Tagged: summary

Happy Holidays!

Thank You Cards from the Gilbert Linkous ElementaryGiven the lack of fresh blogging on our front page, one might have begun to wonder if L2Ork had filed for whatever is the academic equivalent of Chapter 11. In part to dispel such unfounded concerns, it is my hope the following post is going to assure you L2Ork is not only still here, it is stronger than ever. It is simply that we’ve all been tremendously busy this past semester and as such our blogging activities have taken a back seat until things settled down a bit. So, what have we been up to?

Our membership has been on a steady rise and our infrastructure keeps improving on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, apart from upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 (a.k.a. Long Term Support release), we’ve had a slew of pd-l2ork updates to the point we now maintain our own Git hub. Most recently, pd-l2ork has introduced infinite undo and a number of graphically-friendly editing options that should make creating pieces for the ensemble a breeze (belated warning: non-geek readers may want to simply skip the previous two sentences altogether :-).

Technical matters aside (as exciting as they may be), the fall has proven an intense semester, indeed. Apart from the Virginia State Fair which has also spawned flattering media coverage, L2Ork has also had shows at Ferrum College as well as Blacksburg’s Gilbert Linkous Elementary, where we’ve received standing ovations for performances of pieces I honestly worried would be too long and slow-paced for kindergarten, elementary and middle school children. With such thankful audience I must say that performance is definitely among my favorites. And as if that weren’t enough, kids from the entire school have drawn and mailed us literally dozens upon dozens of thank you cards featuring scenes and student impressions from our performance! Finally, in early November, I took a trip down to Texas A&M for an invited lecture and performance as part of the award L2Ork received this past February.

All in all, it’s been a busy semester and with the newfound Virginia Tech Institute for Creativity, Arts & Technology (ICAT) now in full swing, it appears the next semester will be even more intense (more on that soon…). So, while we are all trying to catch our collective breaths, spend some quality time with our families, and indulge in eggnog, I invite you to check out latest version of pd-l2ork, visit our YouTube page, join our Facebook page, or follow us via our new Twitter account (many thanks to L2Orkists for their initiative on this one!). I wish you all very best for the Holidays and a Happy New Year!

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20/20

L2Ork Debut, Virginia Tech Studio Theatre, December 04, 2009As a number of l2orkists have already pointed out, L2Ork debut was a great success! We’ve had a packed house and a flattering amount of coverage, from regional news to Slashdot and other unsuspecting media sources.

As a thanks to all our L2Ork supporters and enthusiasts, we would like to share with you a piece from the program. So, head on to our jukebox for a quick listen.

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This being the last week of our summer project, I feel rather good as we’ve accomplished most if not all of the goals set back in the Spring of 2009. We’ve:

  • Researched the most cost-efficient version of the L2Ork hardware and supporting infrastructure;
  • Designed, prototyped, and developed L2Ork version of the hemispherical speakers;
  • Produced mono and 6-channel versions of cables so that the 6-cone speakers can be driven as a mono or multichannel sound system with simply swapping the speaker cable;
  • Optimized Ubuntu 9.04 Linux distribution for L2Ork use;
  • Overhauled Linux GUI for the Pure-Data rapid multimedia prototyping and development software platform (no worries, we’ll be posting source soon);
  • Prepped 12 out of 17 MSI Wind netbooks for the Fall L2Ork curriculum (we should hopefully take care of the rest tomorrow);
  • Developed a threaded version of the wiimote Pd external that is Pd-audio-thread safe and dramatically lowers latency for the LED and vibration feedback (source distribution coming soon);
  • Designed branding logo and produced the L2Ork website (based on the amazing WordPress);
  • Shot tons of instructional footage, and photos, some of the said footage has been already produced (thanks Maya!) and is available on the DISIS Youtube channel and L2Ork media pages (and more coming soon!);
  • Painted tons of wiimotes and nunchuks black (yeah, we also heard about the E3’s big announcement regarding upcoming release of the black wiimotes but we simply did not want to wait until the end of the year for the cool stuff to hit eastern shores of the Pacific);
  • Designed and prototyped cost-efficient netbook performance holster, and
  • Secured additional partners and sponsors.

Finally, as promised, we are sharing our first photos of the L2Ork hemispherical speakers with the World. Enjoy!

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