dorkbot-sf November 30, 2005

Trevor Smith - Making the Memex
The future sucks. Fix the past. It is an embarrassment to electricity and celluloid that nobody bothered to instantiate one of the most influential designs of information technology. The memex was described in 1945 as an electromechanical tool for scholars to share hypertexts in the form of microfilm "trails" of interlinking documents. The publication describing the memex is credited with popularizing the original ideas of the web and lighting a fire under the geeks who fabricated the net. Trevor will present the details of this influential paperware and his plan to bring it out of vaporware.

Trevor F. Smith prototypes geegaws for the eggheads at [Xerox] PARC. He enjoys para-snorkeling, beer with funny labels, and the occasional explosion.
http://trevor.smith.name

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Graham Plumb - Light Fantastic
This presentation will begin with an acrylic cube filled with water and light, reactive to sound, gesture and the breath of someone from the audience. We will then move on to bags of water filled with electricity, a map of the world made from sun burnt skin peeled from the artists backside, walls built from reactive bricks of light and a Museum in Hawaii containing a three story volcano designed to erupt over Oahu at the push of a button.

Graham promises a varied line up of projects, diverse in their intent and origins but connected by a fascination with the wonderful phenomenon of light. He will demonstrate how light can be transformed into an object, used to dissolve walls into windows, or be diffused just enough to support uncertain scientific theories.

Graham is a media artist and museum exhibit designer originally from the UK and now living in San Francisco. He designs physically interactive experiences for museums and galleries. His talk will present a selection of work completed in the past 10 years - from free flowing experimental personal research projects to carefully planned visitor experiences for Museums throughout Europe and North America. This will include a premiere of the most recent project to date - the new 'Science Learning Center' for the Bishop Museum in Hawaii.

http://www.grahamplumb.com

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Tom Zimmerman - Using Electronics Gadgets to Teach Kids Science and Engineering
For the past several years Tom has been visiting K-12 students in public schools developing technology and after-school classes to help kids discover and explore science and engineering, often using music and visual arts to attract students' interest. The technology he will discuss includes programming robots with playing cards, hacking digital cameras to make animated movies and lensless microscopes, electronic circuits to sequence LEDs and perform strobe experiments, building musical instruments, and using inexpensive components to do science fair projects.

Thomas G. Zimmerman is a member of the research staff exploring the frontiers of human-computer interaction at the IBM Almaden Research Center. His 15 patents cover position tracking, pen input, wireless communication, music training, biometrics and encryption. Mr. Zimmerman's inventions include the Data Glove, Electric Field Personal Area Network (EF PAN), a wireless PDA to capture multiple biometrics, and tokenless electronic tender secured with dynamic signature verification. His interactive exhibits are installed at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, National Geographic Society in Washington, DC, and Great Lakes Science Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He received his B.S. in Humanities and Engineering (1980) and M.S. in Media Science (1995) from MIT.

http://domino.research.ibm.com/odis/odis.nsf/pages/profile.zimmerman.html