Epilogue 12-13-10

The purpose of this blog entry is to explain to future students what I think the class named Seeing Sideways is all about.

I think that Seeing Sideways is a class intended to teach students to explore and create new things, free of whether it's "right" or "wrong". Basically, anything goes as far as assignments go...as long as the assignments are not pornographic in nature and as long as they obey school rules. I guess this class is preparation for future projects within the workforce.

Assignments include doing whatever you want with an egg, doing something that involves your identity, creating something that inspires you, and analyzing your beliefs, be they in God, in another deity, or lack of belief, and creating something from those beliefs.

You also have to make blog entries presenting such projects, and justify said projects(how it works, why they created it, etc.).

That's pretty much it from me.

My inspiration(s) 11-19-10

My main inspiration is video games. Video games are a part of my childhood and a part of my life in general. I like video games, because some of them are fun. One of my favorite video game companies is Capcom, creators of the Mega Man and Street Fighter series of video games. I especially like some of the character designs in some Japanese-made video games. In fact, in Mat Powers' class NEWM-S355, I've made a couple of flash games based on a character inspired mainly by video games.






This character's name is Violet. She carries some inspiration from Capcom's Bionic Commando games with the "Steam Arm" and from Mega Man a bit. The video game I have thought up around this character is mainly a 2D platformer.

I'm sorry if this blog is a bit last minute, but I didn't look at Oncourse today until now. Apologies for being late.

Response to 11-8-10 Class

Today we had another field trip, this time to Herron. We visited the "Notes to Nonself" installation. There was a roofless wooden shelter into which we could go. Luckily, it was sturdy enough for my weight. I was worried that it would collapse. We saw the forest motif and then noticed a papier-mache octopus in the middle of the installation. We later found out that the installation was about "identity".

The skulls prevalent in the installation symbolized death, and in the case of identity, it could mean death of the self, since "nonself" could mean "being part of the collective" or "assimilation". The octopus could symbolize the inability to blend in with the crowd. It could also symbolize the individual.

I read the pamphlet and it mentioned that this was inspired by Buddhist philosophy. I guess that would explain the "non-self", but after looking up "Buddhism" and "Non-self", I don't think I quite understood the concept as well as I thought I did.

We also discussed "final project" ideas, though we discovered that it wasn't a conventional "final project", since it has the same possible points as a regular blog. I had two ideas: either three ways to help debit/credit card users and/or three inventions to help monitor health. Beth then announced the assignment for this week; it involved identity and who we thought we were. Hopefully, I do a good job on this.

Overall, it was an interesting exhibit and an interesting class.

My "You Call It" blog 10-21-10

For this particular blog, I've used a combination of what I've used in the fear experiment and of the technology in the Virtual Reality Cave in the Advanced Visualization Lab to create a Virtual Reality Haunted House tour.

The haunted house would contain the following:

+3D glasses for the tour
+Virtual Reality Cave technology
+4-D technology(wind effects, water effects, etc)
+Random Monster/Ghost Appearances
+Randomly Generated Maps
+Treadmill

The reason I use random generation for this project is to play on people's fears of the unexpected and unknown, just like in Kyle's project and in my Bugaboo chair project.

Here is a "quick and dirty" mockup of what the front of the house would look like:



And this is what the inside of the house would look like:

I used "quick and dirty" sketches for the mock-ups of my creation, because I might go to Kings Island this Saturday and might spend the night at Ohio.

Response to the 10-11-10 class

In today's class, we discussed religion, stereotypes, tolerance, and beliefs. We also discussed gender in religion. There were actually religions long ago that were centered around women. We also looked at a Youtube video about the Westboro Baptist Church, after I had mentioned the Westboro Baptist Church.

We also stated that we can't live without a belief and that we are all capable of good AND evil.

We then watched the documentary "Expelled" starring Ben Stein. It's about some evolutionary professors losing their jobs simply because they mentioned "intelligent design" in their lectures. To me, that's kinda a kick in the teeth. If evolution is allowed in schools, then why not also "intelligent design"? Secular scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, state that "intelligent design" stem from ignorance.

I'm kinda in the middle when it comes to evolution vs. creationism or intelligent design. Why does it matter how we came here or how we came to be modern human beings? That was eons ago. This is now. Also, is there some secret to saving humanity by settling the God or evolution/intelligent design debate through "evidence"? Is that why they're trying to find answers? If so, then great. If not, let's just focus on the now and on the future. Or at least only keep our retrospect to at least 1000 years in the past instead of billions of years.

I believe in tolerance 10-10-10

I myself believe in God, and my family is predominantly Christian. To be honest, I haven't gone to church until my teens. Also, my family and I hadn't been going to church that often until today.

Now I don't like religious debates, especially not on the Internet, because on the Internet, I witness intolerance from either side, whether it be the skeptical, atheist side, or the religious side, be it Islam, Christian, Jewish, etc.

I believe in tolerance. I also believe that stereotypes can be used to harm or insult.

Stereotypes can affect race, gender, orientation, or religion. Mrs. Lykins discussed in the last class how a student in another class, who was an atheist, said that Christians are stupid or incapable of thinking. This is a hurtful stereotype that also applies to anyone who believes in God. As I said, I believe in God's existence, and yet I've managed to pull off a 3.92 GPA thus far in my college career.

Stereotypes have also been used in history to imprison, vilify or exterminate people of other cultures or religions. Three prime examples are:

1. The vilification of Muslims after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
2. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
3. The most infamous act of genocide in recent world history: the Holocaust; about 6 million Jewish people were killed in Nazi concentration camps.

Stereotypes, to me, are an example of intolerance, and should stop being used as motivation for gruesome or deplorable acts. I even made a PowerPoint presentation about stereotypes and tolerance, which I may present on class on Monday. I can turn it in and send it through Oncourse, but I can't link to it here.

Response to today's class 10-4-10

Today in class, we had two animals come to class today. Beth Lykins brought a pet cat named Puff to class, and John Weiss brought a Ball Python named King to class. At first I didn't know whose snake it was, because it just randomly appeared. I got to hold the snake and pet the cat.

Also, we discuss our fear experiments, and some of the people who didn't give their presentations last week made up for it this week. A couple of the highlights were:

• Travis Hollins' experiment with blindfolded volunteers putting their hands in food
• Blair's "mystery object experiment" and him asking people if they would eat it. They were worried that it would be a disgusting object. It smelled like chocolate to me, and I was right. It was a brownie. I ate half of it.

The class then became a discussion of different people's belief systems and gave way to a preview of the next assignment for which we discuss our beliefs and create something based on those same beliefs, and the next class, in which the students will watch the documentary "Expelled" by Ben Stein. It might not be that bad. It might be inaccurate, but it might be harmless. Hopefully, no religious debates arise from the movie. At least I have the choice the leave early if need be.

Conclusion to Fear Experiment 9-30-10

EDIT: I added a link to my hypothesis blog below.

The project I had done for Monday's class was called the Bugaboo chair.

On my hypothesis blog, I predicted that people would be squeamish.

61.111% of the class had a reaction somewhat related to squeamishness, which according to http://thesaurus.com/browse/squeamish, is similar to unsettlement, upset, sickliness, and disgust.

33.333% of the class responded with positive acclaim and praises of ingenuity.

Finally, 1 person had the response "Slip and Slide"...though I couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

According to the results, I believe that the experiment was mostly successful. I believe it was because I had prepared visual aids for the audience and performed an impromptu demonstration using a volunteer. However, if I were to make it better, I could have done the following if I was given much more time:

+Prepared my speech far in advance
+Actually brought more props for physical demonstration purposes.
+Created higher-quality(i.e. color) mockups of the project in question.

I had plenty of other fears to choose from, such as pain, heights, or criticism, but the fear of insects was the only one I could think of that could manifest itself in a physical form.

Not that many people were able to present this week, but out of all the projects that were presented and those that probably scared me the most, it was probably Kyle's psychological experiment in which he told us all to plug our ears and keep our eyes closed. It affected me strongly, because I was scared that Kyle or someone else was gonna touch me randomly. That would have startled me and made me scream. Kyle's was almost the same as my project, except my project didn't involve cutting off hearing with sound blockage of any kind, because sound was an integral part of my project, especially with the buzzing rod speakers. It was the element of surprise and fear of the unknown that could psychologically affect anyone.

Squeamish 9-25-10

With my invention built around the fear I've chosen, I predict that some of the class would be squeamish if they imagined using my invention, because I feel that my fear is somewhat widespread, more so than my other ones.

I can't give too much information away, but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at.

Response to class 9-20-10

Today was kinda special.

One of the students(Jack, I believe?) brought in a ferret named Gizmo. He was kinda cute actually.

Anyway, the main bulk of the class was about discussing our sense blogs and talking about fears in general. The question that Beth asked us was whether there was a difference between fear and discomfort. To me, there isn't; they're mainly one and the same. You can be fearful AND uncomfortable.

Take me for instance: I have fears of rollercoasters, heights, criticism and many more. Those make me feel uncomfortable and I fear them.

The Freudian sense 9-17-10

For this blog, my mission is to invent a new sense to go along with the five senses we already have. Since the possibility of the existence of ESP/Sixth Sense is already out there, I wanted to try something different. What if we could sense how much id, ego, and superego exists within a person's mind?

For those not familiar with Freud:
Id is associated with sexual, aggressive, and self-satisfying urges.
Ego is associated with organization and realism(thanks to Wikipedia for reminding me, because I had forgotten what the ego was; I only remembered it as the "self").
Superego is mainly associated with morals.

I invented a special apparatus that actually measures how much of each part of the psyche exists. That apparatus is named the Freudian Goggles. When one wears these goggles, one is able to switch modes of vision from normal to a type of thermal vision that, instead of tracking people's body heat, it would track their brains to trace the amounts of id, ego, and superego.

The id is represented by the color red.
The ego is represented by the color green.
The superego is represented by the color blue.

This type of apparatus might be used by law enforcement to track down persons with high levels of id and low levels of ego and superego to prevent crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, etc., just like the Pre-Crime enforcement in Minority Report. Those people might be singled out and transported to a facility where they are psychologically evaluated and then treated through a type of Ludovico technique(A Clockwork Orange) to regulate and normalize the id, ego, and superego, or to extensively lower the levels of id and heighten the levels of ego and superego.

Though, there is the risk that this might lead to intrusive dictatorship-like control and loss of privacy, such as that within the world established in George Orwell's 1984, but only time would tell if that happens, if this sense actually does exist.

Thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego,_and_super-ego for help on the Ego definition

Response to today's class 9-13-10

So what can I say about today?

Well, today, we discussed our walking backwards, egg ideas, and AVL application blogs. When I discussed my egg idea, Beth saw what I didn't see: that I made a metaphor out of freezing my egg. The metaphor was freezing something in time, at that moment. She also discussed the phrase "I meant to do that." I was pretty surprised.

Also, we discussed limitations and that it's OK to have limitations, but not to let them limit our ideas. I have my own limitations. In fact, here's a partial list:

• Impatience
• Indecisiveness
• General Laziness
• Worrywartedness
• Jumping To Conclusions
• Impulsiveness
• Introvertedness

We also discussed the concepts of "why?" and "because..." in class. We also made up our own "why"s and "because"s on the writing boards.

We also discussed senses and were encouraged to come up with our own "sense" and create a device that appeals to that sense. Either that, or to combine answers to "Why?" and explanations under "because...".

That's all I have for now. Ta-ta!

Walking Backwards...not really useful 9-9-10

So, on a few separate occasions over the past two weeks, I've tried to walk backwards as much as I can voluntarily. The problem was that it was hard to get and just do so voluntarily. Whenever I did elect to walk backwards, no new ideas suddenly popped into my brain. Also, I would have to look backwards over my shoulder if I did, because I didn't want to bump into any walls or people, nor did I want to fall down the stairs.

I kinda wish we were like cars, so we would have rear-view mirrors to make walking in reverse easier, not to mention safer than just walking backwards as we are now. Or at least we should have shoulder mirrors or pants that detect objects or stairs behind us, like in some new vans. But then if we were like cars, then EVERY time something bumps against us, even gently, airbags would pop out of us, and that would be embarrassing.

I guess I'm probably just too left-brained or mathematical to understand this activity fully, I don't know.

Virtual Reality Mall 9-8-10

On Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, I went to the Castleton Square Mall. There are a lot of stores and restaurants inside and outside the mall. Newcomers to this mall could end up lost in the mall. Castleton Square may have maps inside, but sometimes maps may not be as intuitive as they should. So I thought, "Why not use the Virtual Reality Cave technology as a tour of the mall for newcomers? That way they could plan a trip to their store(s) of choice." There would be this special room in which new mall-goers enter and then use the wireless controller to move about the virtual mall modeled after the actual mall. The room would be periodically updated to include new stores.

Speaking of new stores, there can sometimes be a space in the mall with a sign that says "Coming Soon" with the name of the upcoming store. What might work even better would be a "coming attractions" style sneak-preview of the upcoming store or restaurant. That would be where the V.R. Cave from the previous technology example comes in. Mall-goers would be able to "tour" the new store/restaurant to see what it looks like in the same way new mall-goers would tour the mall. Chauncey's capstone project, the Smellevision project, would be incorporated into tours of perfume stores or restaurants to smell the perfume and food respectively.

Visiting the AVL...in 3D! 8-30-10

Today I visited the Advanced Visualization Lab in the Information Technology(IT) building. The AVL is usually closed to the public, but Chauncey Frend, a grad student in the AVL, gave us permission to enter, and what we found inside was very interesting.

First, we went into the main room of the AVL, which contained a giant computer monitor, which was a 6400 x 2400 pixel resolution. That's the largest computer monitor I ever saw. There was also this software called Timeline Express. It is used mainly by lawyers for demonstrative evidence in certain cases. We then saw a 3D scanner camera that creates a polygonal replica of a face. I think that it was pretty dead-on. We learned that the camera could be used as research for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum disorder(FAS).

Then we looked at 3D TVs through stereoscopic glasses and looked at old Viewmasters to study the origins of 3D vision. I had no idea that 3D vision had existed since the 1800s. I always thought it was primarily a 20th century thing. We discussed 3D technology for a bit, and then I brought up the Nintendo 3DS. I then learned that the 3DS uses Lenticular 3D, which involves a y-shaped view of the object.

We also saw Flash Augmented Reality in action, and we saw Chauncey's capstone, Smellevision. I had doubts about the invention and then brought Prof. Richard Edwards' lectures into the discussion about how it's not as effective as audio or video.

Finally, we went into "The Cave"(formally known as the Virtual Reality Theater) and then demonstrated the large semi-closed room in which there was a combination of wireless tracking control(much like the Wii) and 3D visual technology. We learned that the Cave is sometimes used for architecture projects and product placement proposals. We also learned that Ford Motors uses 9 units of the same technology.

We then learned about Haptics technology, which involves force feedback, similar to that of the Rumble technology in controller pads. Haptics is also used to train nursing students to properly immunize infants. We got to demonstrate the haptics technology, and I have to say, that I'm somewhat impressed. I could actually "feel" the weight of the object on the screen. I have a feeling that Haptics, Virtual Reality, and 3D can be combined to make an ultra-immersive gaming experience in the future. How soon until then is uncertain.

Egg-sicles for Everyone! 8-27-10

Sorry if the picture is low quality; I uploaded it from my cell phone. I don't have a digital camera.

Hey, guys, this is my egg blog for Seeing Sideways.

I had been thinking about what I couldn't do with it.

1. I couldn't just draw on the egg, because like Beth said, it was unoriginal and had been done previous times before.

2. I couldn't incubate the egg, because I didn't have the hand puppet that animal professionals use to feed the chick.

3. I couldn't cook or eat the egg, because it was unpasteurized and also because of the current salmonella scare.

4. I couldn't pour laundry detergent on the egg, because it had been done before.

5. Throwing the egg against anything and smashing it is a sign of giving up. It has also been done before by a very angry individual.

6. Sketching the egg is too simple and would've taken 5 minutes, including shading.

7. Designing characters around the egg had been done before(see Dr. Eggman/Robotnik from the Sonic the Hedgehog series)

So I decided to freeze the egg. I left the egg in the freezer for about 3 days and then took it out today. I couldn't open it conventionally, so I had to use a serrated knife to cut it open. The yolk was completely frozen. Then I took a picture of it.

My first experience with Seeing Sideways 8-23-2010

Today was mainly an introduction to this course, where we sat in a circle and discussed how to be more creative. I asked some questions in this class about the exercises in general. We then took a break by going outside...while still sitting in our own chairs. They had wheels in them and they were small enough to fit through the doorway, so it was alright...but I kinda cramped my right hamstring and it hurt like no one's business. I kinda screamed in pain because of it. I hope I don't have to move like that during break again.

So yeah, other than that little mishap, this course might not be so bad. Good thing I was given a headstart this summer by meeting Mrs. Lykins beforehand and discussing the course with her face-to-face.

Oh, and interesting note? I learned not to eat eggs that float in water and to eat eggs that don't float.