Side Quest: San José Tech Museum

A couple weeks ago Michael and I took a walk down to the San José Technology Museum! At first he accidentally lead us to the art museum and we bummed around, but after realizing there isn't much tech there, we went across the street to the real museum. I saved the whole adventure as a snapchat story which converted into a video clip for some reason... so here I've pieces together the adventure without the videos.

Here's us entering the museum. We were fairly impressed at how large and artistic the building was structured. We started our journey by going to the top floor.

Without knowing anything about the museum, we were pleasantly surprised to see that it's main audience is children... meaning there was a lot of hands-on equipment... meaning we were really excited to touch all the displays.

Here's a simple machine where you can learn binary. By connecting the circuit, the input changes from 0 to 1. I spelled Michael's name out for him. It was pretty cool.

In between the two areas up top were some robots! Here is a sorting bot, lovingly named Alphabot who spells whatever he is told using the little wooden blocks. The children were having a time by just punching in random letters. Michael and I felt our hearts go out to Alphabot.

Also there's Buster. He's cool we asked him for some selfies. He talks and gave Michael a fist bump.

On the other side of the top floor was just more activities, mainly involving sound/music and genetics. There's another part I forgot to mention, but it's these small devices where you scan your ticket and take quizzes.

Then we took a venture to the underground level. Here they had displays for robots and body-tracking technology.

This is a furby display that Michael and I were extremely charmed by if not also very frightened of. We watched a little boy with his mother play with the controls. We never touched the thing.

Here's the body tracker, and Michael playing it. Then a picture of the earthquake room.

Before the simulator goes off, we're allowed to build some foam buildings. Michael's is the large building, he thought a good foundation might make it last. I just made a lot of small stacks. it was fun to watch them fall.

Right next to the earthquake section was an area dedicated to space travel and mars. There was a cool jetpack chair thing, but the line was too long.

Another area taught us how to pick locks and be bandits! :)

We finished the day by getting sick pennies of course. It was a good time that smelled heavily of popcorn and filled with the sound of laughter. See you next time, SJTech!

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

My first two term paper scores were both above 80; I will not be writing a third term paper.

Outline of the Third Term Paper

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

Introduction:

·         -Modern technology has yielded us efficient modes of transportation such as cars, airplanes, and trains. But in entertainment, whenever we imagine a new vehicle or weapon, it’s often in the form of a human. And not just a human-sized robot, but a giant robot.

·         -Thesis: The different portrayals of giant robots in different media.

Body:

1.       -Pacific Rim (2013)

o   Full CG modeled and animated Mechs

o   No use of scale models

o   The realism of the environments makes the audience believe the depth of the situation. That the most powerful weapon at our disposal are these giant robots with random powers.

o   288 ft. tall

o   American

2.       -Super Sentai/Power Rangers Series

o   Using Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger, the 37^th Super Sentai team (2013)

o   Guys in costumes

o   Scale models of cityscapes used

o   Not filmed in slow-motion, but the actors move slowly to create a feeling of weight. We can tell that the film is at 1x speed because of the overlap and drag with some of the monsters’ costumes.

o   Uses the same type of explosions for the mech that they use for the human-sized actors

§  The particles are the same, but the explosions should be larger because of the amount of particles involved at that scale.

o   Is built on a proud tradition of using practical effects since 1975.

o   They probably have the budget to create full CG fight scenes being one of the most successful franchises in Japan.

o   There are a few scenes that do use CG, but it’s only in the transformation scenes that are stock footage used in every episode.

o   ~42m = ~138ft

o   Japanese

Conclusion:

·         -Comparison/contrast

o   The ability to control the effects of the city (as well as wind, rain, and lighting) are accomplished at an astronomically higher level in Pacific Rim than in any iteration of Super Sentai.

o   However, the two styles of giant mech fit the tone of each story. Pacific Rim is a more realistic world, and thrives on creating reality, believability, and therefore suspense. Super Sentai is geared towards smaller children, and is a campy show overall.

Reference:

http://www.zimbio.com/Beyond+the+Box+Office/articles/TzjPYG8JMuA/Pacific+Rim+How+Engineer+Sees+Jaeger

https://www.grnrngr.com/zords/zyuranger

Stop-Motion Character Animation

Hey, we're back with another stop-motion animation! This time it's supposed to be character. Hopefully it's understandable if not a bit messy:

Both the crane and the fish in my animation are folded paper. I used 26-gauge wire in the wings of the crane, as well as the body of the fish to keep them in place during certain movements. I also twisted the wire to create sturdier legs and toes for the crane that were easier to see. The toes are movable, but I wasn't able to utilize them fully.

The "water" is just plastic wrap over some blue paper, and the backdrop is a white cloth. I did have to edit out some of my hand as some shots had the characters jumping/flying.

I used Windows Movie Maker for the compositing again.