Episode Notes

Jose Luis García del Castillo on robot control accessibility, learning from open-source software, the joy of being an educator, simple living, eating healthy, and more.

Jose Luis is an architect, computational designer, and educator who advocates for a future where programming and code are tools as natural to designers as paper and pencil. In his work, he explores creative opportunities at the intersection of design, technology, fabrication, data, and art. His current research focuses on the development of digital frameworks that help democratize access to robotic technologies for designers and artists. Currently, he is a Doctor of Design candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, an educator of computational creativity in the Arts+Design Department at Northeastern University, and a Research Engineer at the Generative Design Group at Autodesk.

You can find Jose Luis tweeting at @garciadelcast, taking pictures on Instagram at @garciadelcastillo, and writing code on Github.

Updates

2019.10.09 · You should definitely take a look at Jose Luis' course: GSD-6338: Introduction to Computational Design at the Harvard GSD.

2020.05.01 · Jose Luis is recording tutorials and live streaming on YouTube at ParametricCamp.

Links

Cesar Pelli, Mecanoo, OMA, and MVRDV are international architecture firms for which Jose Luis worked as a structural consultant.
Parametric design is a paradigm in design where the relationship between elements is used to manipulate and inform the design of complex geometries and structures.
Visual programming environments let users create programs by manipulating graphical elements rather than by writing code. (Some are Dynamo, Grasshopper, or Scratch.)
Ben Fry is an American expert in data visualization. He is a co-developer of Processing, an open source programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching the basics of computer programming in a visual context.
The Block Research Group (BRG) at ETH Zürich focuses on several core areas, including computational form finding, structural design, fabrication, and construction technologies.
Compas is an open-source, Python-based framework for computational research and collaboration in architecture, engineering, and digital fabrication led by Tom Van Mele.
Robot programming (and software) is the set of coded commands or instructions that tell a mechanical device and electronic system, known together as a robot, what tasks to perform.
Machina is an open source, C# library for action-based real-time control of mechanical actuators. Machina can also be used with Dynamo and Grasshopper.
Robot Drawing is a quick installation that uses Processing and Machina for Dynamo Jose Luis and I did for having a robotic arm draw with a Sharpie what kids were drawing on a touch screen that took place at Kids at Autodesk Day 2017. Watch it on YouTube.
Machine Learning for Artists (ml4a) is a collection of free educational resources devoted to machine learning for artists.
Roomba is a series of autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners sold by iRobot.
Colin Angle (CEO of iRobot) gave a TEDMED TED Talk titled Will a robot care for my mom? at Palm Springs, CA.
Human-computer interaction (commonly referred to as HCI) researches the design and use of computer technology, focused on the interfaces between people (users) and computers.
Jean Piaget is known for his theory of cognitive development that explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world.
Seymour Papert was one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, and of the constructionist movement in education.
Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn day long conference is an open forum for educators teaching computer programming in creative and artistic contexts led by the School for Poetic Computation.
Interfaces for Digital Making: Reflections at The Intersection of Creativity, Matter, Computers and Minds was written by Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo in 2016.
Brian Drey is Jose Luis's SoundCloud DJ profile.
Seth Godin is an American author who has written more than twenty books on marketing and how to defeat the resistance.
Dale Carnegie was an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills.

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