826 Michigan Window Robot

I can not believe I never posted the finished 826 Michigan robot! I just realized that my header image here at A plus D equals Me and my welcome image at my website, umich.edu/~petemh, both use the robot and I've never really shown him here! So, here goes!

Well it's pretty simple all together actually, the robot was made as an incandescent window dressing model to attract attention night and day to the 826 Michigan robot storefront. 826 Michigan is a "non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write." After tutoring there a few times for CFC II, I did the robot as way to give back.

Why a robot? Well the original 826 tutoring location in San Fransisco had a clause in it's building lease that they needed to have a store front, so they put up a pirate supply store, kinda as a joke. Except now the store is very profitable and helps to drive the free tutoring programs for the kids. It is now a tradition for all 826 locations around the nation to have a store front, Michigan chose a robot supply store and called it Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair. How awesome is that for kids, get tutoring at the robot store! If you want to visit, it's here in Ann Arbor at 115 East Liberty Street a few blocks away from campus towards Main St.

826 Michigan Storefront

The robot himself (if it was a real robot, it would be programed to be a guy I've decided, a guy robot who waves hi!), was designed in Adobe Illustrator, and made out of 1/4" amber acrylic which was laser cut and then stacked and fastened together. His eyes light up when he is plugged in and his whole head glows! Which, of course, is awesome!





Hope you like him, it's one of my favorite things I've done at Michigan. I mean a light up robot? Please.

Thanks for reading!

Gonna kill me or make me strong (like Super Man strong).

This is going to be one tough semester. One and a half weeks in and I'm tired like we've been going for a month.

The culprit is chiefly Sketching Ideas. I'm certainly going to get better at drawing, of which my skills are admittedly, at best, weak. Over the long weekend we have 13 hours of drawing. A good amount of time, the majority of it on 40 concepts for a new R2-D2. That's actually pretty cool, robots are sweet. Oh and we have to go to the Detroit Auto Show this weekend to take pictures. Fun (not really). I have little interest in cars, but hopefully the interesting concepts will make it bearable.

Designer Bootcamp and Dimensional Languages are going well, I'm enjoying both, neither is a huge amount of work, yet. I'm sure I'll get some really busy times when those two get going.

Either way, I've got to get to class. We start the Penny Stamps lecture series tonight, a U of M A&D prof is talking, Nick Tobier, I had him for ADP II, and really like him. Really cool guy.

Thanks for reading, I'll post some images later, maybe some of my concepts for R2-D2.

Balloon Harp Realized

The balloon harp came together nicely this week. I'm really quite happy with it.






The harp was designed for looks instead of quality of sound. It still makes noise, but how good can stretched balloons sound? Kind of a buzzing sound, not horrible, it's interesting actually.
I love how the neon colors of the balloons look against the rich stain of the wood. The balloon tops along the top of the harp are beautiful, almost like a dinosaurs back spikes. Almost.

For more pictures, check out my website/digital portfolio that I just put up. umich.edu/~petemh
I need to update the site with more recent work but you can see my robot and the balloon harp, as well as some old work. The harp is under industrial design.

Thanks for reading!