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May 27, 2006
more friday fun
This week was superfun! I'm still trying to get my head round Eyesweb, omg... why does it take 3 functions (or boxes, whatever you call them) to make a keypress? It's kind of doing my head in.
For our 1-day assignment, I made this little Flash animation of leaf clusters... Two toy guns (for blowing air bubbles) was rigged to the USB keyboard connected to my iBook. The tilt switches on the guns would activate the motor, and as you point the guns to the screen, the air from the guns will scatter the leaves across the screen.
When you switch the guns off, the leaves will regroup again...
Okay, so it's not exactly rocket science but I'm so proud of me.
Posted by Yasmina at 04:07 PM | Comments (5)
May 20, 2006
friday fun
On Friday, I was working together in a group with Rit and Kinjal.
Originally, we wanted to fit the bubble gun on the umbrella so that the air nozzle faced upwards, and the motor is switched on when the umbrella is opened. We experimented with putting colored paint and ink in the dishwash liquid mixture to make colored bubbles.
I thought it would be neat to spray a burst of colored bubbles on the ceiling, to make crazy bubble splatters when the bubbles popped against the ceiling surface. Like making frescoes. The umbrella would protect you from the paint splatters.
Unfortunately that little experiment didn't really happen. The bubbles refused to burst forth. Maybe the paint made them heavy. The soapsuds just gathered near the nozzle and the air wasn't transforming them into bubbles.
Quick switch to Plan B: We rigged a tilt sensor to the bubble gun so when the nozzle is parallel to the ground, the motor would be on, and when the nozzle is pointing to the ground, the motor is off. We pasted the modified gun to a lid of a cardboard box, and we placed the bowl with the soap + ink mixture.
So the gun becomes a burglar alarm system. Whoever opens the box will have a stream of black-ink bubbles blown at them. :)
The others in class also came up with really cool ideas. I liked Pushkar's touch-sensitive fibre-optic LEDs. Hector, Ana and Karthik made a "Send a Kiss" object using remote control car engine triggered by sound sensors.
Since there was a strike on public transport, Joe, Ana, Lili and I went for apperitivo at Exploit. Joris also came to join us. Then we sat around the square of the Basilica, drinking Coronas with lemons and watching people play football.
Later and later we ended up in a wine bar in Naviglio, where we ran into Eliza, Andrea and Raquelle. We hang out a while before going home. Because we started drinking so early, it felt much later than 00.30 when we finally left.
Anyway, I am looking forward to more tinkering with toys and stuff next week! :D
Posted by Yasmina at 09:16 PM | Comments (3)
May 18, 2006
innards: dissecting toys
The miaowing cats were really freaky, with these crazy LED eyes that glowed when you touched them. They were even more freaky after we'd ripped the plastic fur off them. Everyone kept calling the optocouplers octopussy today.
I unpacked my stuff and found my toolbox from my Ravensbourne days. I even found my old student ID card, a soldering iron, unused super8 cartridges, loads of photography folders and precious old sketchbooks. Little forgotten treasures.
Next week in Hangar Bicocca, MixedMedia event, May 25-28th. Looking forward to that.
Oh, and the latest installment of the Adicolor video series is out, Black, and I have been filling up my iPod with all the Adicolor series.
Posted by Yasmina at 10:48 PM | Comments (3)
May 06, 2006
eating my way back to italy from indo
OMG, that must have been the longest journey I ever made from Asia to Europe. I left Jakarta on Friday, 12.20 Indonesian time, arriving in Singapore at 14.55. My Singapore-Amsterdam flight didn't leave until 23.45, so I went over to Thalia and Ari's place, hung out a bit before going to meet Rani and going to East Coast Park to eat some chilli crabs and other yummy crustaceans. The food was super-duper good; the crabs were perfect and tender and spicy, the prawns and squid crunchy, the kailan not too soggy, not too crunchy in their garlicky deliciousness.
I was in my cut-off jeans shorts, sandals, linen tunic, drinking beer by the beach on Friday night. Some 13 hours later, when I arrived in Amsterdam, it was 4C outside! Eeek! It was 07.15 when I arrived, and my flight to Milano was at 19.20. I deposited my luggage in the lockers and made my way to meet Gerard.
Gerard was so sweet, picking me up at the train station and taking me to his parents' house so I could have a nice hot shower and a nap. I felt terrible for barging into their homes like that. I wish Gerard and I had more time to hang out together, but he had loads of work on, so after a while he drove me to Rotterdam, to Laszlo and Lesh's.
Laszlo and Lesh's new apartment is supercool, light and airy with skylights and the double glass doors leading to the terrace balcony. I was happy to have had the time to hang out and catch up with Laszlo because we didn't manage when I was in NL last March.
We then walked into the town center to see what celebrations were going on. The stroll through their neighbourhood was a great experience: so much to see and touch and smell. Vendors were barbecuing lamb sausages in the street, various shops selling Afros and incense and plastic multi-colored beads.
We stopped off at this Turkish sweet shop where we bought pistachio and nut-honey pastries. That shop was fab! Imagine, a shop that just sells delicious Turkish sweets. I could have bought entire trays of sweets.
In town we visited Lisa and Damian, who had a market stand selling secondhand stuff for the day. We drank beer and went on a walkabout through the secondhand market. There were some nice pieces but also a lot of junk. I ate a dodgy bratwurst sandwich in the center of town, and we are the sweets we bought earlier from the Turkish shop and they were so so so good I wish we'd bought more.
Around five I got back to the airport only to find my flight was delayed till 23.00. Buses from Bergamo to Milano don't run that late so I rescheduled to a morning flight and stayed over at my parents-in-law. I ate a lot of my mother-in-law's potato salad, which is the best potato salad, I swear, drank Hoegaarden and smoked eel sandwiches. I was sad in the delay of seeing Robert again but at least my belly was full of yummies.
Sunday morning I finally made it to Milano. Boy and girl together again :)
Posted by Yasmina at 07:28 PM
