dan's blog

3M is hosting a Scotch Tape Sculpture contest; the grand prize is $5000!

Entries are due Feb 28th, 2010.

This fits into a bigger conversation I'd like to have with 3M; can their ongoing support of engineering in St. Paul Public Schools also included a focus on the arts? I think that they should have artist residencies on their St. Paul campus.

The artists would work to repurpose 3M's diverse array of products into new creations. This would be powerful, not only as an act of publicity (like this contest), but also as a means of inspiration for the public and 3M's employees.

Here is a great article on "teaching" (for lack of a better word) Processing to young kids. It's not necessarily convincing, especially with Scratch around, but it makes me want to finally try bringing Processing to our youth programming work:

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/11/teaching-kids-programmers/

image created in Processing by Nik Rowell

Luigi just posted this to the Learning Studio blog (a bizarro Shimmering Glitters?)

This is a great adaptation of simple tech for a cool effect:

Bildr.org looks quite promising. It applies a Wikipedia-ish spin to the Instructables movement.

Let's hope people pitch in and help out!

An article in the Star Tribune today describes the growth and change in 4-H clubs nationwide (i.e. it's not just about agriculture.)

http://www.startribune.com/local/north/56426422.html

When you begin typing a search query into Google, it attempts to complete the search with popular search terms. It is an interesting look into what the world wants to know:

This is a great TED Talk with implications beyond business (ex: education!)

This was just brought to my attention; I had never heard of TEDxTC before, but of course I had heard of TED (and his most excellent adventures.)

This should be a TED-esque event, complete with sweeping hand gestures, grandiloquent statements, and designer eyeglass frames.

I think we need to get some museum speakers, right *Keith*? There may be more info on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Update: registration is free at http://tedxtc.eventbrite.com/, password is tedster

Another college friend of mine (who also helped with the previously-posted Mujik app) has made "Itch", a visual, Scratch-like programming language for the iPhone.

It's fantastic.

My college friend made an iPhone app, it will be available within days.

It lets you make (good!) music, it looks beautiful and unlike any other piece of music software, and also it's awesome.

Mujik:

Two more videos after the break....