Wednesday, October 17, 2018

21st Century Technology Developments



One recent 21st century technology is the Nintendo Switch, a portable game console released March 2017. A lot of different things contribute to its development, but the real beginnings are in 1986, when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in America. There were many other hone gaming consoles before the NES, but the NES had more launch titles to help it stand out among the crowd, along with innovations on the controller. The NES introduced the D-pad, a plus-shaped button that allowed for more movement options, as well as the Start and Select buttons. The Switch Pro Controller has a D-pad, and although the Joy-Cons (seen on the left side of the above image) do not have a designated D-pad, the buttons on the bottom of the leftmost Joy-Con act as a D-pad.

The Switch controllers also use dual analog sticks, which allows for much greater control in 3D environments. Unlike the D-Pad, the analog sticks allow for a full 360 degree range of movement. In most games, one stick is used for character movement while the other helps move the camera. Analog sticks can go back to arcade games, as many used joysticks for control. Eventually they found their way onto console controllers as the jump to 3D in games required better movement methods.

The image at the top shows a Switch console in the charging dock. In this way the Switch can present images on a TV screen. But the Switch can also detatch from this base to be portable (see below). In this form, the screen is on the console itself, and the monitor also acts as a touch screen. Touchscreens have been around for a while now, with their use being popularized with the iPhone. Touchscreens weren't widely used in video game consoles until the Nintendo DS, and they are widely used on portable consoles.
These are just a few technology improvements that led to the Switch's development. Honestly I typed a lot but if you read this far thanks for coming to my TED talk

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Skittles Grid Art

On class last Friday, we learned about the grid and to demonstrate how grids work to display images, we created pixel art with skittles and frosting. On a monitor or TV screen, many pixels make up a grid of colors to display images in greater quality. Bitmap image formats such as .jpeg and .png also use pixels in this way. This project simulated this so we could see how each skittle color in a single row eventually makes up a whole image. My image was of an unicorn. The body is the red skittles, the horn is pink, the mane is green, and the background is blue. This project was fun and I'm glad to have been able to work with my hands a little in this class. 



Friday, October 12, 2018

Performance Art Video

This performance art piece is of me running with various pieces of trash strapped to me. In between are segments of me writing. Eventually I get slower and slower as the garbage drags me down... Eventually the word is finished being written - it spells out "Free". Then I put away the garbage and am free to run again. I wanted to show the effects of worry in our everyday lives - it slows us down and drags us back. But letting go of such things allows us to be more mobile.