System-Rolling Dice

Initially, the graph paper reminded me of the game Tetris, and I thought I wanted to do something with that. I also wanted to use dice to determine each outcome. However, there were too many things to consider (shape, size, rotation, position, color, etc) which made the idea too complicated. I still wanted to use the dice though. 

Instead of using shapes from Tetris, I decided to represent the sides of a dice cube. I started in the left bottom corner. I rolled the dice three times for each square. The first number determined how many dots were to be on the square, which side of a dice cube (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6). The second number told me the side length to determine how big the square would be (1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6). The third number told me how many spaces there were between the current square to the next square (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6). The spaces could go any direction where there was space, but the next square had to share a column or a row with the previous square. 

For example, the first set of rolled numbers was 4, 2, 4. My square would have 4 dots, would be a 2x2, and would have four spaces until the next square. 

How did I decide how many squares I would have on a sheet of graph paper? 

I rolled dice for this as well. Right before starting a new sheet, I rolled the dice to tell me how many new squares I should add to the page (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6).

The numbers I rolled:

4-3-4

1-4-3

4-3-1

3-2-3

4-2-2

4-3-1

6-6-3

2-6-2

4-4-3

4-6-3

4-5-6

4-2-1

6-1-1

3-6-4

2-1-1

6-2-1

6-6-5

3-1-4

5-5-6

1-4-3

1-3-6

4-3-5

6-1-1

3-2-5

6-2-3

3-4-4

1-5-1

3-4-1

1-3-5

3-2-3

2-6-4

1st sheet) 2 squares

2nd sheet) 6 squares

3rd sheet) 4 squares

4th sheet) 1 squares

5th sheet) 3 squares

6th sheet) 2 squares

7th sheet) 5 squares

8th sheet) 2 squares

9th sheet) 3 squares

10th sheet) 3 squares

Pipes

I began with on focusing on a different idea- one which consisted of wavy lines and different colors but was suddenly inspired by the tangle of pipes, which are visible below the ceiling of our classroom. Therefore I constructed a system with a pipe design, which is repeated over the following ten pages. The instructions of the system follow-

·      First design a basic template of a pipe drawing right in the centre of the page.

·      Using a different color repeat the same design except shift it three squares up and 3 squares left of the starting point of the pipe design.

·      For the following page use the same strategy – use a different color pen, move the design 3 spaces up and this time 3 spaces to the right.

·      For the next page replicate the design, except this time it is 3 squares up and 3 squares left from the bottom of the pipe design.

·      By the 5^th page you move back to the top half of the page and this time you count 6 squares from the top tube of the pipe design and 6 squares to the left. The next page repeats the same pattern except it is 6 squares up and to the left.

·      This pattern is also repeated for the bottom half of the page where the design is moved 6 spaces up and to the right from the bottom tube of the design and next 6 spaces up and to the left.

·      This pattern continues with 3 squares added to the distance upwards and sideways from the ends of the top and bottom tubes of the pipe design.

·      The middle pipe design acts as the anchor for the rest of the design, everything else builds up on it and it is necessary to use different colors each time to see the different pipe patterns.

 

Each page has to consist of all the pipe designs in the previous one, so each page grows more complicated and complex. The only way to maintain the uniformity of each pipe design is by counting the number of squares for the length of each bend and maintaining this number for all 10 sheets. The first pages start of easy but each becomes more complicated and time consuming, which I didn’t realize at the beginning of the project! The system is mainly for a design purpose and reveals its intricacies as it builds up.

Conceptual Project: reCYCLE

Instance #1 and #3


Instance #6 and #10


For my conceptual project, I created a rotating/expanding system of arrows that's reminiscent of the popular "recycle" signs. The system grows by concentric polygonal arrangements of arrows, and rotates with each successive page of the system.

As I was designing the system, I tried various ways of making the system seem to rotate. The colored pattern of the arrows is designed to lead the eye around the rotation without being too overwhelming (the system is limited to green, orange, and black). I also discovered that the best way to create uniformity in the system is with a template arrow, although I did not use a template here, but rather traced the arrows individually on each page.

The system is fairly complex, so please visit this page to read a full explanation of the process. The basic procedure is to begin with a square, then add concentric polygons around it, rotating a certain number of times for each new polygon, and alternating the direction of rotation for each polygon.

Conceptual Project

My design really takes advantage of the mathematics of this project.  It is actually just a collaboration of simple linear functions.  If this were to be recreated the instructions would be as follows:

Use the following graphs:

1.     x+1.5

2.     –x

3.     -6x+30

4.     .2x-2

5.     4x+11

6.     .2x+5

7.     -.5x-8

8.     2x-8

9.     11+x

10. .5x+10

For all of the graphs you will draw the ones that are increasing will be in green and the ones that are decreasing will be in green.   The red lines will always act as somewhat of a background and will not ever overlap the colored double lines.  When the double lines cross, the intersections of like colors will be filled in with that color and intersections involving two colors will be filled in red.   On the graph paper, two squares are equal to one.   The origin is the middle of the paper.On the first page graph numbers two through ten in red and number one in green as a double line.  On the next piece of paper graph numbers three through ten in red, leave number one as it was originally graphed and graph number two in blue as a double line.   For the next one graph four through ten in red, numbers one and two as they were on the previous page and then graph number three in blue as a double line.  Continue this process until all ten are graphed as double lines. 

  A quick lesson on drawing graphs:

 All of the graphs in this project are simple and easy to draw without using a calculator.  They are all in the form mx+b where m is the slope and b is the y intercept.  For example, for graph number one, x+1.5, the slope is one, which means for every coordinate you move up you move one coordinate to the right.  And the y intercept is 1.5 so you start at y=1.5.  If there is a negative slope, for example -.5x-8, for every one coordinate you move to the left you move .5 coordinates down and you begin at y=-8. 

One of the neat things about this design is that it can easily be tampered with to give it an entirely different look.  For example if all the negative slopes are changed to positive and all the positive slopes are changed to negative, the graph will be flipped upside down.  Also, if the y-intercept for all of the graphs are changed to zero  it will look somewhat like a starburst coming out of the center.  Slopes and y-intercepts can be changed and it could be fun to just mess around with all the graphs to make it look completely different.

I chose to do my conceptual project like this because I always thought that graphs looked neat when they were all together.  I started by making more complicated graphs, for example ones that looked like flowers and spirals, but they were quiet difficult to replicate and would have been impossible to draw without using a calculator. 

While drawing the multiple lines I kept thinking that it kind of represented some of Sol Lewitt’s work.  In particular his large pieces that just look like a bunch of random lines going every which way.  If my design were done on a much larger scale and a lot more graphs were added I think it would look a lot like his work.   

 

Mapping Project

My idea for this project was to take a different angle on viewing the states from a more ground level view. I thought it was an interesting idea because many maps are usually your traditional top view that usually just shows you the layout of the states and doesn't give you any feel for what our country is about. 

Soda Can Mobile

I spent most of the class times just cutting up the cans and messing around with them. So many ideas went through my head of what I wanted to make. I thought of doing a series of flowers, a rocket, candle-holders, and stars in space. Then, I looked up different baby/crib mobiles online to see different examples. I liked the idea, but I wanted to take it a bit further. Instead of the nice and simple baby mobiles, I wanted to create something that was overwhelming to look at. I experimented with using the cans to look like flower/star objects. I made a total of eight, all with different designs. Other parts of the cans were used-top, bottom, body. I like how the sheets (after cutting) were able to crumple up. I 

also kept the color of the cans in mind as I wired everything together. I wanted to include a variety of different colors all spread out.

Most mobiles play music. For this reason, I thought Biddle Music Building was the perfect place to put the mobile because there is always music playing there. I put up the mobile around midnight, when not many people were there. So, I wasn't able to observe people's reactions. I went back the next day to observe. However, my mobile wasn't hanging anymore! I left my phone number and email address with a lady in the office just in case they found it anywhere. A few days later, I received a phone call saying that they found it. I retrieved my mobile and decided to take it to my room. I got the weirdest looks as I carried it back to West. Some people smiled and told me it was really cool. Others would look at it critically, trying to figure it out. I got a few comments about dangerous it looked. I hung it up in my room because I didn't have anywhere else to put it. Whenever people came in, the first thing I heard was "WHOA!" Some said it was really cool and kept asking me questions about it. Others told me that it was dangerous and that I should move it to somewhere where it would be less hazardous. 

View from below

Some friends who helped me put the mobile up.

Soda Can Puppet Theater

For this project, it took me an extremely long time to figure out exactly what to create using soda cans. Pencil and paper are usually my choice materials, so I found it quite difficult to find inspiration for this project, as I did not know what I should do with the cans and how to use them in an interesting way. I also do not consider myself a particularly creative person. I am good at recreating things I see around me, but it takes while for me to come up with my own creation.

My initial plan for the can project was to create something that would hang outside and somehow make use of the wind. Ideally, I would have been able to make something that used the wind to move in interesting ways, perhaps turn, move up and down, spin, or even do all three. Unfortunately, I could not quite work out the mechanics of the interaction between wind and cans, so I ended up going in a different direction. I then thought about making a model of something. I first tried a boat, inspired by my roommate's love of paper boats, but I had a lot of trouble shaping the cans into the form of a boat. To really be able to recreate a boat, I felt that I would have to make a large model, and I wanted to keep my project on the smaller end. I still knew that I wanted to hang whatever I made outside on a tree, but I did not want it to be too conspicuous, in order to see if people would still notice it. When the boat idea did not work out, my friend suggested I make a marionette. I thought the idea of creating a marionette out of cans sounded pretty interesting. I already knew that no matter what I ended up creating out of cans, I was going to include some kind of figure because the idea of using cans to form a figure seemed like a challenge, and I wanted to see what I would be able to come up with. Therefore, I took my friend's idea and modified it a bit. I wanted to use full cans as well as cut up can sheets, so I used full cans as the theater walls, can sheets as the floor, can tops as the "roof," twisted can strips as the body of the puppet, and the can bottom as the head. Everything was connected by wires. The theater walls are all connected together. Although it looks simple, this process actually took a fairly long time. I first connected the rows. Each row is connected by one wire, which I poked through the sides of the cans, and I tightly wound the ends of the wires around the pop-tops. I then stacked the rows of cans and used one long strand of wire to connect each of the columns, using a similar method as the one I used to construct the rows. To make the "roof" of the theater, I cut out the tops of several cans and wound several strands of wire around the pop-tops to connect them all and hold them in place. The puppet itself is made out of twisted can sheet strips, and three strands of wire hold it together. Two wires go through the arms, through the body, and through the legs. Then another wire goes up through the body, through a hole I made at the bottom of the head using an awl, then through a hole I made at the top of the head, and finally up to the roof where I wound the end around one of the pop-tops, allowing the puppet to hang.

Once I completed the project, I hung it up on a tree right in my quad. It seemed like a good location because so many people pass through my quad on a daily basis, so I thought I would be able to observe a good number of reactions to my project. I received a few looks as I hung up my project, and one person even asked what I was doing. After that, however, I did not witness any other reactions to my puppet theater creation, since I had to go to class right after displaying it. One of my friends did tell me that she saw a prospective student and her mother looking at my project and poking around it. They apparently seemed intrigued by the model. According to someone in class today (I'm sorry, I don't know your name), during the football game on Saturday, a little girl really took to my project, so much that her mother had to pull her away from it. It was quite flattering to hear these responses to my project, for I had not anticipated any real reactions at all, at least nothing more than a few glances. Sadly, I did not get to witness any responses to my project because by the time I returned to check on it, it was gone. It turns out that someone tore it down (probably during tailgate), so my friend brought it inside to return to me. Whoever tore down my project, really destroyed it. The cans were all crushed, the "roof" was no longer intact, the walls had completely fallen apart, and the puppet's head was bent in half. At first, it was kind of upsetting to see that all of the work and hours I spent on this project were destroyed and put to waste within a matter of seconds, but I had not even expected any reaction to it at all, so I was then somewhat glad that someone had felt strong enough feelings about my it to do something with it, even if those feelings were not necessarily positive.