My compatriot, Mike Levy, and myself just successfully had the first of our seasonal radio show: “The Weird & The Beard”. This is a time-lapse of our show, 2 hours compressed into 2 minutes.

Be sure to tune in Thursdays at Midnight. 88.3FM for Pittsburgh listeners or wrct.org for the rest of the world, where we have mp3 and ogg streams.

I’m happy to say that there is now a web-ready version of Roku.

I won’t be releasing a downloadable version because I feel this is representative enough of the gameplay.

Click the screen to go play Roku! It is a rather large file (15MB), be patient for the download.

Roku has a simple game metric chosen to link together the virtual and physical game play: Cellular Automata.

Roku is made from an arbitrary number of cells arranged into a hexagonal grid, like a honeycomb. The concept of Cellular Automata is reflected in Roku by each cell recognizing and affecting only it’s direct neighbors. This allows the game play to be very simple yet unique.

While this version has only two games Warm and Cool, other games could be created from this same base mechanic. For example the introduction screen is actually Conway’s Game of Life implemented in hexagonal space.

Physically, Roku exhibits strong Modular Design by using identical physical cells. It would be possible to build a Roku game board of any shape and size which allows for unique physical implementations while enabling mass-production.

Roku Warm is much like the game Lights Out. Pressing a cell will cause all of its neighbors to toggle between up and down. If a neighbor cell was up, it moves down and vice versa. Pressing the same cell a second time would return the board to it’s previous state.

To win the level, all cells must end up in the down position.

Roku Cool is about making clusters of the same color. Pressing a cell causes the colors of it’s neighbor cells to rotate. Pressing again would cause a second rotation. Six consecutive presses would return the board to it’s original state.

Make clusters of a common color to eliminate them from the board and buy you more time. Top out the time-bar to win the level.

Roku uses Cellular Automata and Modular Design techniques within a Game Design method. The result is pretty interesting in terms of a physical-virtual game crossover, expandable systems and furniture design.

Hopefully, the result is just fun!

This final semester I’m taking a course called Experimental Form: exploring form through mountains of sketches and ideation and a handful of creations. Half sculpture, half product design; the idea of this course is to create beautiful, personal objects of function.

I’m spinning the class by incorporating as many programmatic elements as possible: parametric form, force-directed layouts, mathematical constructs, and data-driven form. I think there is a powerful opportunity there to create unique and interesting things. In mass-produced situations, these objects could be individually and personally unique.

Our first project was a quick one: a day to generate a concept and a day to build and photograph a model. The concept was a fruit platter generated by a circle-packing program built around the constraints of the platter.

Click the image to play with the template generator: press space-bar to randomly generate circles, click empty space to make a new circle, drag around existing circles. Click hold & press ‘z’ to delete.

From this program I export PDF files which are sent to a laser cutter, therefore each platter is unique. Ideally this product would be made from CNC milled porcelain.

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Our New Years party was complete with contextual beat-sensitive dance lighting. Dance along the wall and you’re spotlit with a dynamic colorful burst of light. The light bursts along with the beat of the music.

The countdown used BubbleType, a project I worked on earlier in the semester. Dynamic motion typography based on a particle system. This let the countdown itself be set in motion by the beat of the music.

For our countdown we played a portion of the DFA Remix of Gorillaz’ Dare. The 120BPM lined up nicely with the countdown.

I hope everyone had a fantastic evening, and best wishes for the new year! May 2008 be the best year yet.