is the chart:

The materials from left to write read Nylon, Jute, Bamboo, Wool, Leather, Linen, Polyester, Cotton, Silk, and Polypropoline. Each line of dots represents the materials impact score on the environment. A higher impact score/column means that material is more sustainable for the world to produce. Here is a time lapse of Julian, Cortelle, and Erin placing colored stickers on the graph:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCN1q-s-eT8

I learned a lot about sustainability and it is something that I am going to pay more attention to in the future when buying food, clothing, and other necessities of life. We only have one planet, and when we run out of resources on Earth no one knows what will happen, because there is currently no other planet that can sustain human life. Although just one person being more aware of buying sustainable products will not change the world, the spreading of awareness for the cause will change the world, and it needs to happen now.

Prior to class when I was reading A. R. P. Rau’s article about maps being so versatile, it got me thinking. Since my project already has to do with landscape, and therefore maps, I could immediately see the relevance and connections between the article and my project. Visuals are incredibly important when trying to captivate an audience, and I want to include as I can while still keeping them interactive and meaningful.

Maps are going to be an important aspect of my project. Since I am dealing with a specific area with roads, buildings, and pedestrian traffic, maps are needed to show my audience what I am dealing with. Without a map, they might be unsure of the significance of my research.

Besides representing geographical locations, maps can also show a number of different things. For example, maps can be represented as graphs. For example, this image (below) shows the number of confirmed human west nile virus cases through a topographical graph:

3D Map/Graph of the United States

I thought this was an extremely cool and interesting image that represented the statistics in a very meaningful way. The contrast of the colors, as well as the topography of each state makes it such a quality map/graph.

Topographical maps are another visual component that I want to incorporate into my final project. Seen below, areas with different heights (in regard to sea level) are color coated, and it is easy to see where mountains, valleys, and other land forms are:

Topographical Map

Week 10 is coming fast and I need to be more efficient with my time in preparation for this project. I want to achieve great things but I’m afraid only time will tell…I’m time-lapsing different spots of campus tomorrow (2/18) and will contact Dean Walton as soon as I’m done with that. Feeling excited for the next few weeks, let’s get it!

Click on image to dance

In “The Beauty of Physics: Patterns, Principles, and Perspectives,” A. R. P. Rau goes over the history of maps, and goes into detail about how versatile and broad of a word map really is. It turns out that maps appear in human history, mathematics, and physics.

This was the first result when I searched “Map” on Google Images

Upon their travel of the unknown world, early explorers would make maps tracking their path. As news of these knowledgeable maps spread, they became valued and fought over by kings and the rich. Just like humans, animals also use a keen sense of direction to make mental maps of their paths, such as bees, homing pigeons, monarch butterflies, and long-distance migratory-birds. Across years and species maps are utilized, and they still are today. For example, GPS systems can be called modern maps. From the depths of the Amazon rainforest, to the middle of the Sahara Desert, someone can be traced using a modern day GPS location tracker to relay coordinates.

I mentioned that “map” is a very versatile word. Not only in human history, but also in mathematics do maps show up. In the example of infinite iterations, many triangles continually placed on top of one another, while getting smaller, produce fractal patterns that represent the mathematical phenomena of fractals. These mathematical fractals are also seen in nature, but are not always infinite due to biology. Another example of maps in math is in graphing. Let’s say that we are trying to graph points x and y on a 2-dimensional x,y plane. We can map that like this, where x=1 and y=2:

When we want to graph x,y,z on a 3-dimensional plane we can also do that, as shown here, where x is the red line, y is the red line, and z is the blue line:

Lastly, Rue talks about how maps are apparent in physics. To be honest, I’m not a science person and really had no idea what this last section of the article was talking about, but I have a feeling it will relate to class on Tuesday which will answer some of my questions.

Today, Dr. Sierra Dawson from the biology department came to class and gave us a lecture on anatomy, procedures, and philosophies. One of the most interesting exercises she had us do was to draw a heart, the way we thought it looked. The point she was trying to make was that we have never actually seen our individual hearts, and technically have no idea what they each look like. However, when asked to draw a heart, everyone in the class drew the same image for the most part, although some people were obviously a little more artistically talented than others. But that is irrelevant. The conclusion that the class came to for why we had all drawn the same thing was because society and media have shown us what a heart is supposed to look like. This was an interesting perspective exercise for me because I had never questioned what something such as a human heart, or Mars, or an asteroid looks like.

This was the first result when I searched “Human heart” on Google Images

This was the first result when I searched “Mars” on Google Images

This was the first result when I searched “Asteroid” on Google Images

Those three things all have one thing in common: I have never seen them up close. Now, that is not to say that I have never seen pictures, models, or that I have no idea what they look like. It’s actually the opposite. If I were asked to draw any of those things, I would have no trouble drawing an accurate picture. But how do I know that what I am drawing is accurate, and not only accurate to my brain? It was the same situation with the heart exercise that Dr. Dawson had the class do. Through society and media, we accumulate and compile different experiences to form an idea of what things look like without ever seeing them in person. This exercise helped me to think from different perspectives when presented with seemingly normal activities or tasks.

My drawing, when asked to draw a human heart

In my project, which is looking to track the flow of University of Oregon students, there are many aspects that are new to me. Some new things for me include 3D printing and time-lapse videos. I am going to rethink my preliminary assumptions of these things before I actually see or encounter them. For example, instead of just making every building a square or rectangle, I am actually going to look at the exact shape of the architecture and be as accurate as possible in my 3D printing of buildings on campus. I am also going to try and take a short cut by only getting a little time-lapse video data of students. I want this project to be awesome, so I am putting in the time to make it great.

The points that I took from Dr. Dawson’s presentation can not only be applied to my project, but also my life. I’m going to rethink my initial assumptions of ideas, phenomena, and objects before I actually see or encounter them. I think this will give me a more optimistic perspective on life, which everyone could use a little more of.

I was one of the last people to present my creative display to the class, which meant I could assess what people did well and not so well during their presentations. Going into these presentations, I felt I was going to have one of the least prepared creative displays, simply because I had done everything I could have minus my data. However, I was surprised to find out that in my opinion, I had one of the most specific and thought out ideas in the class.

A brief summary of my project: I want to combined Daniel Miller’s “Contained”, CabSpotting, and the University of Oregon campus to show the flow of students throughout campus through an interactive 3D-printed model.

Contained, by Daniel Miller

CabSpotting, by Scott Snibbe

University of Oregon campus

What people liked about my project proposal was that it will be interactive, is relatable to every University of Oregon student, and is using interesting and new technology (3D printing) that we have learned about class

What people criticized about my project was that it was too “complex” of an idea (whatever that means), I was looking at too big of an area, and I was going to have a hard time collecting significant data.

During my presentation, I explained my project, and how I wanted to track the flow of students on the whole campus. Many people asked, “How will you collect data?”, or “How will your model be interactive?” While those are valid questions that I still need to answer, I didn’t find them to be all that progressive in helping me make my project better. Some of the suggestions that I really liked were:

• Do a time lapse on the busy spots of campus
• Put pressure pads around campus to track the flow of students
• Refine your area of focus (campus is BIG!)
• Record data from a sample group
• Pick a specific time of day with the most significant results
• Add weather in the model to make it interactive

I liked these suggestions because they were specific and related directly to my project, as opposed to just being open ended questions/criticisms that didn’t further my progress in creating my project to the best of my abilities. I think that the three aspects of my project that could possibly threaten the best possible outcome are resources, technology, and time. Finding the right resources will be a challenge, but I’m confident that I will get them. Regarding technology, I may not be able to gather the right tools to make my project look how I want it to. If I’m not proactive about making my project happen, week 10 will sneak up on me quickly. All of these are possible setbacks, but if I put my mind to it, I know I will succeed.