"Bamboo, my new master" heh...

Here's a connection between the growth of a child to the growth of a bamboo, in relations to spiritual practice in Tai Chi.

I'm playing around with this idea to relate the growth of a child to that of a bamboo: A child grows and develops physically in the metaphorical "long smooth section" in bamboos, where "sprouts of creativity shoots" from the knobs, when lessons and bumps are encountered in the course of a child's life. In the end, each increment grows taller and taller and eventually, over time-change of weather-adaptation-perhaps growth pains- into an adult form.


I quote from this blog:
"The knobbly bit represents the class (this guy is taking Tai Chi), the long smooth section (is) the practice.

Notice that the sprouts grow from the knobbly part. This is where creativity shoots from. The knobbly part is the lesson and also a relaxing period. The long stem is the work and practice section, this is where Tai Chi happens. In class we learn, but without practice it is meaningless. So my new mantra is practice, practice, practice with a little bit of learning every once in a while."

Johnny Lee talks at TED

The subject line is quite self explanatory :) Looks like Johnny is receiving a lot of good attention from his research. Good for him.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/245

G

Drag & Draw - A Digital Painting Kit

I was just sent this link by a friend and thought it would be a great resource for our ongoing research. Philips is developing this digital painting kit geared at children where the idea is you paint with light. Ehhh you say, saw this before, well, by simply waving the crayon/wand, you can animate the light drawings. It's magic, haha. The digital 'paint bucket' they present is amazing too.

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/video-philips-digital-light-painting-kit

Enjoy!

Crayon Prototype - Finally

Garrett completed our crayon prototype a couple of weeks ago and since I am responsible for working out some of the software glitches it has been in my possession. Unfortunately I kept forgetting to put up pictures so as promised here they are!

The entire crayon prototype.

The Tip - side view

The Tip - Top view
(Yes it's a bouncy ball!)

Finally the guts...

As for the software glitches we are having some issues getting a proper movement ratio from the crayons so I will continue to work on that and hopefully have a solution for Thursday. Everyone cross their fingers!

Interesting links

Photopen.com
A Tree is Alive!
Our Desired Style





As requested...

Mices...

The mice have finally arrived in the mail today...all three :) So my next step is to open 'em up and see what they can do. I hope they work as well as I think they will. Again, these mice utilize Bluetooth connections good for a range of 10m, or so the package says.

I also did a little talking with both IKG staff and Curtis Burns, and have relayed our need to use the middle space in the mainmall for the installation. Apparently the space is not under the control of the gallery, but Curtis said that our use of it was fine. It does work more like a general access area, so we should claim the space as soon as we see fit. AV also has an extending arm that we can use to attach a mirror, so that will work good.

In regards to the musical grid, I'm still researching the idea of using 'cossonate' (pleasant sounding) intervals for the notes. I hope to have something soon that we can apply.

That is all...for now.

Useful links

The following is useful in our future research:


http://psychology.ucalgary.ca/CCD/child/


"The Ch.I.L.D. Research Group at the University of Calgary is made up of four developmental psychologists who are interested in how infants and children develop language, learning, and social understanding."