If you haven’t wanted to smash your computer at some point you are neither a computer user nor hacker (and then how would you be reading this page?)
The goal for Smash Your Computer is to use the processing power of the computer to provide a cathartic simulation of its own destruction. The installation consists of a beige computer case in front of a projection screen and a foam rubber sledgehammer that the participant uses to hit the case. Sensors in the case determine the force and direction of the sledgehammer and drive a software physical model that is used to generate graphics of the case breaking apart. Hitting the case in a different direction or with a different force causes the simulated case to break apart appropriately.
Preliminary sketches:
PyODE is a Python wrapper around the Open Dynamics Engine. ODE does rigid body simulation including collision detection and friction.
I had to modify the source code for their third tutorial to make it work with my version of cgkit (2.0.0alpha5). Code on the next page. You can also press ‘d’ to drop a new object.
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Wow, I have a real blog (and on a vanity domain at that).
This is mostly a log for for my projects for school (Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU) since that’s what’s consuming most of my time. Comments on projects are appreciated!
For those of you who aren’t caught up, I’m currently living in New York City in the aforementioned graduate program. I graduate in summer of 2007 which really doesn’t seem all that far away. Before ITP I was living in San Francisco working for Slide while meanwhile working on a few other projects in my copious spare time. It does strike me as ironic that I left one of the hotbeds of interactive art to pursue it at school, but so far it seems worth it!