Everything that
Tate Medina
is:
Art Reflection:
Mousetrap Car Reflection:
Mosaic Furniture
What all I learned:
After days of research and implementing math and techniques into my artwork I looked back to see what I could accurately document. Proportions in my art were fairly common and quite interesting, as well as a grid system (that I used on the “Mosaic Board”). There’s a surprisingly deep history to spray paint art. The most interesting purposes that this type of art served were, getting delinquents off of the streets to do giant murals on entire building walls! Instead of tagging every bit of concrete, the encouragement that came from this was what actually started the uprise in popularity of people doing spray paint pieces on either buildings or tunnels or even paper. My grid system helped me place separate images and scenes very accurately so one side of the “Big M” or lengths and heights of mountain and water structures were not higher or more “lopsided/Asymmetrical” than others. Proportions were math driven, but it had much more to do with psychology than anything else. Some things that become TOO big or indifferent both take attention from each other but also the entire painting itself. If the proportions of lettering or accessories are too big, small, or shifted, the painting can get hard to look at and become displeasing to the eye. Color psychology was VERY important as well. The mosaic colors are black red and yellow. These colors; especially combined, induce anger unsettledness or even depression in some cases if found too present. So to “soften the mood” I added blues and whites, blue induces security and but white with it triggers anti-anxiety effects. The other thing I did was grade the colors, meaning I went from dark to light color to color in a “rainbow” sort of fashion. The actual psychology in this is, it’s proven to actually remind people of rainbows, regardless of the colors used. Rainbows are proven to trigger happiness, satisfaction, and more often than not, fond memories or pleasant day dreams. You could look at that board for a while and (statistically) you (along with the majority of others) would feel or experience these effects.*
*Research shows this happens in person, because computer screens can only emit certain colors that you might you might not “Truly experience” because you might be seeing a fake of that color.
(anything other than blue, red, and green) so if you don’t feel it through a picture on a electronic device try seeing it in person! :)
We recently joined and completed part I of the Mouse Trap Challenge. Rickey and I planned, designed, and created a mouse trap powered car that was built to propel straight and far. Due to delivery of parts complications we were unable to make our primary design that will run better than the one we had created to fulfill the challenges of part I.
Standard CD's were used as wheels and a wrapping paper, cardboard roll used as a body.
CDs are ideal because of their light weight and large wheel circumference. Larger wheels create better distance because their distance per rotation is greater, meaning within one rotation larger wheels will cover more distance. And light weight is important because a larger wheel also takes more energy to turn. So the weight of the wheel as it gets larger needs to decrease so that the small amount of energy a mouse trap creates can spin it as close to the same if the wheel was smaller. but a wheel will lose energy spinning if it does not have "traction." "Traction" is a measurement of friction that a spinning source creates against a floor. This is important because without traction/friction a wheel can be as large and light as it wants, but it will cover no distance at all if it has no traction. because a CD is made of a Hardened polymer plastic mix it has a surface similar to glass, glass has very little friction when smooth. As you can imagine these wheels have very little traction. Rubber however has great traction as it creates large amounts of friction when rubbed against almost any surface. Duct Tape provides a "rubber -like" surface that gives these "almost ideal wheels" great traction. The body is much more simple, we did not include any aerodynamic features (other than vinyl records being thinner than CDs) that limit wind resistance and decrease "drag" when traveling. All we included was making the body as light as possible, (to as previously mentioning) allowing the most of the small amount of energy made by the mouse trap to propel it further.
Inspired by the recycling project in the first semester, along with the upcoming architecture bolt, we wanted to create a pleasing versatile piece of up-cycled furniture that could add to the great coffee shop vibe the Mosaic Space rocks and encourages. What better way than Pallet Couches?! You may have come up with some that are better you smart-alack, but we worked with what we saw and loved what we planned to make these pallets into. We planned out what we wanted to do, made a scale drawing and went to dismantling and mending and building this beautiful piece.
Pictures will be posted below.
Bench of Justice
We were approached by a well known client in the mosaic space, Mr. Justice wanted a bench for his new home to lay against a grand window. Only later did i realize this was more of a practice to how to represent, appear in front of, and please a real client. Before we could proceed with building we needed to show the client what our vision for the piece is, as well as get the client to present what they want and what it will take to make it. As all businesses that provide a service do, we created an invoice for the products needed to create the bench as well as labor costs, we did not include these as actual prizes simply because it's an experience that we get paid in the form of learning and growth. We made a scale drawing, taking off and adding ideas for the piece as agreed upon. Then pricing the materials and finally, building.
Pictures will be posted below.
This is the design based on the same principles but was made in 40 minutes with limited resources. When the Original and refined design is finished it will look more like this.
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Mousetrap Catapult Reflection:
When I switched mind sets I began looking at previous designs and seeing where they might have gone wrong or improvements that could be made. The challenge I saw most everyone facing was consistency. Most of the time causing a ruckus in the consistency department was on the catapults release. My original idea was to have a hook on either side of the end of the catapult when it's loaded and tighten a string to hold it and cut the string upon launching, and although lack of string and hassle of tying the string around the hooks every time were very real set backs, I realized later that if the catapult arm was guided along it's release that I wouldn't need to be as precise with launch but instead just it's travel along the path of acceleration. So, with these two factors mostly worked out I then went to how I could adjust the power of the catapults launch. I found it would be easier to control where the arm stops rather than where you launch the arm from. Here is where control of power became crucially important.When I saw everyone else using plastic spoons I was a not very attracted to the idea of using such a flimsy unreliable arm of launch. With a light wood like Popsicle sticks, I was immediately intrigued in this materials' usability. Then because those Popsicle sticks were so sturdy, I quickly decided to use them for the whole structure. I used the large piece wood as a counter weight, because the catapult was so light and strong, when launched it could not even get off a clean shot because once let go of, the arm would flip the entire catapult uncontrollably. Attached to the front of a piece of wood heavier than the amount of lbs of force the arm produced at the arm. being placed in the front of the wood had a purpose because we could keep the later attachable entirety as light as possible. When placed at the front there is less leverage the force of the arm has on the wood than if place in the middle or back. Inadvertently directing more weight in the back than a force could move at the front. As for the adjustable implement, all I had to do was hot glue two lug nuts to the structure allowing for the bolt to twist up and down freely allowing more or less room for the arm to swing causing the angle to be controllable. An eraser was placed on the end of the bolt because if there was none, over time, the hard metal bolt could crack and break the swinging wooden arm. A cushy rubber block like the eraser was a perfect match.
Mousetrap Catapult Car Reflection:
Now is the time to combine the two contraptions. In this part of the challenge we were supposed to create a car that could both travel a certain distance and fire a ping pong ball by its own "trip mechanism" and at the best outcome, make the ping pong ball shoot into a bucket a certain distance away. Although it did not fit in the parameters given, nor did it fire during the competition times, it was both capable to fire on its own and travel any distance required (as this feature is adjustable).
