Wow. I can’t believe DS106 is over. This was the last week, and it went by so fast. Breaks my heart really. I am going to treat this post more as a reflection for the whole of DS106, rather than simply a week 5 reflection, because I feel as if we really didn’t do much this week in particular, other than the creating are final assignment of course. However in the past when doing these reflections I mostly reflected on what I had learned that week, through the required readings/videos, and we didn’t have anything like that this week.

I am very proud of my final project. I mixed in some math, I mixed in some animation, audio, video, even some stop motion! It was a load of fun to do! And I spent a lot of time crafting those little coffee cups in flash. That I enjoyed doing immensely, it really was a flash back to my old days. I really got my start in programming with making flash games, and with flash games comes flash animation, so it was something I really was adept at! However I evolved, moved away from animation in favor of programming, moved away from programming in favor of pure mathematics, now I get to create “true art” *whips single tear away*.

I think my favorite part of the final project was doing the stop motion, I also used to really enjoy doing stop motion. I think I was mainly inspired by Nightmare Before Christmas:

So it really was a ton of fun to do that again. I spent most of this week doing really nostalgic art projects haha, which think is fitting as I would imagine that the fifth week is meant to be somewhat introspective, as we don’t really have many assignments, just longer more difficult ones. I looked back over my DS106 blog earlier today, and I must say that I am quite proud, especially of my background. I just think Conway’s game of life is so very cool.

I think over the whole course I learned a lot, mostly it was nice getting to be hands on and create stuff, that actually mattered (as in, there was a grade looming over my head). Normally I would feel as if I was wasting time if I spent anytime doing this stuff now days, just cause I need to study for all of the math/GREs. So I really don’t have time for too much artistic fun endeavors! Which really is a shame, perhaps I will pop in sometime I try a daily create for fun. I think that would be cool.

I think out of the entire course my favorite section was the video. I really was just so proud of overlaying that music on the scene with Mia Wallace. It just came out so cool! It was something I watched over and over, and thought wow I did a pretty good job with that! That was a nice feeling! Furthermore I think one thing I gained from this course, that wasn’t really apparent at first was that I have been writing more than I normally do, which is a good thing. I have been trying to read more in general, however I hardly write, unless its some type of mathematical paper. So this was a nice breath of fresh air in that respect also (preparing me for the essay section of the GRE haha, I need to get my WPM up…).

Overall I really enjoyed my time spent doing all of the great assignments!

1. Here is my final project, you can read about how I made it here I hope you enjoy it!

I very much enjoyed working on this project! I hope that it goes well with the overall themes of my blog this semester, I think it does. Its meant to be kind of funny, but also have a somewhat of a darker undertone! I think it was certainly my crowning achievement of all summer. Creating the video was especially challenging, as I kept doing stupid little mistakes, like I put the phone in my cabinet backwards like three times, and I almost cut myself with that dumb knife trying to do the stop motion part (It really felt as if the cup cube was trying to get me…

Here is my assignment, and the corresponding tutorial!

I think this assignment should be pretty fun, and rewarding for whoever does it! I really enjoyed doing it, and I was pretty proud I thought of the idea.. I was surprised it wasn’t in the assignment bank already though, hopefully it becomes a bigger project that people like to do. I think anyone who does it should have a lot of fun! Also with my tutorial I tried to incorporate a few tricks that some people may not have thought of, when setting out to actually do that assignment. Hopefully it makes it a little easier on them, and allows them to focus on the creative aspects a little bit more, than having to worry about what is the best way to get make sure my animation looks fluid (duh trace it), however maybe that isn’t a duh for everyone haha. Looking forward I really do hope the two assignments I created will leave a mark on the DS106 community (in a positive way of course haha)!