Give me The Green Light

P com P com Pcom

I finally got my arduino kit in the mail, 2 day shipping to 4 days but I digress.
Upon opening the kit I found plenty of goodies and dove right into making things light up.
Because what isn't more satisfying than providing input and there is output that you can see?

 Late at night,
two switches,
one light,
one man.

 Look I'm reading!
But mostly looking
at pictures.  BTW
the resistor depicted
and the one provided
are different color codes
(although same spec).
 Got me real
confused there.

 I like the look of hardware,
even when it's laying dormant.

We get two switches
in a parallel, because why not?
Took me a few attempts
to align the circuits on
the breadboard.
I'm used to soldering,
then soldering again,
because I find
the smell relaxing.

It lights up! In two different ways.  The enthusiasm at 10 pm is real!

And from the junk shelf, a magnet and two washers.  The magnet pulls down a brass contact to
complete the circuit, you lift it up and it breaks it.  And then I went to bed satisfied.

I haven't seen the video till now, the quality was only affected a little by my tired perception =]

'Till next time!

VL signage

What defines a good sign?  To me, it has to look nice. But it's easier to say that to myself than to other people.

The good 'ole P sign.  I see this symbol everywhere in New York.  It's simple and sticks out.  It doesn't need explanations because of the context of where it is put.  You put it on a parking machine, and it makes sense.  The color scheme though?  Maybe too much like the handicap sign.  Also, I'd encourage them to use it in all parking signs,  as you see below:

This is an another example of a sign we looked at class.  I find that it's hard to critique in this way because it's intended for drivers –hence the angle of the sign in relation to the sidewalk is slanted.  Looking at it from a pedestrians point of view would be the wrong intention.  It's hard to make a parallel orientated sign for a driver because they would only see it as they were passing by it.  In essence, taking the driver's eyes off the road longer than they should be.  I think they did the best with what they got, New York has so many parking rules it's crazy.  I had a car here for a short bit and every time I parked I was filled with doubt and imagined getting my car towed or booted.  That logo on the truck behind the sign is nice though.  Moving company with an arrow. Simple, bold sans serif font.  Crisp color.  And I like green.

A temporary construction sign.  They didn't angle this one and just made it perpendicular to the road.  Kind of funny.  I like the symbols on the sign above it.  It's direct and uses just enough text to tell you what it means.  But also, why is the car orientated a different way from the bicycle?  It lacks consistency for sure.

Again, I'm a sucker for symbols.  The dog is cure, but also since living here, it took me a long time to figure out what on earth does it mean to curb your dog?  It may be a little obscene to depict it going to the bathroom.  Or maybe it is in this sign cause it is squatting?  Either way it's a little too ambiguous.

Some people in class brought up the confusion of the bus sign.  I agree that top bus symbol could be altered a bit but the symbol for bus is pretty recognizable.  The color codes apply to routes, but it would be better if the buses themselves carried those color codes.  It's halfway there I'd say.

I just liked this a lot.  A simple tap with a water droplet to demonstrate water flows out of here.  The company has to put it's branding somewhere and the textured face looks like part of the brick wall instead of drainpipe intruding on the look of brick.  Brass material gives a feeling of class and it ages as it weathers to match the wall.


It's hard for signs to be perfect in an a city that has an imperfect infrastructure.  And that really all boils down to cost and politics.  Should our tax dollars go into updating all the signs because it would be a more pleasant experience for the few seconds you stare at it to get the meaning?  To a designer, yes.  To a designer on a budget, might be a different story. 

ICM week two

You know, it's easy to burn yourself out.  I found that out pretty quickly when I went to the floor to work on my assignment right after class.  "I'm going to be the model student", I thought.

I stared at my monitor and the code.  I know what it meant, and I understood it, but my brain refused to take action.  A wall so imaginary I couldn't even picture it, but my body felt it.

Behind this wall I sat, thinking of what I could do?  What I wanted to do with the lines of text in front of me?  I shut my laptop and had a cigarette.  Another drink of water.  Used the restroom.  Another cigarette.  I was still stuck.

That is when I decided to roam the room and check in with other people.  Many of them were faced down in their assignments working hard to make their image a reality.  I asked them what they're doing, and what they wanted to accomplish.  They were so interesting, and enthused, I'd offer my perspective to break the driving focus they had and look up and around.  An electronic glove, a puzzle crafted of wood, a sound journey, an animation cut from paper.

All of them filled me with inspiration, fuel that I realized I lost when I dove into my work head first without getting up to breathe some air.  I walked home and decided I needed a break too.

Fill in Friday–Sunday with good friends and slight irresponsibility.

When I came in on Monday I rushed to the ICM help session after work.  It was there too I realized that most the questions came from people who already started their projects.  I got a feel for the if function though.

I decided to scrap thinking of something new and picked up with a project I was messing around with in class.

This was built just to use the mouseY and mouseX to dictate the green and blue colors of the shapes.  In effect, it was reactive to the user input.

Here is me trying to figure out an "and" statement for the first time.  I wanted make a less than or equal to 400 but p5js didn't seem to like both symbols next to each other like that.  And i tried multiple versions of && but could not get it right.

Here is me trying if statements and not getting the expected result.  You can also see I switched to dark mode, because you know...my eyeballs.

Back to more fun things I just made more shapes to satisfy me.

Trying to make an if statement but it wasn't responding how I wanted it to.

 Andddd this is where I found the Z axis and rotating function most pleasing.  Put everything at random and let the computer do the fun calculations for you.

Mesmerizing



End!