Tech + Design = Me
I began laying out the overall structure of my portfolio website.
Below is the wireframe for the main page and a single post page.
I am using WordPress for the backbone to my portfolio site. I creating a custom WordPress theme from scratch. You can see my progress of building this theme at robotruss.net.
Main Page Layout
Single Post Page Layout
For the color palette I choose the following colors.
This assignment we had to create two abstract pieces. One displays the use of complementary colors and the other tried to create the effect of transparency by changing the Brightness and Saturation values.
Complimentary Colors:
Transparency:
By changing the Brightness and Saturation values of a color creates the illusion of transparency.
For our Power Generation Midterm project Mindy and I decided to use Diet Coke and Mentos as our power source. Our initial tests showed the reaction power promising.
Diet Coke and Mentos Power from Russell de la Torre.
We piped the explosive reaction through garden hoses to a water wheel. The water wheel was connected to an old tape deck. We used the tape deck because it already had a series of pulleys and a motor for power generation. The pulleys converted the torque from the water wheel into higher RPMs for the connected motor.
We used the power generated to heat a USB soldering iron that melted marshmallows.
We also put a lego pirate beach scene inside the tank for eye candy.
Here is video of our presentation to the class of our Diet Coke and Mentos power generator.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get enough power to turn the water wheel. The loss of power was due to a leak in one of our Diet Coke bottles. The second problem was the Mentos pod in the other Coke bottle failed to drop into the soda.
Diet Coke and Mentos Take 1 from Russell de la Torre on Vimeo.
Due to a lousy first attempt we wanted to take another shot at it. Here’s what happened.
Diet Coke and Mentos Take 2 from Russell de la Torre on Vimeo.
For our final project we are going to create a portfolio website for our work at ITP. This is great because I’ve been meaning to build a portfolio website for a long time now.
I began searching the web for website that I liked. I definitely like cartoonish sites that involve nature. Here are some examples of themes I like to incorporate:
http://aditshukla.com/
http://kosmos.webtalents.pl/
http://www.komodomedia.com/
http://www.juandiegovelasco.com/
http://alexarts.ru/en/index.html
I have already started with my own theme playing with this idea of a cartoonish nature scene. I have the scene change based on the time of day. Right you can override the current theme to see what it will look like at different times of day. I haven’t finished it but here it is:
http://www.russelldelatorre.com
As for layout of my site I would like have a thumbnail grid to show off my work. The website below is a great example of this:
http://upthemes.com/demo/?theme=gallery
http://demo.woothemes.com/?name=object