Category Archives: Art, Graphics, Woodworking

Art, Graphics, Woodworking, Science, Space, Technology

Artists and Scientists Unite!

August 23, 2007 kleucht Leave a comment

NASA sent out a press release today about this cool art contest for college students:

Aug. 23, 2007

Sonja Alexander
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1761
sonja.r.alexander@nasa.gov

Keith Henry
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
757-864-6120/344-7211
h.k.henry@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 07-179

LIFE AND WORK ON THE MOON: WHAT IMAGES COME TO MIND?

HAMPTON, Va. – A new NASA contest encourages university art and design students to partner with science and engineering departments to create art representative of living and working on the moon. The goal is for students in the arts, science and engineering to collaboratively engage in NASA’s mission to return humans to the moon by 2020, and eventually journey on to Mars and other destinations in the solar system.

The Advanced Planning and Partnership Office at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., is sponsoring the “Life and Work on the Moon” contest. Winners will receive cash prizes up to $1,000. Winning artwork also will be exhibited online and across the country.

Students in architecture, industrial design, computer design, the fine arts and other disciplines are invited to submit entries in one of three categories: two-dimensional art, three-dimensional art or digital art. To ensure artistic concepts reflect the realities of the harsh lunar environment, art students are strongly encouraged to consult with science and engineering students and use NASA’s online resources.

A volunteer panel of judges will represent NASA, other government agencies, universities, industry and the professional art community. Judges will evaluate artistic qualities and whether the entry depicts a valid scenario in the context of the lunar environment.

In sponsoring the contest, NASA hopes to encourage more collaboration among scientists and engineers and the artistic and creative communities. Such collaboration may generate new ideas for living and working in extra-terrestrial environments, resulting in more successful long-duration space missions.

Winners of the contest will be offered the opportunity to exhibit their work in NASA facilities and science museums. An online public gallery will be available through a partnership with NASA’s Classroom of the Future, maintained by the Wheeling Jesuit University Center for Educational Technologies in Wheeling, W. Va., and the Christopher Newport University Institute for Science Education in Newport News, Va. Christopher Newport University will provide cash awards for top prizes.

Entries are due no later than December 1, 2007, and results will be announced in February 2008. A high school version of this contest is planned for the spring of 2008.

For more details about the contest, including NASA’s resources about the moon, visit:

http://artcontest.larc.nasa.gov (this link disappeared from the Internet, sorry)

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

Visit the art contest website linked above for more information.

Kurt

Art, Graphics, Woodworking, Health, Home, Property, Safety

Toybox and shelf/desk for kids

March 4, 2007 kleucht 11 Comments

After not finding any kid furniture that we were completely happy with, I decided to design and create my own large rolling toybox and plastic-bin holding shelf that can turn into a desk as the kids grow up. If I can find some time, I might add some detailed plans for this project. But for now I’ll just post a couple of photos of the finished products.

Leave a comment below or send me an email from the link at the very bottom of the website if you are interested in seeing some plans.

Kurt

Art, Graphics, Woodworking, Science, Space, Technology

Space Shuttle Challenger mural at my high school

February 17, 2007 kleucht 4 Comments

When I was a student at Deer Creek Mackinaw (Dee-Mack) High School in Mackinaw, Illinois (1984 thru 1988) I was really into anything that was even remotely related to art. I loved drafting classes and all of the different art classes too. Our art teacher, Mrs. Schultz, organized some of the best art students there and had them paint a few organized and approved murals around the school. I was allowed to paint a Space Shuttle mural upstairs on the big 2-story wall just outside the library. I was also into space, and I had some NASA photos and mission patches and I basically just painted a collage of some of the items in that material. I dedicated the mural to the crew of the Challenger mission that was lost during their launch on January 28th, 1986. This large mural was a big project for a high school student … and I never actually technically finished the mural. I had intended to paint land masses on the earth, but never got around to it. I took these photos in the summer of 2002, so the mural was at least there for 14 years. I think they had to paint over it a few years ago, though.

Kurt

Art, Graphics, Woodworking, Miscellaneous

Photo-chop contest submittal — Woot Contest 98: When Titans Woot!

January 14, 2007 kleucht 2 Comments

I’ve always had both an artistic bent and a computer bent, so computer graphics have always been sort of a hobby of mine. I can remember writing programs to light up individual pixels on the green display of my Apple IIe computer when I was a teenager. I remember drawing out a Garfield cat onto graph paper first, then mapping out all the pixel X and Y locations on the graph paper to type into my computer program. Ahhhh, those were the good ole days. 🙂

I’ve been a Woot (woot.com, what is Woot) customer since May of 2006, buying cheap electronics here and there whenever I saw Woot offering something that I really needed. When I subscribed to the Woot RSS feeds (so I wouldn’t forget to check the daily sale) I noticed that they were holding weekly Photo-chopping contests there. And they were actually giving away monetary prizes too, or at least monetary credit for purchases on Woot! I’ve got a little bit of Photo-chopping experience, so I started keeping my eyes open for a contest theme that I would enjoy working on. Then Woot Contest 98 caught my eye.

The Challenge: Alter an existing comic-book cover so that it’s named after and features a product we’ve sold on Woot.

This was definitely down my alley. I searched the Woot blog for a product that would work good in a comic book cover. I saw the Navman portable GPS navigation system and immediately thought that I could turn either Spiderman or Superman into Navman.

Navman portable GPS navigation system

I searched the Internet for comic book covers of Spiderman or Superman. I found a good Superman source comic book cover here: http://www.tgfa.org/ … /Superman_349_Cover.jpg

Superman Comic Book Cover .

Source comic book cover

Then I started chopping! I used lots and lots of image layers to get all of my changes into the image. Layering also gives you lots of flexibility and allows you to fine tune things later without a lot of work. Here is my final contest submittal:

My contest submittal .

My contest submittal

Woot Contest 98 Results. I didn’t receive a monetary prize, but I was very honored to have won the “Champions’ Championship Champion” award. After inquiring what the heck that award was about, I was told that it is voted on solely by previous contest top 3 prize winners. So I’m actually quite honored to have received this nod and respect from the previous contest winners on my very first entry. That felt pretty good, and gave me the confidence to enter more contests. Also, my entry came in 5th in the Viewer’s Choice award, which was pretty cool!

Kurt

Art, Graphics, Woodworking, Health, Home, Property, Safety

Safety tip: Nail gun accident!

January 14, 2007 kleucht 1 Comment

Power nail guns are quite dangerous, and even though they have a pretty good safety trigger, they are not accident-proof. One of the many ways you can get shot with a nail gun is for the gun to be too close to the edge of the board that is triggering it and for the nail to miss the board completely.

Over the holidays, someone that I personally know (whom I’m not going to identify, because they’re embarrassed enough as it is) accidentally shot a 10d nail into their arm near the wrist. The nail hit the bone and it actually bent the nail a little bit. Thankfully, the bone was not chipped or hurt in any way and this person made a quick recovery with only a slight bruising of their pride.

.
Photo of nail lodged in arm.
This photo was taken by a cell phone camera
on the way to the emergency room.

Photos of x-rays from hospital.

No bone damage was found.

So please be careful with power nailers. A good safety precaution is to never put any part of your body anywhere near inline with the shooting path of a nail gun. Not even if there’s construction lumber in between!

Kurt