Holiday Fun

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

SNOW BIKING

I went on one of the funnest bike rides ever. I got up and saw the snow and I had to go play in it. I decided to shovel our walk-way and drive-way. After I was done, the snow was coming down harder and covering up all my hard work so I decided to take the excitement to the next level...well, I guess I took it up to about the highest level of fun I could have in the snow. I swapped my pedals, lights and rear fender (rack) from the road bike to the mountain bike. I got dressed and headed out into the beautiful white snow. I knew exactly where I wanted to go... the mountains (roads are too slippery). I spent half the time hiking on foot due to steep hills and lack of traction. There was probably 4 inches of snow up on the mountain but I trekked on to finish my goal (make it to the Y mountain trail head). At one point I had to hike in the bushes because the trail was so steep I had no traction at all. My heart was racing and my calves got good work outs. I was relieved to reach my descent. It was all paved downhill from there. Due to so much snow my brakes weren't grabbing well so I went down the super steep hills with one foot on the ground, grinding away at the snow covered pavement. I actually felt safer than the to 2 cars I saw going down the hill so I went faster than they did. At the bottom where the hill starts to flatten out, I was going over 20 mph. Then my tires started sliding side to side and I had to put my foot down and work my way into the fresh snow where there was more traction. As I worked my way home through Provo I assisted a driver in getting out of their underground parking lot. I helped push her so she didn't have to get a running start at it. The last mile was the most scary because the roads are more slick than the trail. One guy walking to school asked me if I was insane and I couldn't deny it so I yelled back "yep," with a little chuckle. Later I got excited to see a fellow rider and cheered him on: "ride on!" It was so much fun. I wanted to keep going but because I was coasting down a slight slope at 3 mph (without working my body) I started getting cold. I arrived home and enjoyed Kelly's hot chocolate. Travel log: distance-4.62 mi; time-48 min; avg. speed-5.7 mph; max. speed-20.9 mph.

3D Planes in Space

I like the fun shadows this one creates.

Design Studio and 3-D Work

This is a picture of my design studio...well, that's what I consider it. That's where all the work happens. It gets
rather messy because for each assignment I had to come up with 4 or 5 sketches (concepts or ideas). Each idea is very rough so I end up with a lot of scraps and little pieces
all over the table and floor. I like my space.

Our first assignment was a flat plane assignment and a curved plane assignment, both on a flat surface (2-and-a-half-D or bas relief). The first one is 5 golden rectangles separated by the fibonacci sequence.

(sketches)

(sketches)

This was one (constructed line & plane) of the last assignment which was a composition that is based on a "brick" which we make then add several of them together to create aesthetically pleasing 2-D designs. We then proved our designs by taking pictures of the shadows it makes.

I like how the shadows created are very diverse and tell different stories even though they all come from the same object.

Our last assignment was to create a kinetic composition with a position A and a position B. It is kind of hard to see the motions in these photos but you get the basic idea.

Thanks for your time, I hope you have enjoyed it. This was my favorite class of the semester.

Design Creativity

For the last 8 weeks I have been in a design creativity class that was a lot of fun. Homework ranged from categorizing Halloween costumes to making a woman's purse out of material from Home Depot... it has been a blast. The main concept of the class is that we push our minds to the limit and then some. I would compare this class to what Remy's brother said... "You know, if you can sorta' muscle your way past the gagging reflex, all kinds of food possibilities open up"(Emile, "Ratatouille"). We were given really odd assignments that many might think are a waste of time or utterly ridiculous, but as Emile said, "All kinds of [design] possibilities open up." Designers must push creativity beyond the common mindset of ordinary thinkers. Here are a few of my favorite projects I did in that class.

Our first major assignment was to improve Cup Noodles with a new prototype that would still meet their guidelines (cheap, easy to prepare/eat, etc.). While most students in the class changed the shape of the cup and lid to enhance form and function, I decided to add value to the product. I simply added a word search and Sudoku game to the inside of the cardboard. I also thought of adding trivia questions and random noodle facts but I figured the word and number games were sufficient for a prototype.
The 3 main purposes of industrial design are improving form, function, and value. Form is how it looks and feels (aesthetics), function is how well it performs, and last and definitely not least is value; value is a bit harder to understand compared to the other two. Value is not necessarily how much it costs or is worth, it is more like emotional or sentimental value. Make sense? So with the Cup Noodles prototype I designed I gave more meaning to the product. (Now people will buy it because they enjoy the games as much or more than the fact that it is cheap and easy.) Apparently my professor liked it and it was ranked 4th in the class. It made me feel good!

My favorite assignment of the class was to recycle something that is typically thrown away and give it new life and more value. I came up with a new crayon container design which I will probably use when we have kids. Instead of storing crayons in the flimsy box or a zip-lock bag, keep them in an empty deodorant stick which prevents them from breaking, and if they do break you just twist the nob to raise them or lower them (now you don't have to dig for them in the box nor do you have to worry about breaking them when they get thrown in the diaper bag). (Jason gave me the idea of making one giant crayon so I did. I melted all the blue and purple crayons to make a giant deodorant stick crayon which will probably never break or wear out. I have yet to receive a ranking on this assignment...whatever it is I think this was my favorite and best concept idea of the class. (If you want to make your own giant crayon, give me a call 'cuz there are a few tricks you need to know so that you don't break the twisting mechanism in your deodorant case.)

Kinetic Sculptures by Theo Jansen

In one of my design classes the professor showed a neat video about this engineer/artist who is a master mind of kinetics. Check these videos out. The first one is a brief introduction. If you have 10 minutes, watch the second one also (he explains in detail how he is working on designs that will allow his work to survive on the beach without any help).

Theo Jansen - Kinetic Sculptor

Theo Jansen: The art of creating creatures

I really like this man's ideas and I plan to follow his progress.
Jason, I think you might find this fascinating.

Gingerbread Attack!

On Thursday, we got a cute package in the mail, sent to us by a gingerbread-loving Mom. We opened it with delight and proceeded to discover more gingerbread-related items than we had ever seen in both our lives. How does that woman do it?


We are very excited to use our new cookie cutters to make gingery edible people, as well as all the other fun things. This December has already been so full of festivities and we're looking forward to more!

The First Christmas at Our Own House

We decorated our our own Christmas tree for the first time. The first item we placed on the tree was the "Our First Christmas Together" ornament Mom gave us 2 years ago.

Look at that beautiful tree! Pretty good for a fake one, huh?

Thanksgiving

Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving. Though the quality is poor we hope you enjoy them. (We'll have to get some from Jenny to replace ours)

We had a wonderful time together.