3D Printing Infomercial

For my final project I decided to do an infomercial with my 3D prints. As discussed in class I decided to rely on footage found online instead of filming an actual person using these because I wanted to make the video as impartial as possible. Usually in infomercials the goal is to sell the product and this was not what I wanted, my goal was to make sure an idea was being communicated without persuading the viewer to either want to download a “weapon” or not. This also made me rely on a comedic approach as I still wanted to stay true to the infomercial feel which lead to me “selling the ad” and not the 3D prints themselves.

It was an overall very interesting experience where I was able to learn how infomercials are structured and the amount of persuasion that goes in them. This also made me reflect on the lack of regulations surrounding 3D printing, not just in the designs you can download , but how easy it is to make the prints themselves. In this way I think my infomercial can be a great discussion starter and make the viewer reflect on what should we be able to 3D print.

LINK to video! : https://youtu.be/64CtGICIu28

Ale Rdz Artifact 3 Update!

I have successfully printed out my 3D defense designs! The next step for me is to make and edit the infomercial advertising those very designs. The infomercial will not have an explicit negative or positive view but instead leave that up to the viewer. I will also bring the prints to our final presentation so that everyone can interact with them and come to their conclusion on what we should be able to print.

Ale Rdz 3rd Artifact. You wouldn’t download a knife?!

For my third artifact I will be focusing on a reflective piece focused on what we are able to 3D print thanks to the current regulations regarding 3D printing. For my artifact I will be 3D printing several pointy/defense objects I found online and will be also making a video. The video will be in an “infomercial” style to encourage the viewer to see the possibilities available to us through 3D printing, whether this is a good or bad thing will be up to the viewer.

Objects I will be printing:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3049773

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2879910

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2433618

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2262554

Ale Rdz Artifacts Engaging with Science/Ethics/Politics Examples

Thanks to today’s class I was able to get a sense of what I might want out of my third artifact and what examples I wanted to show. I primarily focused on art exhibitions because for my artifact I want to make something that does have an artistic feel to it.

My first example is an installation that tackles racial discrimination through derogatory terms. It is called Invisible  by Hye Yeon Nam . The installation consists on receipts being printed out and discarded by robotic fingers, the receipts have those specific derogatory expressions  but within the pile you can also find examples on educating people in regards to race. The installation is quite powerful and its point is to start a discussion regarding how to talk about racial discrimination.

My second example is also an installation called California Drought Impact by Yoon Chung Han. It is set up as an interactive data installation that consists on several maps made out of wood which have been laser cut in specific sections to visualize how draught has affected the state of California. Complimentary to that there are also digital maps that show specific sections of California in the past, present, and possible future if draught continues at a specific rate. The goal of this installation is for the viewer to reflect on how draught has affected, and is affecting our daily lives.

My third example is called Vote With Your Feet: Street-Sourced Answers to Crowd-Sourced Questions . This is a very interesting installation for it can be put basically anywhere, not just in a museum setting and this encourages people to interact with it. The installation “displays questions crowd-sourced from a website, and collects street-sourced answers through the symbolic action of binary voting by walking through one of two gateways.” The goal of this is to encourage people to take action in voting and to also tackle subjects that might be seen as taboo in an anonymous way.

Cereal Update!

I have been able to do my experiment on 5 different cereals, and got different results on several of them! As such I will now be focusing on why that was and how these cereals are marketed for children. Most importantly, are these cereals good sources of iron for kids?

I’m excited to share my results in a couple of weeks!

Iron in Cereal! DIY. Ale Rdz

Magnets how do they work?

For my DIY artifact I will be focusing on Iron in cereal! Based on my research I found that most of our iron comes from cereal. This is specially important when it comes to kids.  I then found this experiment,  and observed that this experiment is often done on basic cereal. This is where my DIY project comes into action. I will be applying the iron in cereal experiment on cereal that is mostly marketed towards kids and compare how much iron is in them compared to those that are marketed as “enriched” or not specifically for kids.

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iron-HealthProfessional/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963996901001892

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/apa.1989.78.s361.12

Ale Rdz DIY Science Examples

With my DIY science examples I had a bit of a hard time finding a distinct line of what can be made and used in science and the process of making it itself being science. My first example is Thingiverse. A website that lets you upload and download designs for 3D printing. I consider it DIY because it can lead to the creation of things with materials that might not be conventional and easier to access and it can also help create artifacts for science projects. Another aspect of it is designing the artifacts themselves.

My second and third example are a bit related and liked comparing them. The first one is the subreddit r/DIY. It is a great example of people posting step by step of how they made things. However, this sometimes includes people fixing things and I would not consider this science. An example of other things posted is that of an m&ms and skittle sorting machine by color. https://willemm.nl/mm-skittles-sorting-machine/ I found this post through reddit and was intrigued and fascinating by this machine this guy made. However, its purpose is only that, sorting mms and skittles. There is a lacking of what I would consider the exploration aspect that science has. My third example is another subreddit called r/GarageScience. I found it interesting that from the start this subreddit excludes the DIY word from its title. Here you can find all kinds of posts making sugar rockets, hoverbikes, measuring the speed of light with a microwave oven, etc. I found that unlike the other subreddit the technical aspect of these posts was a bit higher. By this I mean that they can still be replicated but for someone to make the first post one must have some scientific knowledge related to it.

The Reality of Climate Change by Heesun Kim & Ale Rdz

For our first artifact we would like to focus on the information provided by Google Trends regarding the interest on Climate Change within each US. state. We will make a map to visualize this interest by doing a tangible map with volume to it. In contrast, we will make another tangible map also showing the actual scientific supported data regarding each state’s involvement with Climate Change.

We want to visualize the difference between what can be misleading data in regards to how much people care about Climate Change and what is actually being done.

 

Our questions

People’s interests on climate changes doesn’t mean actual actions

How is Climate Change presented to people, in contrast to the reality of what is happening and actions that are being taken?

 

Data set

Climate change search in Google trends

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=climate%20change

How prepared are our cities?

https://publichealthonline.gwu.edu/blog/preparing-climate-change/

 

Visualization

(possible materials, paperboard, toothpicks, straws) Focus on the US map only, for now.

For the first tangible map to show people’s interest in Climate change.

 

For the second tangible map to show actual preparedness for Climate Change.

 

 

Ale Rdz’s Data Set

The data set that I decided to focus on was Google Trends. It is a fascinating feature of google that shows what was the most searched for word in a specific country, area, and time. https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US.

Google even provides a global visualization of some of the trends, for example the #me too rising movement.   https://metoorising.withgoogle.com/ .

What I would like to focus on with Google Trends is how these tendencies can influence searches, and maybe even create “fake” interests.  For example, when googling a company that search creates a “hit”. However, this doesn’t mean that people are actually clicking on that company’s website, or that they might even agree or like said company. Google’s feature of auto completing ones sentence can also lead to the user exploring a concept they might not have an actual interest in. However, google trends do give us a very visualized idea of what is being searched for, not necessarily the context. This information can lead to interesting results when compared to real time, in person surveys.

Before I post my examples I would like to note that in order to find them I had to search for them on Bing. 🙂

My first example is called Google Health API. It is a service provided by Google that shows the Flu and Dengue trends. Unlike Google Trends this is not an easily accessible website. In fact, one must fill out a Google Doc to get authorization for it. This leads to the question of how reliable is Google Trends to begin with if there are topics that are clearly off limits to the general public. The form to access Google Health API includes questions such as:

“Please describe your specific research project and how you intend to use Google data to achieve it.”

“Please note that access will be granted only to selected research partners.”

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZbYbCeULxWAFHsMRgKQ6Q1aFvOwLauVF8kuk5W_HOTrSq2A/viewform?visit_id=1-636281495024829628-2992692443&rd=1

My second example is Pulsar. A “social listening” business tool that helps companies know every time they are mentioned or receive a hit. “Pulsar helps you find the story in the data by bringing all your digital audiences into one place and leveraging the power of AI and data visualization ” It takes every mention, hashtag, comment, etc found on social media and gives companies their “influence value”.  https://www.pulsarplatform.com/

My third example is Brand24. https://brand24.com/ . Like Pulsar it is targeted to businesses and their media presence. “Get instant access to online mentions, grow customer satisfaction and sales.” Unlike Pulsar, it lets you see who is your biggest influencer so that you can reach out to them and do “collaborative work” for your brand.

I chose these examples because they show just how many tools there are for data manipulation and exposure. What I would like to focus on is how much impact this really has on people when looking up a concept or company.

 

Ale’s Intro

Hello, my name is Ale and I come from a Communication Media and Film background. In my undergraduate career I was able to experience research from the social sciences point of view. I have done surveys and interviews for various topics. However, I haven’t really had any experience with a physical artifact or a technological point of view. This class is extremely interesting to me for that matter.

For my public act of science I would like share the r/askscience subreddit. The reason why I find this display so fascinating is because anyone can ask a question. In the same way anyone can answer but they must have sources and every answer gets peer reviewed. This leads to an immense amount of knowledge all in one area and in just one click.

away. https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/7yx524/why_is_it_that_during_winter_its_not_uncommon_to/