How far back are you looking.......
 

so its that time of the year again and we have received that Animation Prompt Fairly early this year and along with the prompt questions arise about what Autodesk/FIRST are looking for from us in the prompt and what they are really getting at.

My Question is, how far back do they want us to go for natures solution to a problem?

EXAMPLE*:
Hurricane Katrina happened due to "Global Warming"
"Global Warming" happened because of pollution
Pollution happens because of the human race

Natures solution to Humans is to wipe us out


*may or may not be true


Please don't turn this into an fight about what is true and what is not in the world, but i just want to see if people are looking at this prompt the same way I am

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

You may want to look at the websites listed. It looks like Autodesk is making a strong stand behind bio mimicry. They did have some interesting examples listed.

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

Can this be on something thats been done before (i.e. solar panels inspired by photosynthesis in plants), or something that is totally new and never done before? Please help I feel that this prompt is somewhat vague.

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

Ok let me put it to you strait. In animation, you are allowed to do ANYTHING, even if its just a shapes floating around.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. In 2007 the theme for the AVA was "Think Green" The goal was to come up with a solution that would help the environment. Our team produced This animation. Which is entire unlike anything you would expect. and it won us the National AVA award. You need to think way outside the box. Do not go with your first idea, its normally the most cliche`d and obvious idea. Try to think of something that no one else will.

And use symbolism and cinema photography techniques, the judges love that. Cinema Photography is not hard to grasp, you just need to slow down the camera and make good compositions.

Unlike the rest of FIRST robotics, Animation is considered an art form, use it to create art.

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

yeah I know about the website, asknature.org

I think I may be digging to deep into what they are asking.

The easist way I'm finding to tell people what biomimicry is:
photosynthesis caused solar panels idea to come about


along with that I except alot of teams to look at things that way and we'll see alot of animation about solar panels this year.:rolleyes: along with that though I also think that becasue the winning team last year won with the idea of making solar panels into smaller sections it is a bit cliche this year.

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

Team 1675 totally agrees. If you were at the Midwest regional last year, then you definitely remember the Cookie Machine...last years topic was to create an invention that would help your community (or something like that) and our team created the cookie machine....unrealistic and it doesn't really help any serious cause, and we didnt win any award, but it was still pretty fun to make and it didnt bore us to death for the time that we worked on it.

Make it creative or funny or anything you want.

By the way, thanks Winnovation again! That info meeting that you had last year at Midwest was great. As was you animation!!! :cool:

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

Thanks, I don't really know how well our animation team is doing this year. I've been pretty detached since I'm off at college, But I will still be at Midwest regional. Just look for me wearing my favorite "Autodesk" sweatshirt. I love to teach young students who are willing to learn.

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

From Wikipedia:

"Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a relatively new science that studies nature, its models, systems, processes and elements and then imitates or takes creative inspiration from them to solve human problems sustainably."

If you want to use hurricane Katrina as an example: There are hurricanes every year & there always will be. But what types of animals and plants survive storms & floods? Can we study them to design more storm resistant buildings & towns?

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

[quote=Kevin342;801227]From Wikipedia:

"Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a relatively new science that studies nature, its models, systems, processes and elements and then imitates or takes creative inspiration from them to solve human problems sustainably."[quote]

That is also what it says for the explanation on firstbase:

"Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a design discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies. The core idea is that nature has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with: energy, food production, climate control, non-toxic chemistry, transportation, packaging, and a whole lot more."


Something tells me autodesk copy and pasted....:ahh:

Anyway my team has come up with an idea, that we all feel really good about.

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

As far as I can guess (and since it's a guess, you can ignore me totally), you can do anything you want. Something well-known, like photosynthesis, in itself may not gain very many creativity points, but if you think of a great new way to portray it with your animation, then it's just as good as coming up with the most out-there idea ever. As long as there's some aspect of your animation that will make people say "oh wow, what I great idea!" then you're on the right track. So if photosynthesis interests your group, then go ahead.

Re: How far back are you looking.......
 

The only thing I would say abour photosynthesis in particular, is that it may prove relatively common and therefore lose some of it's competitiveness.