2026.3.26-28 Electric SEA

Electric Sea 2026 is hosting a so-called hackerthon at ArtLove Salon, where I took a few art classes recently. I signed up for a workshop taught by Grant Hinkson. He has prepared 6 nicely crafted wooden box, precut plexi-glass plates, PCB board designed by him and manufactured in China (shipment arrived in 4 days!). In class 1, we hooked up the wires with the controllers, and an Teensy 4.0 microcontroller (Amazon or Sparkfun). In class 2, we downloaded his code, and flashed onto the Teensy with Arduino IDE. We verfied that our connections were correct by checking the readout in our laptop using his debugger, for all the controllers: 4 rotary, 2 sliders, 2 buttons. Then we screwed the bottom plate on, jammed the USB cord through the outlet. Too bad that the plug where the USB cord goes through is too tight. I, and Daniel, fried our microcontrollers. Last, open Visual Studio, grab any example from OpenProcessing, modify it by using AI (Claude) with an example he provided.

3/28, Saturday, evening, OK and I arrived almost at 7pm. I asked her to sign up for the award ceremony. But no one checked her registration. We walked around different installations, ate sandwiches and spring rolls. Saw a group using VR glasses, one girl with her colored fabric patches of her year of pain, a group with LED lights that get brighter if one light is near another, a large screen of static kelp and sound of water (diving), a cut piramide-shaped robot, a large paper-mache with lights that turned color when you touch it, a webapp that registers user's hand gesture to ~8 emotions based on predefined questions and then plot the the questions in shiny spheres colored by aggregated emotions... The inventor (or the group of designers) stood by their products and tell you what they are about. To be honest, a lot of crap. But a great chance for people of different discipline to get together and play. Here's Grant's station showcasing what we built: 3 boxes here (total 6 students). None of these are final prototype, but a tool to use in some projects.

At 8:15pm, Elizabeth Churchill gave a talk to encourage everyone playing with AI. She's part of a planning team for an AI univesity in United Emerit. Luckily she's not there now, with the ongoing war. A good speaker. Afterwards, the organizer Third Place Technologies presented awards to the "digital kelp", and the "light together".

2026.3.26. Cherry Blossom at UW Quad

3/26, Thursday. Sunny. Went to UW at lunch time. Too bad, many others had the same idea. The flowers are lovely, just too many people.

2026.3.23. Tiger 3

3/23, Monday. After 2 meetings, I headed to Issaquah for Tiger. Started late, only went to Tiger3 today, so I could visit a friend in her new house. Despite of the clouds, I could still see most mountains, and the Seattle high rises. Here's a mother carrying her unwilling baby up here. Not a bad excercie.

Tried again today with my Brooks running shoes, and I fell twice coming down. Need hiking boots here. Debating what to bring for my Camino -- I'll be walking 200 miles in late April. I was told to wear trailrunners. Maybe next time, I'll try my On shoes. Or do I need ankle support?

From Issaquah to Kirkland requires 3 buses!

2026.3.21. Mixed Media Workshop with Rowan Eriksson

3/21, Saturday afternoon. Another workshop at Art Love Salon. Today, no lesson. We were given a wide variety of paint, crayons, charcoals to use. A bunch of magazines to cut from too. More students than usual. Most I haven't seen before. 2 glasses of cut flowers as model. But not all the students paint from these flowers.

I'm at loss of what to use. I like lessons. This is what I made after ~2 hours. Mixing oil with acrylic turns out disasterous. Rowan smelled my paint and told me which one is what. Amazing. The guy on my right painted very fast and well. Then he started to glue things onto his painting. The guy on my left, by contract, did 2 things which I couldn't tell what either one is. He also talks a lot. Quite annoying. He is a cancer researcher.

2026.3.20. Firebird at PNB

3/20, Friday.

• Alejandro Cerrudo -- Little mortal jump
• Ulysses Dove -- Red Angels
• Kent Stowell -- Firebird

I had too high of an expectation for Firebird, and it fell short. The last grand scene of palace and the new couple look nice with the costums, but no much dancing. The set uses many overhanging painted cardboards. A few arches. Looks nice enough, quite efficient, but not sure why the hype.

Today's firebird is Ashton Edwards, a 5'-short non-binary boy, who danced en pointe in a female role. He/she is very good, as graceful as a girl, but have strength. Kudo to PNB that allows such a young artist to flourish.

Out of the 3 works today, I liked "Little mortal jump" the most. It's quite different, with some jerky movements.