Difference between revisions of "Students/KimBeswick"

Revision as of 16:35, 18 March 2010

Hey, my name is Kim and I'm a senior Vis Media student. So far my emphasis has been film, but I'm really interested in computing which is one reason why I want to take this class. I figure college is for learning, not repeating things you can already do, so hopefully I'll learn a lot. It seems pretty hands-on, which is pleasantly surprising. As for my art practices, I film, paint, draw, and things like that. I have mixed feelings about postmodern art, but I think it should be either viscerally or cerebrally compelling within a social context (doesn't have to be the local context) as opposed to self-serving. Also I think computers are a very interesting new medium for art practices and allow for original implementations of old ideas.

Midterm Project: I want to make a small fan for hot beverages. It will involve a pressure sensor which will be attached on the underside of a table coaster. When the sensor is activated, it will turn on the small motor included in the kit (which I'll need to slow down), which will have fan blades attached to it. In effect, this tiny fan will provide a huge leap in hot beverage drinking technology, preventing both pain and anguish.

(sorry for the ms paint; I can't upload any real illustrations at the moment)

Final Project: I want to make a tongue-in-cheek commentary on President Yudof's yearly salary, which is 540,000 a year (while President Obama makes 400,000).

I got a sound chip from a greeting card that plays the song "Taking Care of Business," the meaning of which is that Yudof treats the UC system like a business, raising student fees by 15 percent instead of cutting administrative salaries or cutting back on construction. It activates every time someone opens the cookie jar. I chose the cookie jar because of the saying of "having one's hand in the cookie jar." In my opinion Yudof is taking too many cookies.

The project is metaphorical, the technology of the speaker serving image and the image serving language, so really, it's an old-fashioned sort of project. The metaphor of "taking care of business" ceases to be a metaphor, while the act of having one's hand in the cookie jar becomes a metaphor in the act itself. The cookie jar is meant to have a very kitschy quality, Yudof looking rosy cheeked and benevolent like he knows what's best for everyone. The project was largely inspired by a New York Times interview with Yudof: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-q4-t.html?_r=2 He sounded incredibly cavalier, and made more jokes than he answered questions. I imagine that he hums "taking care of business" confidently to himself while making decisions that affect the more than 220,000 students in the UC system, and giving a 9 million dollar raise to administration. Of course, the issue of funding is very difficult, and there is no way to make everyone happy. But I think the UC system should have a more involved leader.

To do this project, I got a light sensor, and activated the sound depending of if there was enough light past a threshold of 100 coming from the analog input. I took out the batteries of the sound card so that arduino powered it. I tried it with the batteries in, but I couldn't get it to stop playing. I decided to use the threshold instead of a transistor because it didn't work (I thought I might have put it in backwards, but it didn't work facing either direction). This is the code that I finally used:

int sensorPin = 2; // this is for the light sensor input int powerPin = 5; // this is the output pin for the audio int sensorValue = 0; // variable to store the value coming from the sensor int threshold = 100; // threshold for analog input of light sensor

void setup() {

 pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
 pinMode(powerPin, OUTPUT); // to power the sound chip
 Serial.begin(9600);        // analog to serial monitor

}

void loop() {

 // read the value from the sensor:
 sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
 Serial.println(sensorValue);
 if(sensorValue > threshold){
   digitalWrite(powerPin, HIGH); 
 }else{
   digitalWrite(powerPin, LOW); 
   // arduino will supply power unless the threshold is below 100
 }
 delay(100);  

}

Here is the sound chip:

Here's the cookie jar. I wanted it to have a hand-crafted look, so I painted Yudof's portrait in acrylic. It reminds me of the "raisin girl."

Here's the whole system, including the arduino, breadboard, soundchip and speaker all layered onto each other.

Here's the final portrait of Yudof on his cookie jar. He looks like a friendly grandpa.