Collaborative Perspectives

Introduction

Introductory Narrative

In this portfolio I poudly present the assignments and projects I have worked on in the past year for IDEAS. My mindset on the ethical and social discussions that happen around science have greatly changed due to Thorson. I may not have realized it at the beginning of the first semester, but the diverse and supportive Thorson community was at the center of my freshman year at Colorado School of Mines. I met both of my roommates through IDEAS and I got to see people similar to myself evolve and change while learning about new views on topics we had never heard of before. I never thought I would be able to produce the art and abstract work that I have spent countless hours creating for Thorson. It's pretty amazing that every assignment had a new lesson or perspective to be learned based on ethical, social, and technical understanding. As a homeschooled student, having such a close community of teachers and peers to reflect with was a big change whose advantages I have now come to understand.

IDEAS Mind Map

As I explore in more detail in my Module 3 project, I am very interested in how the brain processes information visual, audio, and other types of information. Some of the most important things I picked up throughout IDEAS is most certainly the different perspectives I got to explore with my professors and peers through readings, writings, presentation, videos, and other activities. There was also a clear theme/learning goal during each individual module. I try to highlight this journey of collecting perspectives and trying to understand them in my IDEAS mind map by sectioning different parts of the brain/functions to modules we went through in class. For context I will list the different brain sections and their purpose below.

Frontal Lobe: plans and regulates emtions such as social skills

Temporal Lobe: organizes memory and processes auditory information

Brain Stem: regulates heart activity and breathing, functions that are natural and instinctive

Partietal Lobe: deals with physical sensations and spatial judgement

Occipital Lobe: processes your eyesight including color, shape, distance

Cerebellum: controls balance and body co-ordination

Brain Image: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/11/05/can-the-foods-you-eat-keep-your-brain-healthy/#763231b732c2

Modules

Module 1

The first Thorson module was very important to me because I had a hard time expressing my feelings in a way that other people could understand. I didn't consider writing as one of my strong points but through the mentorship of Melanie Brandt and support of my peers, I learned how to dig deep into myself and talk about my life. While revising this written piece I spent most of my time smoothing at sentences that did not flow well together. I decided to leave most of the original content because it helpes highlight the progress I have made during the past year.

Module 2

In module 2 I felt much more at home due to the technical characteristic of the assignment. However, wicked problems proved to be just as complicated as they sound. Dealing with a problem that has no intrinsic solution due to the nature of the biases that surround it helped me understand the value of all-including research (ethics, social/technical issues, economics, etc...). Not every problem can be solved by setting the homogeneous equation to zero (differential equations reference). I had a hard time making revisions to this paper because it is probably the piece I am most proud of writing in the first semester. I also smoothed out the overall structure and added a few sentences to help bridge the dsconnect between ethical and technical issues.

Module 3

By the time I got to module 3, I had spent a lot of time reflecting on other people's biases/opinions and felt ready to start presenting my own viewpoints to the world. I was very interested in the unique aspects that makes the human brain so special and decided to work on a design manifesto that explored the automated side of my thought process. Humans are not computers, but they way we approach problems is not so different. I represented my approach to problem solving through the machinery of the Turing machine, one of the first computers ever built.

Module 4

The beginning of the second semester of Thorson enabled me to use all the skills I had learned from the last three modules in one big project. It combined the writing, researching and presenting skills I had been sharpening last semester but also included new aspects and challenges such as effective design management using Sketchup (see other work). Collaborating with my team on this project helped me improve methods of effective communication and compare my growth with other students in a positive manner. The Executive summary was written by myself and so I spent most of my time making it look more like a summary rather than a paper of its own. I also included polished version of my team's background section.

Module 5

In Module 5 I worked closely with Professor Terry Birdgman to generate art from a neural network that was trained to recognize sunflowers from lilies. This module was similar to module 4 because we had the opportunity to use all of the skills and perspectives we gained from the first semester in our work/adventures. The main difference from Module 4 is that we were no longer working in teams. I learned so much invaluable information from working on the module 4 group project, however, I still felt more comfortable working by myself and had a blast reflecting on my work with Terry and my peers. Below is some of the pixel art I managed to create through matrix/weight manipulations in python. The images to the left are the original images while the images to the right are the ones generated by the code based on the network. I find it so cool that we can basically see through the eyes of a computer AI by manipulating the generated data and it into somewhat sensible art. Refer to the poster below if you are curious as to how these images were created or don't understand the color code.

Here is another art peice I made after digging deeper into the evolution rate of my neural network. The model in the video starts very chaotic but as time goes on it starts to stabalize near an equilibrium point. Also, if you want to understand the math/code behind this art please check out my poster below as it contains all the information.

This poster was made in LaTeX and proved to be a suprisingly difficult task. Balancing art and math in the same space was very complicated because everytime I started talking about the mathematical model, I wouldn't realized how technical the poster was getting. Even though it could use a few more revisions I am proud enough to present it to my IDEAS professors and peers.

Other Work

Thorson provdied me with a class to pursue all the little questions about learning that cluttered my mind. I have explored and prduced work through several different means, from 3d modeling software to good old tracing paper. Here is some of my work that depicts my growth through this year long experience.

IJ pages

After one year of Thorson, I managed to fill up every single page of my IDEAS journal. Looking back on my journal, I am very suprised with just how much variety is included. From interviews and drafts to sketches and diagrams, I am very proud of how I filled out my IJ plan on keeping it for years to come. I still vaguely remember some of the ideas I had as a kid and now that I have experienced having and documenting with an IJ, I just wish I had started sooner.

Sketchup Progress

I spent a lot of time outside of class working on 3d models in sketchup. Even though I had experince with 3d modeling softwares such as Cinema4D and Blender, learning to work with other people on the same model was very eye opening. The Sketchup sessions and assignments made me feel like I was working an actual job for a company with my progress shown below. The first picture is the first assignment I completed in sketchup where I had to design my name. The second picture is a mockup presentation booth I made for my Module 4 team project (see Modules).

Miro Project-Drafting

During Module 4 I spent several weeks trying to understand a new wicked problem (Synthetic Biology). Miro provided me with an intuitive tool for organizing information as I tried to build up a better picture of the wicked problem.

https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_kvD_kbk=/

Miscellaneous (Free Writes)

All of the work/brainstorming in the pdf below is self-initiated (not formally assigned) and provides a look into my past perspectives on the work I was completing.

Conclusion

Overview

IDEAS was quite the journey... As my professors have come to know of me, I try to put as much of my work out there as possible. That being the case, I decided to present my IDEAS experience through a website so that I could document my favorite memories. Whether that be the mistakes that led to growth or the overconfidence that led to failure. Through intensive group discussions and interactive thought-provoking sessions, I learned the importance of viewing the world through different lenses. The instinctive and culutural values that make up the communities around me have become gold mines for new ways of exploring the world. I came into this class with a close minded understanding on the art of science and yet leaving with enough questions to keep me busy for the rest of my undergraduate career.

Future Explorations

As a citizen of Thorson, I plan on treasuring the memorable times I had with my peers (RiNo, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, and Speed-Dating) and to keep working as hard in all my classes as I did for IDEAS. My long term goal of working in an academic institution has not changed since taking IDEAS but the class has showed me a new side of learning that I did not expect to be so useful. IDEAS was unlike any other class I took in my freshman year with its group discussions and activities and yet it was just as effective, if not more, in most educational aspects. I plan on using these newly aqquired collaboration skills from this unorthodox class structure in all of my classes, since the ability to work with others is a unique learning advantage and opportunity to gain perspectives like no other.

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