#ctec600

[mybctexperience]

KIP Experiment Beginning

The day of the experiment arrived. De-tagging and sorting the soft toys was simple. Though I found not all of them were black and white as I had expected; also that the amount of soft toys may have even correlated to the colour change. If I had a few more participants I could have checked this theory.

I decided to have each person choose their own soft toy instead of the “get what you’re given” method. I thought it might start a connection more quickly. Though I also realise that it wouldn’t work as well when there were few soft toys left.

[vaanibct]

KIP - Knowledge Inquiry Practice

Day 10 (14-05-18)

We started today’s lecture with Complaints… well, the process of complaining. Andy told us that if, for any reason, we wish to make a complaint about the course or the Tutor, we can approach a list of people that can help us follow through our complaint. The first person on the list would obviously be the Lecturer themselves. I reckon this is because we need to give them feedback about their teaching style and content, especially if we are having trouble with understanding the paper, amongst other things. Then, the next person on the list would be our Student Reps, or our Paper Leader, Ben Kenobi. They take our criticism to the Faculty meeting, but if for any reason, no action was taken, then we can complaint to Yvonne Chan, the Director of Colab, which means her role and voice are quite powerful. And even then, if for any reason our complaint isn’t heard, we can finally take it to AUTSA (AUT Student Association), who also have a powerful voice.

At the moment, I am actually very happy with my degree, and although there are a few flaws, I don’t see any reason to make a complaint because nothing major has occurred. But I will keep this in mind for the future, and it’s good information to know as it may be required to pass on to another student having issues, at some point.

The actual content of today’s Lecture, however, was different. We talked about Studio Projects, and what makes some projects “better” than others? Well, “better” can be defined in many ways, especially in this context, because each Project is associated with at least one discipline, so would it be compared to other Projects in the same discipline, or Projects produced by other students in BCT?

In the end, only two points matter - Criticality, and Credibility.

Now, we have talked a lot about being critical in our thinking, our reflections and writing, but it’s still a little difficult to understand what exactly we are expected to do. Because we can be critical in many ways…

To be critical in our thinking, we are expected to be entitled to our opinion, identify the issue, examine our views and other researchers’s thinking, as well as understand the arguments for and against the judgements, not to make us persuasive, but to improve our ability to comprehend and evaluate what we believe. For critical writing, we are required to produce an “argumentative essay which supports a position on an issue. The aim of this is to persuade people, not by tricking them, but by presenting claims that support their conclusions. A good argumentative essay is organised, clear, easy to understand, persuasive and unambiguous.

Moving on to credibility - when a claim that you’ve made comes without any evidence to support it, a decision to accept or reject the claim should be made.

There are five main criteria that evaluate credibility - RAVEN: R = Reputation - what is the reputation of the author, the sources and the publication? Do past actions indicate the author may not be reliable? Is the author or source of publication in a position of authority? A = Ability to Observe - Is the author in a position that allows access to reliable evidence? V = Vested Interest - Does the author have a personal stake in the topic? Would the author gain anything by lying or by telling the truth? E = Expertise - Does the author have specialised knowledge on the topic? Does the evidence come from a source that has expertise on the topic? N = Neutrality - Is the author neutral about the issue or is bias evident? Is the source of the evidence neutral or biased?

In this KIP Lecture today, I learned that it is important to evaluate the credibility of the sources we use for our Studio Projects. In order to do this, we should document our processes, thinking and decision making, and ensure that every step in our development uses credible sources, or that we can defend our decisions based on evidence. It is also necessary to present proof, not just our opinions. During this time, Andy kept emphasising the word “EVIDENCE” because it is important to provide facts and data that the Lecturers can’t challenge. For this reason, we are expected to prototype, discover pros and cons, determine what worked and what didn’t, as well as consider how well it served its purpose. So basically, Evidence is key. We need trustworthy and reliable references, as well as being able to prove our decisions by user-testing, surveys and other types of data. We also need to be able to explain why we supported the most percentage of people instead of the feedback we received to improve. Lastly, we also need to present our ideas clearly, avoid ambiguity, and critically reflect on the observations during and after the Project.

For me, this lesson was really helpful, because I have received feedback by our Studio Lecturers to use reliable and reputable sources when conducting research. However, it is a bit difficult some times because each Project is different and may not have any successful precedents to prove our theories or decisions. Nevertheless, I will continue to find relevant references, by breaking down my overall search and focusing on different disciplines, for my (C/C) Conceptual and Contextual Statements.

———————————————————————————————————————————

[liv-hobman-bct]

Focus

13th May 2018

I’ve had a little trouble getting into my coding lately, and I want to share something that has helped me start. Often when I sit down at my computer and open up my file to work on the code, my eyes glass over and I can’t make any sense of what I’m currently doing or what needs to happen for my next step. I’ve started physically writing down questions for myself to answer, such as “What does my code do currently?” and so I’ll go through my code line by line until I can write a few sentences which explain what it does, clearly enough so that an outsider would understand. I then ask myself follow up questions like “What do I want my code to do next?” and “How will it get to that point?”.

I suppose this is my version of a rubber duck, but all I can say is it is a great way of being focused on an objective and sorting through all your ideas. 

[dinomightofficial]

Rocks

[mel-bct]

First day back at BCT - 26/02/18

First off, I wanted to state how I’ll be writing posts for this year, as last year I noticed a bad habit in my posts. My blogging wasn’t really containing enough detail about my development in BCT, and progress with projects etc. They were quite emotional instead. So, i’ve decided i’ll divide each of my posts into two parts. 

Part one of each post will be a reflection of the day such as; “I think “ or  I feel “ statements - the more emotional details about the day. Part two will consist of more critical development, progression and reflection. 

REFLECTION: I really enjoyed my first class with Andy Connor in ctec600. I enjoy his humour and and style of teaching - I feel like I will really be able to engage with this paper because of this. He talked about how BCT As a whole, and how our projects need to be more than just recreating what someone has done before, or completing a project that has no real meaning or depth to it. You have to really explore and document the research you do around your work, and investigate all information from multiple points of view to gain a really strong reflection around why you are doing this sort of project. A project with a good amount of research and reflection as a foundation, should result in being well detailed and purposeful in the end. 

Coming into the first class of studio today was a little frightening - we are well and truly on our own journey now. However, it was great to reconnect with old teammates and friends, and we ended up discussing possibilities for projects that we may work together on. 

One key element I would like to include in my projects this year is enticing education of some sort into the mix, or educating a specific idea directed at a younger or older audience. I like the idea of communicating this digitally or physically through play or an emersive experience. However, the underlying factor would be that the project is most importantly..purposeful and has learning included in some way. 

PROGRESS & CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT:

In terms of progress, all I can really say at this point is that I’d like to work with others that have the same sort of work ethic as I do .. and it would be really nice to work with a variety with all different outlooks on life. Having a lot of input and voice from others will help make our project rich with information and diversity. 

//Mel

[sushmita-devi]

KIP: Guiding Question?

People believed that photography is a way to shape human perception but perception is created and twisted so quickly that everything becomes unreal in just a millisecond. This is because the surroundings have become modern in today’s world that people are taking advantages to change the perception. A clear example of this would be ‘photoshop’.

The first week of Knowledge, Inquiry and Practice class, we were asked to note down our guiding question that we could be working on for this year and possibly towards our studio paper and this is the end of second week of second class and I am still very unsure about my guiding question. How simple was it to just tell myself that it’s just a question so it shouldn’t be too difficult but after writing down questions over questions and revisiting them, they were all closed questions or it wasn’t too interesting for me to research about or it was something that I didn’t really care about. After a while, I decided to think of a question that would keep me engaged and would help me answer most questions for my studio project.

SO HERE IT IS… I am proceeding with the highlighted guiding question for my research.

My brain was roasted by the time I got to the point and asked myself… “Who am I?” and I paused for a second and thought… “That’s a great guiding question” especially when I have other questions above it ‘trying’ to explain who I am. However, I will be using those questions for my research to conclude my guiding question too. If I simply answer my own guiding question with “I’m a Creative Technologist” then my question may turn towards… ‘How do I express my ideas through creative technology?”… I feel like I’m still trying to decide on my question because I’m not fully settled with one.

Through my research, I would like to focus on biology, psychology/neurology, personal experience, web-based opinion on others, comparisons, history and events that points towards my studio projects which deeply focuses on neurological network through intelligent and psychological behaviours through a game development process.

[bctims]

Coming up with studio ideas

Coming up with new ideas and projects to work on isn’t exactly my forte or favourite thing to do - I much more prefer to shape and work on an idea that’s already been thought of. Figuring out what kind of project I want to work on has been very difficult for me since high school, and coming into a highly creative degree I hoped that it would help me grow and become more creative, however this was not exactly the case, as I feel like I’m still at step one, and have been since the start of BCT. Don’t get me wrong, I love being creative; designing, drawing, and making stuff - and making music seems to be another step in my creative journey. However, coming up with a big semester long project doesn’t seem to be in my mental capacity. When Monday rolls around, hopefully I’ll be able to hatch at least one idea that I could see myself wanting to work on for the semester, and see if anyone else around who isn’t already in a group and wants to work on it with me. I’m wanting to do something that involves graphics mostly, but audio is a close second or possibly using both? Hopefully this time around there won’t be much coding to do because I’m pretty useless at that let’s be honest.

[hirenpatelbct-blog]

How Physical Fitness May Promote School Success BY GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

My proposal the topic is fitness and the guiding question I have decided will be “Is fitness something that the now generation try to avoid?. For me this is a big problem around the generation I am a part of and I dont know why it occurs. A lot of people in my generation get into fitness for a short period of time but then because of their laziness dont do it anymore. They need to understand the positives that fitness can do to your life. It can help you think better work better and become more healthier than you would ever imagine.

In this article by Gretchen Reynolds he explains how fitness helps students with our school work. Here are some notes taken from this reading. One of his points is that students who are fit absorb and remember new information far more quicker than students who are unfit and overweight. This is quite an interesting point when your fit your quite motivated to achieve the best so it adds extra motivation to do well. When your unfit you become really lazy and start to procrastinate a lot a problem that this generation has.  

Students who are fit are more better to deal in challenging situations intellectually. When it comes to learning something really difficult higher levels of fitness help students achieve higher levels of learning. Reynolds explains that we need to make students have some time for physical activity during the week to keep their minds active. It keeps their mind working and makes them live a healthy lifestyle. It will make them feel achieved that they have worked out their body and will give them extra motivation.

References:

Reynolds, G. (2013, September 18). How Physical Fitness May Promote School Success. Retrieved March 10, 2018, from https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/how-physical-fitness-may-promote-school-success/

[bambi-ct]

Alrighty then.

This is mostly referencing to everything I know I need to be doing this week,

Firstly, for CTEC600 Knowledge, Inquiry and Practice. I’m needing to create and blog about my project proposal. This is gonna be research heavy so I need to show that in evidence. I’m most likely going to keep it public, so it'll be here for ya.

Then, for CTEC605 Creative Audio. I’m gonna have to figure out exactly what I want to do for this week I’m thinking something like my own EP with about 3-4 musical pieces. I have no idea what the plan is from there, I at least want to have an idea of that, and maybe a list of song titles for inspiration.

The difference here is that I will have a new blog for this section. I feel like Music is going to be big for me this year so it seems suitable. So if you wish to see this new blog click here.

For Studio this semester I have found myself in Miranda’s Stream. I’m currently in a group with Rachael Li and we are pushing on this Deep-sea, Lovecraftian, Eldritch Abomination concept. Think Bloodborne with more Glowing, Hypnoticness.

[natjoofficial]

Quick update

Again, forgot Tumblr exists.

ITS: I made a mostly professional video within 3 hours and it actually looks half decent although I messed up some of the footage capturing.

Studio: It’s going good. The AUT floor model is pretty much complete with lighting and all.

And yeah: done.

[itsjessicaveabctblr]

Knowledge, Inquiry and Practice

For this assignment question I wanted to look into doing something around music. Want I was interested in was ‘How music affects the brain’ whether it be taking people on a journey, connecting emotionally with the song, making people feel like a different person basically by the different genres and lyrics they listen to. To gather information I’m looking into doing a survey and also looking at some data and sites on google scholar. The questions I would be asking would be very simple ones such as:

What kind of genre music do they enjoy listening too? When do you listen to music? How many time a day do they listen to that specific genre? Does it change their mood or how they think?

This topic is interesting to me because I wanted to do something around this topic at the start of the semester for Creative Studio. However, because its a team decision we must all work together in order to create a project which we all want to do and enjoy. I initially wanted to do something around musical instruments for special people as I have a part time volunteer job at a center called ‘StarJam’ and what I enjoy the most about my volunteer work is how in a room everyone could be still, shy and quiet and once the music played there’s an immediate response.

[mybctexperience]

Knowledge, Inquiry and Practice

I know that we don’t need to blog for this paper, but I think that it’s a pretty good habit to keep. I’ll document a bit of what I’m doing.

For my research project I am quite interested in the social phenomena of carrying around soft toys. As a child my parents let me keep my important soft toys on hand always, but slowly and kindly pushed me to be more independent as I got older. I noted that a lot of children didn’t seem to get that kind of treatment, they had their most important toys taken away from them quite young. I felt like a bit of a “one off” case. I have also started to carry around a new soft toy of different significance in the last year because of mental health and comfort. Being an adult I got maybe one or two questions near the beginning, but other than that no one seems to mind, even so far as not to really care. So why is it such a big thing for children to stop carrying around their important soft companions?

My idea has morphed along the way, especially while taking a look at how to research it. Originally it was looked at that I do a meta study on attachment theory. Though I’ve been finding it a bit difficult to slog my way through the dense texts, finding they all reference a small pool of texts I cannot seem to put my hands on myself. So talking with Andy today we redefined how I could do the project, also looking at how to write out the proposal I was having some difficulty figuring out. I will still be looking at the soft toy attachment, and attachment theory, but making an actual study with my peers. I will “hopefully” get a group of about 10-15 “young adults” (BCT students), to carry around a soft toy each, for a week. Afterwards through a survey of the toy holders, I hope to gauge some of the reactions of the people they passed or interacted with throughout the week and their own prospectives and experiences.

Ahhh, words! This got long.

[tama-bct]

Inspiration for Studio project.

images from https://boneart.co.nz/products

https://www.pinterest.nz/biancaaalexander/fmp-pressure-point/

[liv-hobman-bct]

Progress and Plans

22nd May 2018

Today in lieu of actual progress, I sketched a picture of what Blue Skies might look like in the end, and created a list of things I need to do to reach that point in the coming days.

Here’s the sketch with a little bit of photoshopping to brighten the colours because cameras aren’t as good as eyes:

(Still a bit of an eyesore, sorry)

So the next steps I have to take to make this thing are as below.

1. Purchase some sort of stretchy white fabric that is sheer enough for the light to permeate. I’m planning on cutting up some white pantyhose and sewing them in a sphere shape to cover the hoberman sphere. I know that sewing pantyhose is a bit of a nightmare but I believe for this purpose, any snags or thread won’t be noticeable. I also want a good way of getting in and out of the sphere, as all of my wiring and arduino will be inside, so buttons or a zip will be important in this step. I’m a little dubious of how a zip would work with stretchy fabric, so buttons or clasps may be the way to go. 

I’ve also tied some string between the moving parts of the sphere in a way which constricts the shrinking to a certain size. I knew from the beginning the ball would not need to get as small as its full range of movement, so keeping it with a gap of about 40cm inside instead of 10cm as a minimum will be just right. The maximum gap inside seems around 80cm. This centre space will be used as a place for all the electronics and the pulley system for expanding and retracting the sphere.   

2. Purchase white spray paint meant for plastic to hide the bright colours of the hoberman sphere. While the colours might be dissipated by the fabric, polyester/cotton wool and the darkness of studio, I don’t want to take any chances and have it just look like a child’s toy in the middle of a pillow fight.  

3. Adhere the LED strips I prepared last week to the ball (once the paint has dried). I want to have the option of removing the strips if they don’t look right and reusing the strips after open studio, so I would like this step to be temporary. For this reason, I’ll use some cut up velcro dots rather than glue or the adhesive backing of the strips.

4. Glue the fluff to the fabric cover. The fluff isn’t too important to me, nor is the fabric cover, so this step should be just fine being permanent. I’ll have to stretch the fabric when I glue the fluff so that there aren’t any gaps when the sphere is completely expanded. I’m not entirely sure glue will be the ideal solution for this job, as the stretching action could just push the glue off, so I’ve got hand sewing clumps of fluff as a back up option. 

5?. Setting up a servo to work the pulley to expand and contract the sphere. I realise that I’m running out of time to be just thinking of adding a servo, but even if I get this step done first, the project isn’t going to look like much without all the things above, so hence the low priority on this one. With a removable cover, this step should be simple(ish) to add in at a later point. And if I run out of time for this, the artefact won’t look too unfinished without it.

6... Well not really 6. Plugging in the data from my twitter scraping script. I’m currently working on this on the days where I have less access to the physical bits, IE when I just bring my laptop to uni. Since this section of the project is also my KIP project, and that assignment is due quite a bit sooner than studio, this step is ongoing and a bit urgent. I’m currently at the stage where I’m able to get the tweets with location data, and also able to get weather data from coordinates, so I’ve done quite a big chunk of what needs to be done. However, I still have the rather big steps of rating emojis and sorting to only show certain emoji use left. Plus rating what makes up good and bad weather.

Obviously there are the easy ones that most people will agree with: rain= bad, thunderstorm= also bad, sunny= good. Sorting them this shallowly is going to be tough as “good” and “bad” are just human constructs, and everyone has different reactions to each. Though looking at these reactions to weather is quite an important part of my experiment/project so these are just more healthy discussions to be having. 

Hopefully I can get a few of these steps done tomorrow and Thursday and show some real progress on my next post :)

[dinomightofficial]

KIP v0.1 - Interests

27/02/2018

Lagrange points - In the midst of reading Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s book; “Death by black hole” he mentioned Lagrange points where through the physics of multiple planetary bodies and their gravitational tugs on each other there can be these magical places where the pull of each bodies are just right in a way that any satellite or debris that is in these locations that they will essentially stay in these positions without being tugged by any one dominant body. Not sure if that makes any sense but this video explained it for me and despite it being seemingly and somewhat irrelevant to formation of my soon to be question I just thought that it was something very interesting I would like to look further into.

I’ve been finding it very difficult to come up with a question/s.

Like where do I start?

Do I just ram my head into a brick wall until I start getting a bloody concussion and questioning the meaning of life? 

But even then I don’t know the answer to why I had just spent the last five minutes or so ramming my head into a brick wall, does that count as a question?

[ncyrocks]

I’m a bit more behind than I should be, for reasons

I’m pretty behind on blogging, on my Studio project, probably on Trans D too. I didn’t get any work done two days ago, but I got a fair bit done yesterday, though not as much as I could have done. I’m almost finished with porting the narrative to Unity and making a fully functional video game, although it’s extremely unpolished.

Unfortunately, the past couple of days have been a bit rough. A former coworker of mine who I went to primary school with died recently and I’ve been dealing with that. Normally I’d expect to get the narrative fully ported by the end of today, but his funeral’s today, so we’ll have to see.

I think I’m still on track to complete my bits of A Game of Chance / All In and I don’t think I’ve lost much time on Trans D. I also think my group will be able to finish our Synthetic Realities project by the deadline, though I should be contributing a lot more to that.

I have work today after the funeral, though, so I’ll have to take stock of my deadlines and things tomorrow, I think.

That’s also the main reason why I haven’t blogged in over a week. I wouldn’t normally have let my blog go a week without a post, just like I wouldn’t normally have done nothing for an entire day, but shit happened. I’ve just gotta pick it back up, and I think I’ll be ready to do that in a day or so.