Monthly Archives: September 2016

Marshmallow Challenge

As part of Building Virtual Worlds we were tasked to complete the marshmallow challenge.

The marshmallow challenge has teams build a tower out of a number of materials:

  • 20 sticks of spaghetti.
  • One yard of tape.
  • One yard of string.
  • One marshmallow.

We completed the challenge with a height of 29 inches, and though our tower may not have been the tallest when measured. At the end of the day it certainly was the tallest left standing.

marshmallow-challenge

Visual Story – Composition

In our Visual Story course we were tasked to take pictures demonstrating various visual concepts. Our first assignment involved composition, namely working with the following concepts in photography:

  • Balance
  • Filling the Frame
  • Frame Withing a Frame.
  • Lines.
  • Patterns.
  • Rule of Thirds.
  • Shapes.

Below are the pictures I took for each category with a little why for each.

Some of the following photos did not successfully capture the category, but I included them anyways because I enjoyed taking them.

Balance

Balance is a tricky concept well explained at photographylife.com. Essentially when I took my photos I focused on creating photos with two points of focus and symmetry.

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White Water Rafting – Pittsburgh

Have you ever gone white water rafting? With a lottery, a little yellow ticket, and the efforts of Carnegie Mellon Universities Graduate Student Assembly, I have.

white_water_rafting_gsa

So on a dreary Sunday morning we set off for the main university campus, got on a bus, and traveled to the lower Youghiogheny River.

white_water_rafting_leaving

When we finally arrived, we were dropped off at the outdoor office of our guides, The Laurel Highlands River Tours (imagine the following picture but grey and rainy).

white_water_rafting_laurel

On confirming our reservation we promptly collected our gear, ran through various vitally important safety measures, then began rafting. The experience required working together with ones raft cohabitants, and though we ‘frequently’ faced trials and tribulations, we always pulled through in the end.

white_water_rafting_boat

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