The Final Model

Here is the front view of the finished model. As you can see i went with chopsticks as they are mush more rigid than straws so can handle being tightened together to lock in place.

In this picture we can see the "tennis racket" string tightening system which locks the chopsticks in place when needed.

This shows the grid structure I created to hold the chopsticks in place and to stop them from dragging on each other when pushed.

And finally the model in action, the chopsticks take the shape of whatever pushed them.

The unforseen errors

My first attempt at just putting all the chopsticks into the frame brought up the problem that when you push one the others next to it are pulled by friction. I will need to develop a grid to seperate the chopsticks so that this does not happen.

The grid is working great but my tightening method with the bolts is not working so I think I will try something similar to the strings on a tennis racket to get a more even tightening.

Revised Costing Plan

I have decided that chopsticks will work much better than straws and will be much cheaper than wire. These will cost $20 for 500 pairs. In addition to the nails I will need bolts, spring washeres, wing nuts and regular washers. These will cost around $16 all up. This gives me a new total of $60.

The Straw Mould

I decided to go with Idea 3 as it best represents what a class is and does. I am going to try a quick build with the straws and see how that works but am thinking I might need a different material. Perhaps chopsticks or wire.

A cost list for this will be as follows.

Straws x 1000 = $4
Wood for frame = free
Nails = $4

Total $8

Also my Timeplan;

I wish to have tried the straw mould by the end of the week to know what final materials i am going to work with. I then will finish the proper mould within that weekend to ensure I have time to work out any unforseen errors in my plan.

Idea 3

My third and final idea is to make a mould out of a frame and straws. The straws being in a grid pattern and when you push them the ones you touch slide back creating a handprint. This will be locked by tightening them somehow and then putty can be put into this handprint to make a casting of it.

Idea 2

My second idea  was to use some sort of silly putty as a reuseable mould that can have someone's hand imprinted in it. I could then have something else that you put into this to get a cast of your hand. There is no real way to lock the putty in place between different hands however so it probably won't work so well.

Class Idea 1

For my first idea I want to try something with a camera that takes a photo when it recognizes a face (the variable). When the picture is taken this is the blueprint and it can be printed off representing the object made when it is called on.

Project 3 The Metaphor

I have decided that my chosen coding term will be "class". A class is best described as a blueprint that takes information and stores it as a plan. When the program starts running the class cannot be changed but it can be called on multiple times to create an object that it has  the plan for.

Final Exploding Balls

Here is my final working code at http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=27135. I have the balls changing through lerpcolor from yellow to red as yellow is generally seen as a safe colour and red being danger. This represents when the balls turn red they explode on mouse touch rather than playing the warning beep at other colours.

Central Gravity Idea

At this stage I had the balls gravitating towards the centre however they were initially flying off the to the left. Eventually I fixed this and bought in changing colours based on position. The code is at http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=27132

Different surfaces to bounce off

Now I was playing around with multiple balls bouncing off circular surfaces and the flat walls on the edge of the screen. This code was a bit glitchy as when the central circle changes size some of the balls get trapped inside and go crazy. This can be seen at http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=27130

The Single Bouncing Ball

Started with this bouncing ball code from one of the tutorials and added in X motion as well. Also added more balls which was a good start for where I was heading. Here it is http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=27128

Initial Ideas

My original idea incorporating moving balls impacting and exploding. I wanted my focus to be on the balls and how they move with the environment that they are in.

Wallpaper Final Solution

    

So here are my final designs for my wallpaper. Compared to my sketches these have been developed a fair bit but still have that same original theme. I stuck with the greens and yellows as it looked a lot like the photo I found of the light piercing the forest, which I think is quite appealing. 

Planned Sketches

So here are the sketches I showed in my presentation of my proposal for the wallpaper designs. It is based on the theme of sunshine and tries to show the different effects of light.

Sunshine Patterns

After creating this sunshine effect I searched sunshine patterns to see what else I could do with it.

And then I thought I'd look at real sunshine to get some more inspiration. I thought these pictures really brought out the image i was going for.

The light piercing through the trees and the clouds looks really striking and I want to aim to bring that out in my wallpaper.

Inspiration

Sitting in a lecture the other day I saw a t-shirt that had a design very similar to this one below andthought I'd base some patterns on it.

I really like the sunbeam effect and this would be really good to create a focal point on my wallpaper designs. Also these colours work well so I might try altering from the green and yellow that I have in the Green Sunshine code from my earlier link.

Processing Wallpaper

So I've churned out some patterns in processing and am particularly proud of how Green Sunshine turned out. Here's the link http://www.openprocessing.org/portal/?userID=10250

Intro

Hi. Im Zac and this is my Creative Coding Blog which is soon to be full of crazy and interesting designs that I will have created using code. So far I can see this course being very interesting and intrigueing and can't wait to get into it!