Category: Inspiration

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General Inspiration Multi-Rotors

Maker Faire NYC 2014

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This past weekend I was able to attend the Make Faire on Saturday in Queens, NYC. I had heard of this from the NYC Drone User Group email newsletter and the build-In I went to but didn’t really think to much of it in terms of attending. Then I found out that Flitetest would be attending and that got me a bit more interested in attending but I was still on the fence most of the week before and didn’t get my ticket till the day before.

So on Saturday I made the trek out there from NJ to experience the Maker Faire which really was the greatest show and tell. There was so much going on it was kind of hard to focus on anyone thing specifically. I should have used my experience from going to NYCC to really plan out what I wanted to do ahead of time. I did have two main things do plus what I marked as some fav’s in the maker faire app, but when I got there I didn’t look at the app at all.

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The top thing on my list to was to visit the FliteTest Tent and talk to those guys. It was really cool being able to talk to all of them after watching all of their videos on youtube. I had the chance to talk to all of them for a bit including their production/camera man and talk a bit about the production of the show too which was really cool. I took a few pictures of their tent and some of the planes and multi-rotors they brought with them. My favorite from the show that they brought was the toaster plane.

FliteTtest didn’t get to fly much that I saw at this event since for the most part it was not allowed but Peter did get a chance to fly his VTOL in the Game of Drone Cage for a bit with some other multi-rotors.  Check out the footage I recorded. I also have some footage of two drone battles that I may add-on my YouTube channel.

The second thing that I had in mind for the trip was to see the DroneKraft presentation and their racing quad that they where showing off. DroneKraft Image 50pThe overall presentation was nice but a bit boring  if you had some experience in quads at all before. They did do a nice bit on explaining what their goals where and what they do with “drones” vs the military. And I think the crowd liked the videos that they showed. They also took a nice risky flight of their quad in the small area they had to present. I took a video of it you can view below.

Other than those two main things I pretty much walked around without much purpose looking at all the cool things.  I took a lot of interest in there 3D printers since I’m looking to get one. There was a lot to look it, it definitely would have been cool to go back for a second day if I could,  I think next year I will. Here are some other pictures I took from the event. I also posted some gifs on my tumblr.

 

 

Categories
General Inspiration

Quad Blog and First Quad Build

So it seems I have neglected this space for almost another 2 months but I have made posts just now here… So as I mentioned in my last post I have recently been focusing all of my extra time on Quadcopters, Multi-Rotors, Drones, what ever name you like or hate to call them.

If you would like to follow my flying journey you can check out my blog on the flitetest. I’ve posted videos of my flights as well as recording the build of my first quad.  Here’s the video of my first test flight. 

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It’s pretty cool being able to build something and have it actually work out and fly in the end. I’m planning on doing a larger post to recap my Multi-Rotor experiences so far that I will be posting here first so stay tuned for that.

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General Inspiration

A New Year & Quadcopter’s

So the new year begins and I’m scrambling to make a my first post of the year. The reason for this is partly do to work, which is a good thing, and second because of my new-found interest quadcopters or multi-rotors in general. Their fun, easyish to fly, and have endless possibilities for uses. So far I have 4 micro sized ones (one had to be replaced pulling an Icarus move in the sky) and a DX6i Radio to control two of them. My main use in for them, other than to have fun flying them, is for very amateur aerial video.

The video above is one of my better videos so far using a key chain camera (720p) on top of my Red Eye One quad in light snow and some “mild” wind, hence the video being at a constant angle. I really shouldn’t be taking it out in hazardous weather but their so fun to fly out doors. Once I can get some steady video footage I’m going to have to figure out how I can integrate some cool motion graphics

The next thing I would like to do is build a quad, probably using a kit so I can be sure every thing will work right, and do some First Person View flying. I probably need some more stick(flying) time before I do any real FPV but it looks likes a lot of fun and there is any easy, but expensive setup for the Red eye one, so I’ll have to see. I also would like to make the next quad I get a bit bigger in size so well see. If I get to the custom building stage I have some cool ideas for ones I could build using a 3D printer to make the frame and other parts.

Some place I’ve been following are

Flyin’ Ryan RC – Who does great reviews on on planes and quads.

FliteTest – Who not only does reviews of planes, quad, heli’s but is also a full site dedicated to the R/C Hobby and getting people involved in the hobby.

rcgroups.com – a great site for all things R/C related.

So now I’m off to do some more flying.

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Inspiration

Steal like an Artist quotes on Mojux

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General Inspiration Photos

High Line Park Photos

A few photo’s I took when I went to the high line in nyc with some friends.  I really liked some of the architecture on some of the buildings.

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General Inspiration Photos

LE CREUSET TRUCKETTE

Yesterday I went to my town’s celebration day where they have a bunch of shops off the main street, bunch of games for the kids, music and sell food. I took a quick panoramic shot that you can see below.

While I was there I came across a cool vintage truck across the main avenue parked in front of kitchen ware store.  This is a fully restored 1967 Citroen Truckette that is used to deliver the products LE CREUSET and an assortment of other supplies for 50+ years.



 

I think the color is what made me notice it initially with its bright orange color that stood out especially since it was kind of a dreary day. After that I really liked just the vintage style of the design of the truck and it’s compactness of design overall. As it states in the info booklet about the truck the design with the purpose to fit tight streets and alleys of cities and navigate the switchbacks of the countryside.  The booklet is nicely designed as well and fits the style of the truck with its half tone patterns giving it a vintage feel as well.

 

You can find out more about their products at http://truelecreuset.com/

 

Also as an added share about cars and Art/Design you can check out the Great cars are Art TED Talk by Chris Bangle.

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_bangle_says_great_cars_are_art.html

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Inspiration

Colors Magazine #80


Just about every time I go to New York usually find my way into a bookstore of some kind be it Barnes and Nobel, Borders, a comic book store or some other bookstore. This past Friday I went into Borders right above Penn. Station and decided to check out the magazines. Instead of checking out the art magazine first like I normally do I went down another aisle. After reading the How Stuff Works book, which is always fun to read, I came across a comic book magazine which seemed out of place since the comics where in the aisle before.   It was titled Superheroes so I thought it would be a cool read.

It was a cool read but not in these sense that it had people with super human abilities, although their determination to do what they can for the world might seem like it to some. They were just “regular” people from around the world doing what they can for other people. What made the stories even better is that their all true stories about real people.

While waiting in borders I read about 75% of the book before I left. At the end of each story there is a page or so that goes into more detail about the story. One of the stories drew upon it’s similarities with dual identities specifically with Spider Man. The person in this story by day was a simple barber that listened to people’s problems. However by night he was the hostess at night club that was able to get everyone in the club to donate money for a woman who came to him earlier who had lost everything in a fire. There are many stories like that dealing with other people selflessly helping others the best way they can.

I would recommend anyone to pick up a copy if you can or order it from their site if you want to see some great art and some great inspirational stories about real life super heroes.  There also is an iPad app as well.

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Daily 365 Inspiration Mograph Notes Motion Graphics

DuckDuckGo + Process from the Pro’s

DuckDuckGo is a new search engine that I have been using for about a week or so now. It pretty useful for get information without having to do a lot of searching courtesy of their “zero click info” box. I have yet to use 100% yet, something’s I still use google for like maps and images but there are plans to implement some of these things.

The idea for this quick logo animation just came to me for looking at their search page at their logo and thinking it would be cool to see it quack. So I decided to make a quick animation that would involve the duck quacking. I did a quick outline that involved the duck duck goose game to tell about the search engine since that where the name came from. Originally I made the re-made the logo then found their forums where they had the Illustrator version…mine was almost exactly the same.

My animation turned out ok I think, I notice now that the Go bounce looks a little off but that may just be because I’m going frame by frame. I used my copy of the The Animators Survival Kit to try to get the bouncing right. I haven’t done a bouncing ball since my third year of college.   I also noticed that the head looks a little too stiff when the duck is quacking I think adding some more movement to the top beak might have made it look even better.

 

 

 

 

 

The second item I would like to share is the process page of capacity If you have watched NBC or Cartoon Network there is a good chance you have seen some of their work. They have been featured on motionographer a few times but for some reason I don’t recall checking out their site. Not sure how I came across their site this time but I started looking through their site and found their gold mine of a process page which has break downs on some of their projects.

Finding out the ideas behind a project is really cool and it’s even cooler that they share their process. It is always very enlightening when you can find out the why behind the what of a project. I listed bunch in my delicious account that I just started using recently. I also listed three of breakdowns in my new fav category I created just for them.  This reminds me of perceptionnyc breakdowns that will promptly be added to my delicious soon.

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Inspiration

Motion Design Truths

This is a list I’m starting about the truths/ideas behind Motion Design. I’ve linked up the people who said them after the quote. I plan on adding more as I come across them or if anyone else come across something good send me the link and I’ll add it to the list.

 

If it doesn’t look good to begin with, it won’t look better just because you start moving it around.
@bartondamer

 

In motion graphics, timing is everything. When something is too quick it’s disrupting, when too slow it is annoying.
@JMDesign

 

camera moves are what separates the men from the welkers.
Mograph.net –killkillakillyo

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Daily 365 Inspiration

NYC Color Shift + Inspiration

Well today I was a little busy, have some deadlines coming up but there is no excuse for not being creative and there is always time for some creativity.(Its also a render night)

So today I will share 2 sets of pictures I took with my android phone when I went into NYC on the path. Nothing to spectacular just some images of the train station at Christopher street. I have been playing around with color shift, feature on camera360 app that allows you to easily take any color out or leave in of the picture. This of course can be easily done in Photoshop or a similar program but I think the appeal is being able to do it on the fly. This could would be helpful if you needed to spec something out real quick. I don’t think these applications, at least no on a phone, will replace taking a bit of time and adjusting some curves and levels. But it is fun to play around with.
Now for someone with real photography skills I would like show two cool images from Jordan Matter’s photo series Dancers Among Us.I found out about this on Designers Couch in their Inspire Log.

This photo series taken in NYC that started in 2009 is a whole bunch of images taken in various place in the city with professional dancers. The images are all great, and truly inspiring  that shows the dedication they have to their craft. The photographer as well has great dedication to taken these photographs in paces where he was not exactly welcomed.
What I really like is that he all so tells about his process and his inspiration about how the project came together on his website in the Dancers among us section. His process was pretty much just show up to a cool place with a dancer and find something iconic to NYC to take a photographer in front of. Through the behind the scenes video you get a peek of what is was like to be there with all the people. His artist statement explains in more detail about the project and how it was made for his children. I think the first line sums up the project perfectly which is

“BE passionate joyful euphoric intense desperate present ALIVE”