The following are some videos experimenting with the automated compact shelving that is to be found on levels six to eight at the new Library of Robert Gordon University. One can see a selection of photographs showing the views to be seen from my previous post.
The Library of Robert Gordon University moved into the new building over the past weeks and became operational on Thursday 30th May. Given that today Sunday 2nd June was quite good weather-wise I ventured to see the views from the top floor – level 9 housing books related to Computing and Engineering. You will also find a few images from other levels as well. The photographs below should give you some sense of the views and some other elements of the building.
Some of the buildings / sites that are readily visible include the Big Wheel at the Beach, Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen University Library, Inchgarth Resevoir, Duthie Park, Tollohill Wood and Kincorth Hill to name but a few. Can you identify any other points of interest?
The following are just a small selection of previous posts related to the evolution of the new building at the Garthdee Campus.
14 May 2013
9 March 2013
20 January 2013 – Evolution over the past 16 months
15 January 2013
30 September 2012
15 August 2012 – Interiors
Its been a while since my last photo update showing the progress of the New Build at the Garthdee campus of Robert Gordon University. As you can see the main entrance and plaza is almost complete, and the final stages of tidying things up are well underway at the south side of the library tower.
This evening I attended a lecture organised by the BCS titled “Spacecraft On-board Networks and Vision-Guided Landers” given by Professor Steve Parkes – Director of the Space Technology Centre at the University of Dundee. A large part of the talk was focused on a technology called SpaceWire that is used in many satellites as a means for communication with a myriad of sensors. In a sense it could be regarded a little like USB but allows for a variety of network topologies rather than just the tree structure seen in USB, its also designed to function in the harsh conditions of space. Its presently being used or designed into over 100 spacecraft including the James Webb Space Telescope. In relation to vision-guided landers a video was played demonstrating some simulation software of the surface a moon/planet/asteroid. A good deal of knowledge regarding the surface is known, the interesting thing for me was hearing that they used fractal technologies to fill in any gaps in the terrain. The simulator is used to test the use of vision based landing systems.
A number of interesting websites were mentioned towards the end of the talk including the Space Technology Centre at Dundee and the Dundee Satellite Receiving Station. Another site of interest is the Earth Observation Data Acquisition and Analysis Service (NEODAAS). The talk concluded with the audience having to look at a number of satellite images and take a guess at what they were looking at. Images ranged from sand blowing across the UK, to fires and circling aircraft. It was also quite appropriate given the topic that the lights in the lecture theater were turned down really low to the level of a cinema experience or perhaps a bit darker.
If you look closely at the map below you can see the satellite receiving dishes located on the roofs of a few of the building of Dundee University.
In the previous semester I had a group of students for a module on Audio & Video Production. In the past days a new YouTube Channel was created and a selection of videos were uploaded. A week or so prior to this I had organised a screening of the videos at a Cinema located just a few minutes away from where we’re based. It was really great to spend some time in the projection room and see both a film and digital projection system.
The videos below should give you a sense of what the students produced, I hope you enjoy them. Have written another blog post giving a little more info on this.
In the previous week with my class of about 100 first year computing students we looked at the process of panoramic photography and light-painting, hence were making use of long shutter durations. This week I thought it would be interesting to go in the opposite direction and capture moments in time of just hundreds or even thousands of a second. I had seen quite a few videos in the past, about capturing such imagery, using both flash and continuous based lighting, hence I gathered together a number of these videos and made a recent blog post about them.
This first image seen above is a composite of images taken from two of the three setups that were used. Firstly the stage was set for the capturing of soap bubbles gently floating down to earth. Next the students had a chance to drop some fruit and vegetables into an Aquarium. The final option was to pour some water into a wine glass and capture the some of the detail and beauty of flowing water that we overlook on a daily basis.
The day prior to class I set out to purchase some essentials, I began by getting some PVC tape, jugs, straws and glass scraper to clear the water from the aquarium after the splashes. Having being unsuccessful in finding soap bubbles, I ventured to another shop and was delighted to see they had a good variety, hence I purchased one of each set they had, this amounted to perhaps close to two liters of soap bubbles, so I was quite sure we would have enough for the photo-shoot. The final really large and important task was to find an Aquarium, so I headed in the direction of the beach to seek one out. I looked through quite a few different aquariums, and finally settled on a glass one of dimensions 24″ x 15″ x 12″ capable of holding about 65 liters of water. So with that I carted all this stuff back to the office.
Later that night I paid a visit to yet another shop to pick up some fruit and vegetables that should make a good splash in the aquarium. Also picked up some food colouring both yellow and blue for use with the water pouring into the wine glass setup. To capture any spillage from the glass I also picked up a paint tray! So that was more or less everything.
Given the class size was about 100 a video feed was setup between the green screen room in which the photography was taking place and the computer lab where all the students were working on some Photoshop and Illustrator tasks. That way they could see what was going on as the video feed was displayed on three projectors within the lab, hence they could move between one and the other depending on how busy the photographic session was. I have used this technique in the past on a few occasions and have found it to be very useful. All in all it took about an hour to set everything up for the shoot with the help of three students and the support team for the video feed.
The following photographs should give a sense of what was taking place in the green screen room with all three stages running concurrently. As you will see bubbles were being blown, peppers, strawberries and the like were being dropped into the aquarium & water was being poured into the wine glass. Five lights were used, two for both the aquarium and the bubbles, leaving just one for the wine glass. In total this amounted to the equivalent of 5320 watts of lighting keyed at a temperature of 5200 degrees kelvin.
The following set of images give a sense of what the room was like after a bit of tidying up was done and some things moved around a bit.
The next set of images just give a sense of the materials that were used for the photo-shoot taken around two hours prior to setting up the scenes. The large Nemo sitting happily on the aquarium will probably find a new home back on my desk but inside the aquarium, in which he fits nice and snugly. This of course has the added advantage of keeping him dust free once I find a suitable cover.
The final set of images include some of the water being poured into the wine glass along with the individual shots that were combined together in the first image of the post.
All in all I would guess that a few thousand photographs were taken in the course of a couple of hours. Its probably also safe to say that the students really seemed to enjoy the photo-shoot, especially given the room was such a hive of activity. Having a number of distinct but related tasks seemed to work well, one thing we didn’t do was to capture water drops falling and splashing into a pool of water, so that is perhaps something for next time, as one can use a few techniques for this alone. If you wish to see some of these images if greater detail, then you can take a look at the corresponding Album.
The previous post showed the evolution of the New Build since October 2011. The last photo update was on the 15th Jan when we were in the depths of winter and the landscape covered in snow. Almost two months on and the weather though still cool is getting milder and the days longer.
Quite a number of noticeable changes standout since the 15th Jan post. Firstly foundations have been laid for an exterior wall running the length of the site parallel to Garthdee Road. A set of what looks like chimneys has been added to the roof. Quite a good amount of progress can be seen with regard to the plaza area directly in-front of the main entrance to the build. The lower sections of the library tower have now been fully clad making a huge difference to the overall appearance, very much transforming it from a building site into a building nearing completion. You will also notice the formation of some steps heading down to the river, allowing one to link up with the riverside walk heading east / west. Will certainly be lovely especially when the weather is good to readily be able to get down to the rivers edge for a stroll along the bank. Those who enjoy photography may like the last few images at the bottom of the post playing with reflections at the main entrance to the campus. To view any of the images below at a larger size then one can directly access the Picasa Album.
This evening I attended a lecture held in Cowdary Hall at the Aberdeen Art Gallery titled Regenerating Aberdeen: A Vision for a Thriving and Vibrant City Centre. It was great to see the hall more or less entirely full to capacity. The event was chaired by the Principal of Robert Gordon University Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski. The panel of four speakers included a number of those who were involved in developing the report including Professor Richard Laing and Dr. David McClean. The photographs below should give you some sense of the event and the very much appropriate location.
The discussion paper centred around three distinct principles: 1. Connectivity, 2.Multiplicity of use and finally 3. Adaptability and coherence. The presentation was punctuated with a number of photographs throughout showing elements from cities around Europe. Copenhagen for example featured a few times, I had visited in 2005 myself and was amazed at just how easy it was for cyclists to get around. It was very much a city where the cyclist had the right of way, and I could see myself interested in using this form of transport given the priority given to cyclists. In most other cities I wouldn’t even consider it for a nanosecond as a viable option.
The paper also proposed ten priority action points ranging from creating links between Union Street and the Harbour to Restoring city squares such as Golden Square, Bon-Accord and the Castlegate.
One thing I found perhaps surprising was a limited mention of Aberdeens 2017 bid for European Capital of Culture. According to the news of 20th Feb Aberdeens team of five was appointed. Just a few days later on the 28th Feb the bid was lodged. Today it was announced that Aberdeen and Dundee would be the two candidates from Scotland. I have been to a number of cities that have held the title of Capital of Culture in recent years and each one was a joy to behold for visitors / pedestrians. The following are some of my own thoughts and comments for how life could be breathed into the city bearing in mind the ever approaching 2017 deadline.
One city I visited was Sibiu, which held the title in 2007. It was the summer of 2006 however when I visited and was really amazed by the sheer number of people throughout the city that were doing work to the squares and buildings. The best way of describing it was a veritable army at work. Never a time before or since have I seen so much work being carried out at such a rapid rate. The evening that I arrive in Sibiu I was treated to an outdoor concert in one of the squares. You will note from the images below the use of an easy to erect staging area and the myriad of market stalls selling all kinds of food and drink. The atmosphere was really quite amazing, especially with the concert ending with a fireworks display. Another interesting feature was the use of projections on the walls of the buildings surrounding the square (Piata Mare (Grand Square)).
With the demolition process of the Old City Council building just commenced, the transformation of this area into a civic square could be of tremendous benefit to the city, allowing functions such as that seen in the photographs above of the concert in Sibiu to be held. Further just like in Sibiu the surrounding buildings could become a platform for projected imagery, in particular Marischal College. Also the opening up of this area would bring a new lease of live to Provost Skene’s House. Those who like photography would also benefit from being able to photograph Marischal College directly face on and take in the entire facade, rather than all the photographs you currently see taken in a side on manner. It was mentioned that the arrival of the Olympic Torch was a great event for Aberdeen, and brought out the crowds by the thousands. Perhaps a plaza in-front of Marischal College could be a good venue for such future gatherings!
With a square in place capable of hosting a reasonably good sized crowd one could look at linking it with the other open areas of the city, perhaps by forming a thoroughfare or link via Neitherkirkgate through to the Kirk of St Nicholas on to Little Belmont Street and eventually linking up with Union Terrace Gardens. One one then have a haven of substantial area right within the heart of the city centre. Planting of course could help take toxins out of the air and create a set of lungs for the city centre.
What is a city of Culture without a viewing platform allowing one to readily get a feel for the cityscape. Plans for a 40-meter big wheel at Aberdeen’s Castlegate were dropped back in 2009. Perhaps the “new plaza” in-front of Marshall College could be a potential place, allowing for some spectacular views of the second largest granite building in the world to be captured. Would also make for a wonderful high rise platform to gather photographs of various events and concerts that could potentially he held in the square.
Some of the following images should give a sense of what Sibiu was like in the summer prior to becoming the Capital of Culture. Its interesting to see the work being done to the square, the planting and the revamping of all the facades of the surrounding buildings. Clearly this is a city well underway in preparing itself for the year ahead.
It may have also been interesting to hear about how the Expansion of Aberdeen Harbour into Nigg Bay would effect the city. What would be the effect on traffic, how could the city take advantage of the additional cruise ship visitors. Another interesting element to factor into the equation is the Western peripheral Route and the new Business Park and Hotels being developed in Dyce.
The hosting of a very active programme of summer festivals in the lead-up to 2017 could also bring out the crowds. Some film festivals as well could perhaps help enhance the cultural aspects of the city. Earlier today I hosted the what I believe to be the first collaboration between RGU and the Belmont Cinema, by organising a screening of the videos some of the 4th year computing students produced for one of the modules I was teaching in the previous semester, focused on Audio and Video Production. Perhaps more collaborations such as this can enhance cultural elements !
In Ireland both Cork (2005) and Dublin (1991) have held the title. Cork like Sibiu in the pictures above undertook a tremendous renovation project to the main street and surrounds in the years leading up to 2005. The amount of traffic going down the main street has been greatly reduced and a great deal of pedestrianization established. To say the city saw an immense transformation would be an understatement. The city of Linz held the title in 2009, in the lead-up its electronic arts museum moved to a much larger space and is a fantastic attraction for the city. The city also features a wonderful pedestrianized area, tram system, and a spectacular view overlooking the entire city and a really interesting modern art museum.
The city of Aberdeen has many other attractions that should be fully exploited such as the potential heritage centre at Rubislaw Quarry or the renovation taking place at Duthie Park. Speaking of Duthie park, right next door to the east lies the home of Aberdeen Model Railway Club. Expansion of the park to the east to take in the Railway Club area would be of tremendious touristic value. Along with a number of carrages that are being restored is one of the last remaining turntables in Scotland (see here for further images of Ferryhill). The new build at Riverside East, Garthdee Campus is also a great asset to the city along with the new Library at Aberdeen University. These buildings again can provide the photo enthusiast with some great views of the city.
One may find the following paper “European Capitals of Culture as Incentives for Construction of European Identity?” to be of interest. It identifies all the previous cities since 1985 and up to 2015 that have or will hold the title of European Captial of Culture (see page 5).
I could of course go on with further ideas and suggestions, but its getting late in the evening now and will be demonstarating the setup and use of the Libec Swift Jib to students early in the morning. Thanks to all those who presented and the interesting Q&A session afterwards.
In a recent post I included some videos discussing depth of field and how it can be affected by aperture, focal distance and distance of the object. The question that came to mind however is that of how could I demonstrate elements of photography to a group of about 100 students. Often you may gather a small group of half a dozen crowded around a camera to show them something, however this doesn’t really scale well to a group on the order of 100 or so.
To solve this problem I made use of technology to help them see the live interaction I performed with the settings on the camera itself and remotely using Canon’s EOS Utility. The room in which the students were, contained three projectors, one more or less in the middle of the room with the others at either end. To allow them to see the interaction I made use of the EOS Utility in conjunction with Microsoft’s PixelSense (Samsung SUR40) providing a table top interactive surface with which to interact with the settings of the Canon 600D. In front of the camera I placed two tables covered with some green cloth and a number of objects at different distances to focus on. You will also notice from the images below I also included a tape measure running down the length of the table.
Located next to the Camera and the PixelSense table I added a HD TV so I could readily see the interactions I was performing. Floating a few feet over the PixelSense SUR40 hung a Sony NX5E video camera suspended in space in a under-slung position with the help of a Libec Swift Jib 50 Kit (comprising the arm, T102B tripod and DL08 dolly).
The HDMI video feed from the camera was fed to a splitter box with one input and two outputs. As you can guess one of the HDMI outputs fed directly into the HD TV, the other via the use of a HDMI to VGA adapter went off to feed the three projector screens.
All in all I was quite pleased with the overall result especially as all the students could see what I was doing first hand, moreover there was no need to repeat the processes a dozen times or more to a set of small groups all crowded around the camera. After I demoed the variables affecting the depth of field I let the students to come up and have a go with altering the settings such as f-stop and focal length themselves. They all really seemed to enjoy interacting with the Camera through the use of the surface and whats more all the other students could see what they were doing as well. They also had a good bit of fun just playing with the controls of the Jib and operating the REMO30 pan/tilt head. Concurrently after I had demoed the use of the system I got them to do some multiplicity photographs in our green screen room. The others who were waiting of course to get their chance to interact with this equipment and take some photographs were busy working their way through some photoshop tutorials. So that kept them busy with three distinctive tasks to carry out.
Once they all knuckled down to work, a few 3rd year students dropped by the lab to give me a hand in moving our OptiTrack Flex 13 motion capture system to another room, thereby freeing up our green screen room purely for photographic and video effects work. All it all it was a busy morning, with lots of equipment being moved around. Fortunately I had moved all the equipment you see in the images below into place the night before. You will notice that a shadow is cast by the Sony NX5E video camera and the REMO30 tilt/pan head. I am sure with a bit of shuffling of elements around this can be eliminated for the next time. In the final photograph of the set below, you can see the setup with the projection being displayed on two of the three screens, though the far off screen is quite a distance down the lab. I had hoped to record some video of the system in use, but didn’t get around to it due to the rehousing of the motion capture system, so may give it a go the next time with the elements rearranged is a slightly better manner. I guess the question for the next class is what will I demonstrate next? Some panoramic photography with the use of a Manfrotto QTVR 303Kit was something I had considered as a possibility.
Some members of the Computer Society and a few others gathered together for few games of Minecraft recently. The video below give some idea of what went on. More info on the RGU CompSoc wordpress site.
The following photographs give a sense of the evolution of the New Build at the Garthdee campus of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen over the course of about sixteen months. Additional detail may be seen by following the hyper-linked dates of when the photographs were taken. Beginning in October 2011 one can see the initial stages of the main building and library starting to emerge from their foundations and evolve over time to a fully clad and glazed structure. If you take a look at the photoset from the 15th August you will see some interior images. The most recent set located towards the very bottom of this post were taken on the 15th January 2013, you may like to compare these to a set taken one year before on the 14th January 2012 to see the progress made over the course of a year. Its expected that the building will start being occupied from July of this year.
Additional information about the project may be seen at http://www4.rgu.ac.uk/campusdev/masterplan. The embedded video below (from the RobertGordonUni YouTube Channel) provides a fly-through of the build and should give a good sense of what the completed project should look like, both inside and out.
The following are a few scenes from around the campus of Robert Gordon University taken around sunrise. If you look closely you just may spot a baby deer peeking out from behind a tree in one of the images.
It has been quite a while since the last photo update – 30th Sept 2012. Snow has been on the ground here in Aberdeen the past two days, as such it add an additional element to the images below, and thereby differing greatly from all previous posts on this topic. Most of the work being carried out over the past few months has been internal. One quite apparent difference from the previous posting may be seen on the roof of the library tower, these vertical elements were added in October. The addition of a dark cladding to the exterior walls of the services area is also a new feature. One will also notice the removal of the wall just outside the entrance way to the FOHS building.
The Computer Society – RGU CompSoc has held a number of events during the semester so far. The start of the year brought about a new name for the society along with a new logo. The wordpress and twitter feeds were updated to reflect this. In addition a facebook page was setup too to run in conjunction with the previously established flickr and youtube channels.
The following post on the compsoc wordpress site provides a summary of the events from each meeting.
Wednesday 14th Nov 2012 a dozen students from Oldmachar Academy spent the day at School of Computing Science and Digital Media. We kept them busy for quite a few hours with a series of talks covering everything and anything from Digital Media to the Raspberry Pi and what it’s like to do a 1 years work placement. One can find out further detail about this by visiting the following blog post.
The second of our two Open Day’s at the School of Computing Science and Digital Media took place today (Saturday 3rd Nov 2012). The visitors to the School arrived for 10:00 in the morning at one of our computer labs, following on from this they were presented with a short series of talks introducing them to the school. After the talks they had the chance to look around at some of the demos we had running including a remotely operated camera jib system, a setup for product photography, motion tracking with the kinect, motion capture with a 12 camera optitrack system and an eye tracking system. The day concluded with a set of workshops focused on iPhone Programming and Human Computation.
In the lead-up to the open day I had spent Thursday afternoon setting up a 40″ TV that had just arrived in conjunction with the Libec Swift Jib 50 and REMO30. Friday morning was spent organising the demo rooms and reconfiguring the Jib. Neither the product photography setup with a 4ft lastolite cubelite or the optitrak motion capture system are to be seen in the videos from today. The afternoon was spent re-calibrating the OptiTrack MoCap system and getting various cameras and other bits and pieces sorted out. Between the preparations and editing the videos below I have spent two entire days getting things up and running, some results of which may be seen in the videos below, enjoy.
You will probably note that Nemo features quite heavily in the videos below, I had seen this in a Disney shop the previous weekend and thought it would look good in the office. Nemo is a really nice example of computer graphics and animation, hence quite a suitable decoration for the office.
The video below was recorded during our open day four weeks ago and includes several other scenes that weren’t included in the videos from today (see above).
The following are just a few short videos giving you a small flavor of the myriad of model trains that were available to see during the Aberdeen Model Railway Club Exhibition that took place on the weekend of 27/28th Oct 2012. One can find out further information about the club and exhibition from their website http://www.aberdeenmrc.co.uk.
Is RGU CompSoc a Computer Society or a Hillwalking Club? That’s a question we ask ourselves every time we venture into the wilds of Scotland for a bit of adventure. This time we headed about 60km west of Aberdeen to Loch Muick, just a few miles south west of Ballater. As you can see it was quite an overcast and damp day but everybody really had a great time. In all about twenty students and academics joined in the fun, some took the easy option of just quickly going around the track that located just meters from the loch itself. The other dozen as you can see from this video decided to take a slightly more adventurous up into the cloud covered hills.
I kept on thinking that our journey through the misty and cloud covered hills around the loch were a bit like the journey of the “Fellowship of the Ring” trying to cross the misty mountains. In one scene from our adventures you can probably think of a very similar scene from the Fellowship of the Ring where the Hobbits, Humans,Dwarf, Elf & Wizard make their way in single file across the ridge of a mountain shortly after commencing their quest from the elven outpost of Rivendell. In our case we are in single file, but one of the main differences is that you can just barely see us given the cloud cover. As we all know the depiction of Middle-Earth was recorded in New Zealand, given its wondrous landscapes, I do wonder however that it could also have been shot in Scotland.
One of the students on the hillwalking adventure tracked our route via gps, you can see the route below, as you can see we travelled 17.2km in a time of 5h 10mins.
For some strange reason, perhaps because its just a fun thing to do the Computer Society generally does a few hillwalking trips each year somewhere out in the wilds of Scotland. The new academic semester began three weeks ago, hence going by tradition a spot of hillwalking was called for. Its often joked about that we should rename the society to the “Hillwalking Society” rather than the “Computer Society”, although last week I gave a lecture and demo of a motion capture system recently purchased by the School as well as a Remotely operated Jib. This coming week we will be hearing all about the Raspberry Pi from one of our final year honours students.
The weather for today’s trip was perhaps not the best as it was raining for more or less the entire day, but I think its safe to say that everybody enjoyed the days adventure. In total about twenty people from the School went on the trip to Loch Muick. Most academics and postgrads took the “low road” (about half a dozen or so), I on the other hand wanted some elevation and views hence took the undergrads and MSc’s up onto the “high road” for a more adventurous journey through the rain and cloud covered hills surrounding the loch. As you can see from some of the pictures the visibility was quite poor for all of our journey across the ridge of the hill. Effective visibility may have been perhaps 100 feet or less on many an occasion.
The very first photo is of a group shot taken on our return journey back to the car park (perhaps just 15 mins or less away). Only after looking at the photos did I notice that the Irish flag should have been the other way around. At this time however it was close to 17:00 and we were focused on getting back to the Minibus so it was just a very quick stop for a photo op. We had left Aberdeen just after 09:30 in the morning and made a quick stop in Aboyne for some supplies, which included several boxes of Jaffa Cakes! We had arrived at Loch Muick and had commenced the hillwalking adventure a little before 12:00 in the day. For additional photos see the following Photo Set on Flickr. On our journey back to Aberdeen we stopped in Ballater for about 30 mins where half a dozen of us picked up some fish and chips, before carrying on with our journey around 18:00. We finally reached Aberdeen around 19:30 and dropped people off at a few places, before finally making our way back to the main campus to drop off the minibus just a few minutes before 20:00.
In the above picture from left to right you can see: , Kevin, Francois, Michal, Michal, Ross, Gleb, , and myself.
Shortly after setting off on our journey we encountered this frog quite happily just sitting in a puddle right in the middle of the track. As you can see he had his arms up and seems a bit camera shy.
The decision point to take the “high road” or the “low road”, for me it was a simple choice. It was supposted to be a “hillwalking trip” after all!
The following video will give you some small sense of what it was like today during our Open Day at the School of Computing Science and Digital Media, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland. It was held from about ten o’clock in the morning until three in the afternoon. After a half-hour registration period, visitors were treated to a welcome talk and a short series of lectures. Following on from this a number of hour long workshops were held on such topics as iPhone programming, cryptography and wireless networks. Their was also time to have a chat with Academics and see some of the demonstrations we had running throughout the day, most of which may be seen in this video. As you can see in some segments we were piping a video feed of the demonstrations happening in other rooms into one of our PC labs and projecting them for all to see.
Demonstrations included the use of an Eye Tracker to identify the area on screen a person was focusing on. A full body Motion Capture System comprising of a twelve camera Flex 13 system from Optitrack was also available to see in action. In concert with this we also had a motion tracking demo running on a Microsoft Kinect for windows, though the students who were doing the video recording didn’t get any footage of this. Also demonstrated was the Microsoft Surface (Samsung SUR40) which supports up to 52 points of interaction concurrently. If you watch all the video you may see that we certainly came close to this maximum value. All in all everybody seemed to enjoy the day visitors, staff and student helpers alike. Our next open day will be in a months time, at which point we hope to have a far larger and wider set of demonstrations to show the visitors to the school. See my YouTube Channel for further videos of some of the equipment seen here in this video.
Chris Young another member of staff at the School also grabbed hold of a camera and quickly recorded some of footage from of the Motion Capture System in operation. For more videos from Chris take a look at his Vimeo Channel.
Motion Capture System from Chris Young on Vimeo.
Time-lapse video showing the sunrise at the main entrance to Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland. This video was recorded at seven in the morning on the 1st October 2012. As the sun rises you can see some nice reflections of the clouds in the library tower. The Faculty of Health Sciences (FOHS) Building reflects the light of the rising sun just below roof level. The recently constructed main entrance is also illuminated by the rising sun and towards the end of the video one can see the lettering of the universities name being projected onto the road.
As you can see the exterior work to the library tower is almost complete apart from boxing in the facilities at roof level. Given that the University is hosting an Open Day on Wednesday 3rd Oct 2012 I thought it appropriate to create these videos to help give some sense of what the campus is like, especially as all those in the city centre will be moving to the Garthdee campus during the summer of 2013 in time for the kickoff of the 2013-14 academic year.
During the summer period at sun rise one could see some really nice interactions with the glass of the library tower due to the transmissive light from the sun cutting across the atmosphere, perhaps another time-lapse in about ten months time is called for when all the work has been completed and the sun is in a more northerly position at dawn. For further detail on the progress of the new build you can see my previous post from the 30th Sept.
It has been a number of weeks since my previous post focused on the interior of the New Build. The first week of classes has concluded and during that time some students inquired as to when the next photo update would be. Given that it’s the last day of September, it seems only fitting to finish off the first week of the semester with an update. One can see that the main entrance wall is in place and the Universities names features prominently. This has been in place for just a few weeks now. The glass surround at roof level of the library tower has also been in place a few weeks. Glass has been installed at the main entrance into the building, hence it’s getting very close to being fully watertight. Student services has been moved into level 3 of the FOHS Building, so its a one stop shop for all student queries. The other major point of note is that since the start of this week the number 1 bus now goes through campus, entering at the main entrance and exiting by ABS. Additional traffic lights have been set in place on Garthdee road to accommodate this.
Saw this squirrel yesterday running along the 2nd floor windowsill of one of the University Buildings. The squirrel seems really eager to begin some higher education study (scratching at the window trying to get in), especially as this is the area that houses our PhD students. I guess I should not be surprised as it is Freshers week after-all.
As the title says, the Linkedin alumni group has reached 303 members. My previous post on this dated 6th February 2012 highlighted it reaching the 200 member mark.
So why the wait until the number reached 303 and no mention of it reaching 300. The number 303 is referenced in the Matrix on a number of occasions. The film begins with Trinity being confronted in Room 303 whilst conducting her search for Neo. While trying to get away from the Agents, Neo is directed to Room 303, and finally Neo escapes from the Matrix via a phone in Room 303. In Room 303 is also the title of a film from 1947. According to the following site, George Lucas stayed in Room 303 at Troy Hall while studying at USC.
If you are a graduate of the School of Computing (now known as the School of Computing Science and Digital Media (since 1st August 2012)) at Robert Gordon University they you can join the group by following this link. Before joining it is well worth while to take a look at a few other profiles to get a sense for what they are like. You should clearly outline your link to the School – what degree you did, subjects of interest, extracurricular activities etc. You may also want to do some searching around and establish at least a few connections, before your request to join will be approved. The following post by http://cbeagrie.wordpress.com can be a useful starting place for some ideas regarding the content you may wish to include in your profile.
