Short Outing in St. Augustine

I tried to locate everyone who went, but had no success. Maybe folks went earlier in the morning? Anyways, I went to the beach and then went to the field next to Castillo de San Marcos. I don't know how the actual pictures taken while the kite was in flight will come out, but I took some (not very good) pictures of the place and the kite flying from where I was standing. I will attempt this again in the future!

... the Ghost Delta in the air!



here's Koura the Corgi waiting patiently...



it's way up there



at one point, my dog got distracted and ran somewhere in my attempt to go and fetch her, the kite got away, leaving the camera cradle in a vulnerable position, this is what happened to it.



looks like a prime place to kite fly huh



But alas, I did not have everything working out to my advantage. So folks that is the end of my adventure. Not much, only nerdy pictures to tell.

the kite aerial camera project

I received the kite on Friday like planned. However, there is no kite reel or kite string, and of course I forgot about that. Yes that's perfect. And the kite is gigantic. I knew that one though. I flew it a little bit with some spider line today. Works I guess, for now. Too bad Coastal Kites is out of town until the 26th, so looks like my line won't get in until 2 weeks from now. But I can see myself flying this kite in the near future for fun.

Anyways, I have pictures of the camera rig.






parts, parts, parts. I got parts.













we're getting closer...

























and voila! we are at the end of the kite aerial camera rig. There's a cradle involved. I did not snap photos. You like those bit crumbs on our small coffee table, for added effect.

The work of Kara Walker reminds me a bit of shadow puppetry. Though it is not manipulation of the puppet through conventional means, her work acts on the silhouettes which under overhead projections seem to animate the images. Her new exhibition "Song of the South" includes an installation of film (and 16mm!), experiments with projection and shadows, live performances, animation, and a shadow puppet performance. It also features a premiere of the film 8 Possible Beginnings: or the Creation of African-America. A Moving Picture by the young, self-taught, Genius of the South K.E. Walker. Her shadow dramas depict acts of sex, birth, dismemberment and play coupled with dominance and desire, fantasy and fear.



It is currently on display at the Redcat in L.A.
Sept. 3-Oct. 23, 2005
There will be a performance of the artist at 7PM on Oct 23 - with what the gallery says a Live Shadow Puppet Performance.

yeah i'm a bit behind as well. but it's going to be done by tomorrow (the camera rig) for the aerial kite tomorrow! That's what I'm planning on. Also I bought a kite! woo-wee! It's the ghost delta bought from Coastal Kites. The instructions stated for a kite that holds a line of at least 100lb. So thus a more costly kite I chose.

i've been checking out shadow puppetry. Shadow images of very elaborate and handcrafted puppets are projected onto a screen. It originates from India and Egypt, and traveled to Turkey, Greece, China, Thailand, Camboia, and in Indonesia.
There's a shadow puppeteering company called Shadowlight Productions founded by a pioneer of modern shadow puppetry, Larry Reed.

Reed is drawn to Native American mythology and storytelling. His contemporary interpretations of Native American tales are told in a format borrowed from the tradition of Indonesian shadow theatre. He also uses digital technology to produce shadows of the actors and stage sets, which are projected onto a giant screen that spans the entire width of stage.

robots

so i have this book, absolute beginner's guide to building robots(Que Publishing 2004. i bought it when i took Pappenheimer's Machine Sculpture class 3 semesters or so ago, and thought i'd use it. well, it turned out to be a little bit more complicated and time-consuming,plus we were focusing on projects dealing with feedback and surveillance rather than straight robotics. anyways, needless to say i didn't use it. but it's pretty cool because it teaches you step by step these projects. one is a coat hanger walker, another actually involves using a computer mouse, and still others. and it's got a decent guide to robot resources. but you know you could always use these projects as stepping stones for puppetry.

they also list some robot research centers like:


Biorobotics lab at Case Western University - they study the mechanics of nature to see what can be engineered into robo-critters i.e. cockroach, ants, crickets, and other creepy crawler types.

Biorobotics Lab


Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute - Lots of labs working on various robotic research and projects.

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute



Humanoid Robotics Group- It's MIT. need i say more?

Humanoid Robotics Group



JPL Robotics - Developments in space robotics research.

JPL Robotics



Jouhou System Kougaku Lab- the JSK Lab @ the University of Tokyo (mostly in Japanese though)

Jouhou System Kougaku Lab



Robotics Research in Japan- A list of all universities and research centers in Japan devoted to robotics.

Robotics Research in Japan



Poly- PEDAL lab -- the lab @ Berkeley, also studying robotics based on the nature of insects. The poly- refers to "many-footed" animals, while the PEDAL = Performance, Energetics, and Dynamics of Animal Locomotion.

Poly-PEDAL lab



happy research.