Shloka

'ANDAMANS AND NICOBAR ISLANDS : ANET (brief documentation)

'''Day 1 : January 10
The first thing I saw when I reached ANET was a keel back!! And im not a snack lover at all. We spent the first part of the day exploring the place using a “treasure map” as a tool. Literal landscapes. We were split into 2 groups : A and B. I was in A

Day 2 : January 11
Today, group A woke up at 4 30am. We left soon after a small cup of hot tea and went on our way for an intertidal walk. Saw creatures we hadn’t seen before. Walked on the cool soft sand. Climbed across dead wood. Shades of blue. Out of control. Textures Sound Bonding with the MassArt students. Walking in the water while the tides increased. Not knowing what im stepping on sometimes. Finally, eating breakfast (eggs and poha) on the beach while a few people run on the sand. DIY 1 : LED lights. Sizing up for scuba diving. At night we went for a sea krait walk Finding a pit viper near the bus. Reaching the beach and listening to the sound of the waves on the shore. Seeing how close the water is because of the high tide. Finally spotting one slowly slithering towards the water. Yellow lip. Finned tale.

Day 3 : January 12
Mangrove walk at 8am. Savita and Katya Saw a lot of different kinds of mangrove roots Learnt a lot about them Fidler crabs Mud skippers First dog faced water snake. Hermit crab Viberations, disturbances Sudden stillness Adaptation according to zone Snorkles Observing the surroundings Soft squishy mud Smell of H2S in the air. Chirpy birds

Day 4 : January 13
Forest walk Rain, sticky, slippery, scratches Stillness, humidity No sunlight, just green Scuba diving training in the pool with Shyam. Not being able to breathe through my nose: completely new experience under water. Finally finding a rhythm. Chlorine in my eyes. Patient instructor. Merging sea life and electronic equipment

Day 5 : January 14
First group goes from Scuba diving in the morning. Helping Jackson with the oven : Anagha and me. Group slowly growing. Having fun with most of the MassArt students. Mud paint on face. Pouring rain, but still working. Getting most of the oven done. Ate lunch and bathed. Beach walk. Hot, blazing sunlight against the cool water. Mild breeze, clear water, vast, empty space, grainy texture. Shadows formed in the water. Bed of shells, almost no marine life. Hypnotising Mesmerising Change in the way things look Studying change with found objects Intertidal phenomenon Jetty : learning about the fish from Asim. Fish, Groupers, Lobsters, Bargaining, getting our dinner. Working with the biosensors with other faculty. Saul’s microscope : light Long reflection session with the MassArt group.

Day 6 : January 15
Pouring rain, gloomy weather. Jazz instrumental music in the background. Couldn’t move out into the open much. Listening to the pouring water. Running to the library to try and do some research on the “intertidal phenomenon” Sound recording of the rain. Interacting with Ashwini.

Day 7 : January 16
SCUBA DIVING. So nervous…but in a good way. Group 2 went in the morning. Last group (me) went late morning, around 11am. Woke up bright and early. Had a really good feeling about it. Was restless. Finally walked to the beach to get onto the boat. Watched the other group come back. Slowly boarded the boat… Introduction into the entire process by Umeed. Put on our gear. Clear clean turquoise water. Back flip into the ocean. Shyam taking me down. Spectacular. Breathing was so easy. So much to see. Holding on. Touching the bottom of the sea bed. Interacting with coral. 10m down. Getting extra time. 37 minutes of pure amazment. Definitely going back. Got back to the surface. Stayed in the salty water for a bit. Hunger. Getting back to the shore. Walking back calmly and slowly. Eating. Bathing, and walking back to the beach to watch the sun set and take pictures. Recording the surroundings with Varun. Getting back and having a reflection session with the MassArt students. Scuba diving presentation by Shyam and Katya. DIY exhibition. Mikha’s movie. BBQ dinner. Lots of pictures with MassArt and ANET.Going back to Anugama. Watching everyone dance. Savita, Jackson, Pooja, Rohin, Krishna, Jo. Bonding till 2am. Getting back and falling asleep instantly.

Day 8 : January 17
DON’T WANT TO LEAVE. Last breakfast at ANET. Diving certificates. Group picture. Last goodbyes. Waiting for Faquih. Silent bus ride to the airport. Portblair to Chennai. Chennai to Bangalore by train. UNO and sleep. Few hours later, home.

Day 9 : January 18
Lunch at Arzu and Jacksons place with MassArt students. Realising that this is our final goodbye. Crosswords, VIP and Chumbak. Going home. Not going to TOIT for dinner. Anagha’s goodbye call. Sigh.

Day 10 : January 19
College. First Draft Documentation.

Day 11 & 12
January 20 & 21

Visted various labs in Aditi and Srishti. The main objective was for us to be able to create a lab space of our own. The labs we visited were : Chemistry lab Physic lab Biology lab The Dark room Art Science lab

Explorations :



















Later. we had a movie screening of : Peter Vogel - screening The sound of shadows 2011 In the afternoon, we had a basic introduction to electronics. We eventually learnt how to create our own switches. This wasn't as challenging as it originally seemed.

January 21 started with a reading called Study of Atelier Tradition and Goethean Science by Artist Daan Hoekstra Our discussion based on this reading, was primarily about : Part vs Whole Nature as a Teacher Learning to See Order vs Chaos Recommended reading at the end of the session : "Dr Faustus" We concluded, that art and science are merging. In the afternoon we had a session on the basic of Electronics My concepts such as V =IR were reinforced once again. We played around with the resistors : 1k 10k 120k We learnt how to navigate through basic circuit diagrams as well. Finally, we finished up with learning about varying resistance and how to work with that.

Day 13
January 22 : working on Capacitors and Amplifiers















The morning began with a reading called - "Yearners and Schoolers" Our group discussion touched a lot of topics. We debated if home schooling was the future, the need for a school environment etc. I got particularly nostalgic remembering life in school and how different the learning environment for me was. We questioned the value of a textbook as apposed to learning from experience. Personally, I like learning from experience. The afternoon was all about connecting different kinds of circuits, playing with breadboards and I learnt how to solder! We all created our first amplifiers and also learnt about the "potentiometer" and also about chips and different IC'.

Day 14
January 23

Today we had a visit by one of Marc's friends from Prague : Andrej He gave us a presentation on the kind of work he does and what led him to coming to India. What stood out for me was his use of "video mapping" as a tool. Goa : Story of light The afternoon was about trying to figure out a creative way of drawing and creating a functional circuit for people who may not necessarily know the technical components of a circuit.

January 27

Tom's journey prototyping : process of making an amplifier

January 28

Speaking tree : prototyping the second stage of the amplifier circuit

January 29

Reading : Shop class as soul crafts by Matthew B Crawford

Discussion :

- Definition of craftsmanship.

- Shared memories attach to the material souvenirs of our lives, and producing them is a kind of communication with others and with the future.

- The craftsman is proud of what he has made, and cherishes it, while to consumer discards things that are perfectly serviceable in his restless pursuit of the new.

Getting to know about "Hacteria.org".

January 30

- Creating a mandala.

- Introductory to scratch and makey makey

February 3

Using a nandgate to make a multiple switch.







February 5

Research on pasco's, ardvino's, scratch and makey makey.

Reading: Play and Games by Nick Paumgarten

- Beaker switch :

February 6

- Brainstorming on what an extreme space is.

- Research based on the existence of the intertidal zone.

February 9

- Exploring the Eklavya box.

- Creating an experiment number 1 with the contents of the box.

- Experiment number 2

February 10

- Fantasy DIY kit

- Brainstorming many ideas of what the kit can contain.

February 11

- Research based on different elements related to the different kits we all came up with.

February 12

- Proposal writing.

Making

microscope made from a webcam.

fan made with coloured transparent paper, and a motor.

bug.

workshop poster

manual over-view.

Seminar 1 Presentation
File:pdf presentation .pdf

Working with the Arduino
Marc gave us an introduction to the arduino. None of us had worked with it before and it was a little tricky initially.

Once we got the hang of it, we looked at a few online tutorials and played around with it.

We then went on to making a few simple circuits.

Me and Chandni made a keyboard using the Arduino.





We also tried the ultrasonic sensor out.



We connected the LDR as well as the temperature sensor to it, and saw the different kinds of output values generated with the help of the serial print code.



Microrobotics Workshop
We conducted our first workshop. There were 4 children between the ages of 7 - 11, 4 faculty and 2 srishti third year students who attended the workshop.





Workshop Reflections
Some of the workshop outcomes that I noticed were : - we wanted an ice breaking session, but it happened organically. This might have happened because everyone already knew each other.

- learn from others.

- learn more by doing.

- helped having a museum of already made bots, so the kids learnt by observing.

- opportunities to problem solve : drawbots ( construction of the body )

- different kinds of body constructions determine the different kinds of patterns generated.

- subtle understanding of what kind of body works and what doesn't.

March 19

I looked at the characteristics of different manuals such as : Pasco, Circuitricks, Science lab, Makey makey, Lego, Arduino and the Eklavya kit. Here is what I found :

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March 20

Next, I looked at the various questions that needed to be addressed as far as branding our kit was concerned.

Some of the questions were :

- unique insight into target audience

- competition

- advertising promise

- tone of voice

- wanted customer reaction

Seminar 2 Presentation
March 27

After seminar 2, the first thing I did was to look at a few of the existing science textbooks. I did this to get an insight of the different kinds of concepts children were learning between class 3 and 8.

Also, when the simple form of different kinds of graphs are introduced to students.

March 30

I narrowed down (with the help of my peers) the different kinds of sensors that might be used in our kit. They were :

- Temperature sensor

- Humidity sensor

- Soil sensor

- Wind sensor

- Light sensor

- Water sensor

This isn't the final list.

I then moved on to coming up with a name for our labstudio.

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March 31

Today I worked on the packaging and looked at origami as a starting point.

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April 1

Since we zoned in on the fact that our kit could take the form of a backpack, I started drawing out iterations.

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April 7 - 9

Names for our labstudio.

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April 10

Working on the manual and figuring out how I can put in elements of storytelling into it.

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