Archive for April, 2009|Monthly archive page
Tweenbot – Will you guide a robot?
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Tweenbots is an interesting (not to mention adorable) project testing the kindness of the general (New York) population towards a robot:
In New York City, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself?
All it does is to roll in a straight line at constant speed. It, however, has a flag on top showing the desired destination. Thus, when released from one location, all it can do is to depend on kindred strangers to turn it towards the correct direction.
Tada – the diagram shows Tweenbot’s successful navigation at the Washington Square Park, taking 42 minutes and 29 people’s assistance to get from one corner to the other.
I’d say that the robot is too adorable to give a real test on the people’s kindness level though – make it look wholly unremarkable, and maybe we’d have a different results.
Check out the Tweenbots site – videos of Tweenbot’s view and more robots in the line-up.
Modified “My Little Pony”
The effiminate “My Little Pony” takes on a totally different role under the hands of student-sculptor Mari Kasurinen, who mashes them winged-horses with other pop culture icons such as Batman, Darth Vader and Pirates of the Carribean (as seen above).
Head here for more of them.
Susan Boyle – Britain’s Got Talent
Just a reminder to my self – try not to judge a book by the cover!
How Offices have Changed since 1900s
Office planning is critical – get it right and everyone’s productivity can improve. Get it wrong, and the effectiveness can nosedive. Historically, it’s a see-saw balance between open-ness and privacy, oversight and autonomy, free-form and grid. WIRED has an article on it chronicling the major trends in the past century or so, showing how various arrangement may reflect the attitude and zeitgeist.
Vector Drawing in 1963
For those of us who dabble with vector programs like Illustrator day in and out, here’s an interesting piece of history – Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad, developed way back in 1963. Looking at the video, it seems quite advanced too (considering the computer itself was pretty much still in an infant stage).
Too much (poorly designed) Information?
Came across this interesting design commentary by Joseph Logan, describing how a transparent window in the milk carton (ostensibly a good idea to have a quick, real time, reliable way to tell how much milk is left) degenerated into something that is a whole lot less elegant, simply by adding more and more visual elements (inappropriately too):
A designer suggested adding a little window on the carton to provide something easier for making a shopping list than a rough weight estimate. The first round of design review probably added the volume markers, which are innocuous enough but unnecessary for the majority of milk drinkers. Subsequent rounds probably added the wholly useless picture of the milk jugs and the placement of all this visually distracting detritus.
Is there anything beyond the little windows that substantially improves your ability to make decisions about the volume of milk? Of course not.
What is actually happening here is that a potentially useful addition to the good old milk carton becomes something cluttered and misleading, and it smacks of committee work. Will any harm come of it? Probably not. At most, it might be a little more confusing than necessary to anyone who bothers to look at it, which probably won’t be too many of us. Imagine safety diagrams on an airplane or in a chemical plant, though; how much distraction or confusion would be necessary to cause an accident?
Hear hear~ that is also something that I come across once in a while in my day-to-day job. It’s quite easy to slip into the chasm of “isn’t more of something good better?”, and forget the delightful balance and restraint that must sometimes take priority instead. Or to push design concepts all the way to the extreme ends of a cross-matrix – where subtlety is erased and diminished.
Problematically, these are also typically calls that you can’t rationally make a rule of. How do you know when ‘too much’ is, in fact, too much? In these times, it simply boils down to good judgment, clarity of intent and experience.
Glass Flowers
Typically in the plant/botany section of a nature museum, you’d find specimens of various plant species pressed flat and preserved in formaldehyde. These flat-pressed clippings lose much of their vibrancy in color, as well as the 3-dimensionality that one would naturally find in real, live plants.
In comes glass artists Leopold Blaschka and his son Rudolf. Using glass, they are able to sculpt and replicate the plant’s 3-dimensional properties and color, giving an almost indistinguishable form from the real plants, including every intricate detail:
Just how good they are? Apart from the samples in the photos above -
The astonishing accuracy of Harvard’s glass flowers has surprised many of the museum’s visitors, who, on seeing the display, ask to see the glass flowers.
Amazing!
[via Curious Expeditions]
