This past week in Art Therapy, my partners and I have been working on putting together our first sound prototype of our project.  We started the first class off with scaling and cutting out 19 individual panels out of cardboard and placing them evenly on dowel rods to make the heart for our prototype. We then made the framework for our prototype and tested it to see how it would work.  Once we had completed this aspect of our project, we began by making the framework for our actual final project by making a wood framed box out of 1x8 plywood.  We then began planning out the pictures we would be putting on each individual panel for our final project. We decided to do three methods on the pictures in order to give the whole art structure variety. The three types are: etch, cutting out, and photograph. 12 photos, 13 cut out, and 13 etched.   So next week we plan to begin making the different types of pictures and building the final project.

Thesis:

A Turn of the Heart is an art project to give cancer patients and their families at the Watson Clinic something to think about besides cancer.

Project Brief:

The project is a set of pictures that are resembling either paradise, peaceful places or iconic world landmarks to provoke good thoughts.  The idea of the project was that it would benefit the patients and families at the Watson Clinic by fostering good thoughts and an art piece that they could interact with.  Also, it is shaped like a heart so that the patients would feel the presence of love and know that they are loved by someone.

Project Description:

In the Art Therapy Studio, projects are created to help benefit the patients and families at the Watson Clinic in Lakeland.  Through all their grief, they can still be in a better place by just a glance.  Each panel can be turned to show different landmarks and scenery.  There were many hurdles in attempting to reach the final project.  The initial project was to make a virtual reality machine, that formulated different beautiful landmarks, it did not have enough interaction with the patients.   A Turn of the Heart enables patients to interact and see beautiful landscapes.  The project could expand with all the 5 senses moving forward.  This project will serve as a great source of positive thoughts and encouragement for the patients and family members. 

Thesis:

A Turn of the Heart is an art project to give cancer patients and their families at the Watson Clinic something to think about besides cancer.

Project Brief:

The project is a set of pictures that are resembling either paradise, peaceful places or iconic world landmarks to provoke good thoughts.  The idea of the project was that it would benefit the patients and families at the Watson Clinic by fostering good thoughts and an art piece that they could interact with.  Also, it is shaped like a heart so that the patients would feel the presence of love and know that they are loved by someone.

Project Description:

In the Art Therapy Studio, projects are created to help benefit the patients and families at the Watson Clinic in Lakeland.  Through all their grief, they can still be in a better place by just a glance.  Each panel can be turned to show different landmarks and scenery.  There were many hurdles in attempting to reach the final project.  The initial project was to make a virtual reality  machine, that formulated different beautiful landmarks, it did not have enough interaction for the patients.   A Turn of the Heart enables patients to interact and see beautiful landscapes.  The project could expand with all the 5 senses moving forward.  This project will serve as a great source of positive thoughts and encouragement for the patients and family members.  

Introduction

Have you ever desired to be taken away to better place or see the world through its best perspective without having to leave where you're at?  Now with our nuance of a project you can do just that.  Our project is "Your Spin on it,"  and it is a way in which people can be taken to their paradise by looking at our machine.  It will be a set of 3 paradise like pictures that include the mountains, ocean and big city.  Not only will we have this but we will add 3 layers to each picture so it will have a view of each image in the morning, afternoon and night.  Our inspiration is to take a simple picture of one of our 3 locations and take the viewer to that place.   So an electric billboard or electric picture frame are good examples of our project's inspiration.

Thesis

The problem is finding something specifically a piece or concept of visual art that will take both the patients and the family of the patients going through these hardships will be taken to a better place.  It is made to take their mind off of what they're going through it is designed especially for patients  attending the Watson clinic that have a lot of stress and pain going on in their every day lives.  It gives them something they can control which is a good memory and gives them power mentally which is exactly what they need.  Our project will do just this and give them the chance to interact with the pictures so that they truly feel as if they are in a better place when interacting.

Functions

Our project would work by having 3 large canvas pictures or panels  with 9 individual rectangles connecting to make the picture.  These individual rectangles can rotate 3 times to give the effect of morning, afternoon and evening.  The patients would come up to the large machine and decided which of the three locations they would prefer to go to and then rotate the individual rectang;es together to create the different settings of each canvas.  

Closing

In the future we pan for this project to be made into a diverse set of images that can be turned into having more specific location designated to the individual viewer.  We also hope to make it mobile so it can be moved to various areas and made more as a convenience.  We plan to change the initial design to a more trapezoid like design for better flow of pictures and layers. This is important not only to sustain meaningful memories but all in all make the world a better place.

Our idea is a portrayal of a paradise simulator.  So what our project is made to do is accomplish our mission statement of taking patients minds off of what they're going through by placing them somewhere else and creating something positive for the patient to look at.  So our structure will be a triangle like room that will be made with shifting or rotating triangles to create different images of certain paradise places.  So the whole triangle like contraption will all rotate at once to change images or locations so to speak almost like an electronic billboard.  Two positives that were said by our peer critique was that it would help to capture the patients mind and bring them to a happy place by Morgan, and another good by Emma and Lindze that the in air and or wheeled designs will help with the small space at the center and help to transfer it and grow it outside the center as well.  Our peer critique group helped us to realize that we should expand the variation of locations because everyones paradise isn't the same.  Also, they pointed out that it would be better to have smaller but more detailed triangles all moving in a line for better efficiency. Our next step will be to start designing a layout for the project of what we want it to look like. Then we will need to scale our project so that we can begin working on our first model.  Once we have our first model it will be far easier to advance from there.

My partner Jake and I's initial brainstorming  process started off  as a multitude of basic ideas transformed to the context of the problem by which we were trying to solve.  We were given the task to create and innovate a type of machine, that was made to be self reliant in producing visual art of almost any type.  Once presented with the problem, my partner and I began to collaborate in coming up with ideas for prototypes.  Some such as a miniature motorized cart on wheels that would have an arm attached to it with either a paintbrush or marker and would bring color and art forms to paper when in use.  We played around with and attempted to think of which idea would best suit are needs and one by which we could best produce a prototype for.  Then we finally came to a conclusion with our brainstorming  when we came up with the idea for a type of machine that would act as though a ski pulley system would.  The pulley system would be conclusive of that of a contraption found at a ski park except with added details exclusive to our art edition of the machine.  The machine in the same way a skier is pulled by the pulley system of the ski lift will be the way by which we create our art.   So we began the process by sketching out ideas of what it would look like and then getting exact measurements so that we could perfect our design.  As we started to build our prototype, we realized to guarantee the success of our project several changes to our design had to be made.  The first change we realized we had to make is rebuilding the base structure  so that the base was widened out more.  By doing this it took pressure off the central  point of the lift and made it more stable by spreading out the pressure between four legs.  Another change we realized we needed to make was adding a third circle that was smaller in between our wheels that make what is our pulley.  This allowed for a groove where the rope will fit into making that rotation more fluid.  Lastly we added in horizontal support beams across the side of the lift to ensure the upmost strength and stabilization. However we did come into several abiding conflicts while in the process of developing our project.  The first was flimsy materials that make stabilization of our lift an issue.  If our lift isn't stable then it will break apart and fall victim to defeat.  Another large conflict we came upon that runs in relation to our other conflict was, finding techniques to make our prototype the most foundationally stable it could be.  The last challenge that we faced in our design process was time mainly lack their of. This leads to the final point of how we would further our project if we had any additional time.  If Jake and I had more time to work on our ski lift art machine, we would have created more base pulley systems.  We also would have placed these pulley systems in strategic design patterns to change up what the final masterpiece would turn out to be.  Lastly we would change up the gear ratio so that it could make the pulleys either slower or faster, thereby making the color appear differently in different areas.

This past week in my art therapy studio, my partner Jake and I were challenged to make an opening mini project that would encorporate a way to make visual art with a machine.  We started by brainstorming and drawing up different ideas for all types of different machines that would be diverse and work in various ways to produce the commonality of visual art.  So after, bouncing back and forth between multiple ideas we finally decided on a type of machine that is similar to that of a contraption found at a ski park.  The machine in the same way a skier is pulled by the the pulley system of the ski lift will be the way by which we create our art.  Attached to the rope will be a paintbrush or some other artistic utensil too produce color and art on the paper.  We mainly focussed building our design this week and preparing it to test.  The main design challenges we faced were both scaling appropriately and building the design so that it runs fluidly with no stops or brakes in the system.  Next week we plan to make sure it runs well and is very fluid all around so that we can produce our very first piece of unique art.

Project Statement:

 A Turn of the Heart is a set of pictures that are resembling either paradise, peaceful places or iconic world landmarks to provoke good thoughts. It took many sets of iterations and prototypes to create the final project presented today.  The idea for this project came after a visit to the Watson Clinic in Lakeland where we found two initial ideas to come up with the same  result.  The first idea was a set of stained glass windows that depicted different messages of hope or images when you put a special pair of glasses on and looked into them. The second idea was for a Virtual Reality machine that when in, the user would be taken to their personal paradise by seeing, hearing and feeling like they were transported to a better place.  After combining these two ideas in the hopes of bringing an escape for patients, we looked at different ways to develop this project. After thought on this project idea we moved towards something that the patients could interact with more such as panels they could spin to see a picture of their paradise. After deciding on this as the path for our project, we decided to begin by first designing the layout using cardboard cutouts and wooden dowel rods. Once we had a visual for how the project would look, we began to work more on the mechanism to make sure the panels could all spin while still staying in the shape of a heart. After minor complications with the mechanism and the flow of our panels in their spinning motion, we rearranged the panels and spaced them out so they could spin freely and still keep the shape of a heart.  Once this was finished we began our final project by making etchings and cut outs in rhino.  We then put the etchings and cut outs onto the wooden boxes we had designed in box designer and we cut them all out.  We finished our final project by putting all the boxes together and them placing them in order on the steel rods within the framework.  This finalized the project we have today.

Coach Aaron suggested we work on the geometry of the structure along with actual size as to how our project will scale out. Along with this, he  also suggested that we prioritize the order in which we do things for our projects, instead of working first on the mechanism he said we need to focus on immediately deciding which pictures we will be using as our personal paradises. Another recommendation was that we start by making a first model out of cardboard and make a small scale of the panel and put it on an axis to see how it will spin. Changes that we are going to make is to make the whole scale of the project smaller and a better geometric shape that will most likely be a heart. Another thing we will work on immediately after finish finding the images is figure out how to make our mechanism and get it to flow correctly.  Lastly, I believe that  is a crucial to methodise our timeline in order to make it so that  we finish our project on time.

This past class, my partner and I worked to make the first initial prototype for our project.  We started by re-designing our box on box designer and resizing the notches so they would fit together better.  After we had finished this design, we transferred it over to rhino and notched a central hole on opposite ends of the box so that we could put a dowel through the box and portray the spinning mechanism of the box.  Once we had finished the design of the panel, we sent it to the laser cutter and cut out the box.  Next class we plan to finish cutting out the rest of the boxes and make our first prototype of out project.