User:Mrockar

About Me

Name

Matt Rockar

Major

Computer Science

Contact Me

Email: [email protected]

Blogs

Week Two

I do recognize the features we use on every computer today. The mouse and cursor were impressive for the first one seen in public. I imagined the first one to be much clunkier. It also seemed like instead of keyboard shortcuts for copying, pasting, etc. Douglas Engelbart was using a second keypad that had buttons for each function. How the data was structured was interesting too. The idea of a file being made up of statements and statements being made up of words seems like an intuitive way to store information. I think it’s nice for human-readable files, but not great for storing all forms of data. I am impressed, but I think it’s because I can understand how much work went into making this demonstration. If I didn’t know as much about computers as I do, I feel like I would be unmoved. People take for granted the research and work that went into creating the modern computer. I think I would have even recognized the importance of this at the time because it is revolutionary. This is a time when personal computers weren’t an everyday thing. Data was written down and manually processed. To perform the simple edits that Douglas did, you would have to get a new sheet of paper and retype your document with the edits. The ability to delete words, edit words, copy and paste, and even preview statements would speed up anyone’s workflow. I would say that I had a similar experience going from an old cell phone to a smartphone. Little things became easier for me and I was able to work faster and more efficiently. The things that Douglas demonstrated seem trivial to us today, but we just don’t realize how much they have helped us.

Professor Richard Doyle says that the initial perception of the mother of all demos was a hoax. People couldn’t believe that a computer could be doing what they were seeing. They thought that it was people moving boxes. We should and do share our information because it allows for more input and faster innovation. It allows for individuals to use our knowledge to create what we have created and even improve upon it using individual creativity. We share in order to speed up advancement in the technology. We could better share our knowledge by creating and expanding documentation on the wiki for the OpenHybridMendel. We could also create videos for YouTube on both the construction and operation of an OpenHybridMendel. A visual aspect may help people better understand and it being freely available online would mean that anyone could learn about the project.

Week One

Part A

Useful

Settlers of Catan Border I play Settlers of Catan every so often and my border pieces are starting to not hold the board together well during a game. This seems like a great replacement for the cardboard border.

Artistic

8D Cubic Lattice The math sculptures on Thingiverse are all amazing. It was hard to choose, but this one looked interesting to me. I think being able to print such complicated structures that would be difficult, if not impossible, to create using other methods is awesome.

Useless/Pointless

Rocky Rocket It kinda looks like an old school sci fi rocket, but not really.

Funny

Battleshots The idea that someone turned the board game into a printable drinking game is hilarious. I don’t think I would ever be able to finish a game though.

Strange

Temporary Tooth Implant This is a temporary tooth implant as the title suggests. I find it strange because I don’t think I would want to stick something I printed into my jaw.

Part B

I feel that I am a tinkerer. When I was younger, I would take things apart and try to put them back together. Around thirteen or so, I became interested in computers and robotics. That was when I started building robots from kits and eventually put together my own computer. I really enjoy figuring out how things work and making them better or repairing them if they break down. I think my dad is also a tinkerer. He always has a project going on and loves finding new things to try to create.

The argument about the influence of corporate culture on tinkering is pretty spot on. Corporations don’t want people poking around in their proprietary designs or figuring out cheap ways to keep gadgets running instead of buying the latest, more expensive one when your old gadget breaks. I feel that tinkerers are necessary and the article is right about preserving their habitat being essential to getting the nation back on track. Tinkering is essential to innovation and since manufacturing has been moved out of the country, we need to focus on creating new products and improving the design.

The primary design principles that I took away from the interview are to use an iterative process, watch how users use your product, and keep it simple. I thought it was great to see that he and his daughter were building a 3D printer. I think he will be able to really utilize the rapid prototyping process very well. I think his principles would apply to our work and are mostly already in place. The RepRap project is an iterative design process and the users are directly involved in improving the design and fixing issues that they find.