October 20th, 2014

“What’s with the jungle gym?”(Doctorow,100)

“Most people don’t even notice it. They think its daycare or something. Well, that’s how it started out. Some of the sensor people started noodling with jungle gym components that could tell how often they were played with. They started moding the gym every night, adding variations on the elements that saw the most action, removing the duds. Then the CAD people added an algorithm that would take the sensor data and generate random variations on the same basis. Finally, some of the robotics people got in on the act so that the best of the computer-evolved designs could be instantiated automatically: now it’s a self-modifying jungle gym.” (Doctorow,100)

Knowing this story isn’t true, I am still excited to think about a piece of work that can be the product of collaboration. I wonder what projects will be created through the collective efforts of individuals in the Making Meaning Matter class. What will people decide to work together on and how will they work together? Are people outside of the class going to be interested with are projects? Will they be asking my classmates and I about the projects they or we have collaborated on? What will are “Jungle gyms” be?