All portfolio pieces

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As a small portion of the "Beyond the Byline: Erma Bombeck's Story" exhibit in the University of Dayton Roesch Library, I put together a video that runs on a loop in the space (you can see the video in the intro of the exhibit opening YouTube stream). This project was great for expanding my knowledge of DaVinci Resolve and finding a presentation solution for low-resolution clips.

Based on our first test with the low-resolution clips, displaying them full screen on the TV was not ideal. I had the idea to incorporate a retro TV scene to keep the videos smaller but still visually interesting. I created a composite image in GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), which was a successful start, but it was a challenge to find freely available photos that checked all of the boxes.

To have control over the scene, I decided to recreate it in Blender. Using a few reference images for a retro-style television and Erma's typewriter, I modeled everything in the scene except for the flower and vase. Through trial and error, I found lighting, HDRI, and rendering settings that produced a reasonably realistic result. The clips in that portion of the video were on the air in different years, so I created individual renders updating the "On Air" sign appropriately.

This was a ton of fun to put together, and I am pretty happy with the final result. After seeing all of the photos in the exhibit, if I were doing it over, I would replace the image above the TV with something else. I also would have modeled something to replace the flower, possibly putting in a few of Erma's books, centering the TV a little more.

A colleague has been working to streamline student worker training for Access Services in the University of Dayton Roesch Library. Initially, they sent links to Kent State University and Carnegie Mellon University's training to see if we could do something similar. In Kent State's case, their JavaScript code was homegrown and used SortableJS and CMU built their game using Flash and ruffle.

That following weekend, I put together this little MVP - try it out! The initial version was designed for a large, high-resolution monitor, so it is not a great experience on mobile. Improvements are incoming as we will link to this training/game from Isidore and use it this fall (2023).

This is a JavaScript solution using the Dragula library for the drag 'n drop functionality, a JSON structure for easy modification of the tasks, and template literals to build the books and shelves. At the moment, there is no internal logic to determine the correct order; order is specified by the JSON structure.

Upon completion of the training, the user can input their name and the jsPDF library will generate a basic certificate with a pixel aesthetic. This can be uploaded as part of the training process to confirm the training was completed.

Repo: https://gitlab.com/dabeeler/call_number_training_game

This project was inspired by and took some design cues from the following projects:

• Kent State University - Library of Congress Tutorial - Call Number and Shelving
• Carnegie Mellon University Libraries - Flash Games - Within Range

As an example of the technology and a peek of what I could create within a short time frame, I set out to incorporate the DeGrazia Madonna, a variety of Mother Mary statues, and the Erma Bombeck Rose Gallery exhibit from 2022 into a virtual reality (VR) experience on the Quest. As a simple art exhibit, I added UI panels for each of the statues and wall clings to describe the piece and recorded voice-over audio. The Rose Gallery was created in Blender, the wall clings were photographed and turned into usable textures, the DeGrazia Madonna was turned into a 3D model using Meshroom, and "The Juggler of Notre Dame" stained glass was modeled in Blender and textured painted from a photograph. The wind/water mill was modeled in Blender based on a course. These assets and models found on Sketchfab were used to create a simple environment in Unreal Engine 5.

Attributions:

• "Assai vivace" by Dee Yan-Key
• "Spring Birds Loop with Low-Cut (New Jersey)" by hargissssound
• "Saint Mary of Antioch" by Geoffrey Marchal
• "Statue of the Cloister Mother Mary" by Northern Heritage Network
• "The Virgin Mary with Child and Saints" by Computer Vision and Reverse Engineering Lab
• "Virgin Mary Clay Statue" by FilippoViciani
• "DeGrazia Madonna" by DeGrazia, M.
• Erma Bombeck Collection

I had the opportunity to assist with the "Juggler of Our Lady" exhibit at the University of Dayton Roesch Library by incorporating two pieces of technology. One aspect of this was a television displaying a looping slideshow to provide context to and display an animation. Near this television, we mounted an iPad to an old lectern to display hand-drawn storyboard panels of a different animation of the same story. Although both displays used RevealJS, a wonderfully easy-to-use presentation framework, the iPad also incorporated a pan-zoom library so the attendee could interact with the panels. I also developed a basic engagement tracker for the iPad display, recording sessions. These displays were easy to integrate into the exhibit and can be easily modified for future exhibits.

The Marian Library at the University of Dayton has various Mary-related statues. This DeGrazia Madonna statue was previously photographed using a rotary table. I used Meshroom, a photogrammetry application, to generate a 3D model based on these images. Although the photos were not ideal for reconstruction, Meshroom created a reasonably clean model. I used Blender to smooth out inaccurate geometry at the head and base and corrected some areas of the texture. The resulting model is imperfect, but it was a successful test of capability based on previously captured photos and free software. See the model at Sketchfab.

A medieval wind/water mill game asset with animation created following a course by 3DTudor in April 2022. This model was added to the Rose Gallery VR Demo as extra eye candy. I did little to "make it my own," as I was pretty happy with the overall plan.

Unity-based application for iPad intended to serve as a supplement to facility tours but was ultimately shelved before release. It was designed to provide attendees with facility information through 360° images, videos, and fact sheets. For most of the project, I served as the sole developer and regularly met with the client and stakeholders to discuss content and interface/experience design. Our client provided static design files, and I used those assets and 3D models of buildings to create a hybrid 2D/3D application.

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Some favorite woodworking projects from 2018-2021. Checkout my woodworking album for more!

• Turned oak and padauk meat tenderizer.
• Pen and pencil set made with purple heart and a stainless steel hardware kit. The pen is slightly longer than the pencil to accommodate Pilot Precision refills.
• Turned acrylic for stainless steel bottle stopper and bottle opener.
• Turned spalted tamarind bottle stopper with a burned "K."
• Chinese Checkers board painted in the style of my grandmother's board.
• Turned wooden bowl with a burned letter "B."
• A pair of salt and pepper t-top grinders using olivewood and chechen.

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I created a collection of Harry Potter wands over the years (hand carved and lathed). Designs are not accurate to their movie counterparts, and the movie productions were typically not accurate to the book descriptions (mostly the length, I read that the book lengths did not look good on film).

• Remus Lupin-inspired wand for the showing of "The Half-Blood Prince" (dowel, 2009).
• Hand carved the Elder wand for my Voldemort costume for the Deathly Hallows showing (bassword, 2011).
• Two versions of Draco Malfoy's wand (dowel, hawthorn, ~2017).
• A custom design (poplar, ~2017).
• Alastor Moody's wand (poplar, ~2017).

Check out my woodworking album

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RIXAN is a local automation company that builds cells for manufacturing companies, but in this case, the customer was the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. MSI was planning a Robot Revolution exhibit and commissioned various displays from different companies. In our case, we built a cell where the user could scramble a Rubik's Cube, provide it to the robot, and the robot would solve it. My FANUC programming experience from MLPC was Teach Pendant based, but this project taught me how to communicate directly with the controller, read the current status of the system, and activate specific routines. As this system was going to a museum, it also required two displays: a guest display visualizing the user-provided cube as the robot solved it and an operator/maintenance display. Thankfully, a Rubik's Cube solver already existed, so my work focused on integrating the robotics, vision system, and solver into one cohesive unit.

In collaboration with the Dayton Early College Academy (DECA) and the Dayton Art Institute (DAI), a mechanical engineer colleague (Scott Cornell) and I mentored a student group in the fabrication and software development of an art exhibit. I directed the students in the development of a touchscreen interface using VB.NET which would provide a way for attendees to interact with the exhibit.

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Three different outfits for movie/book releases with family. We had almost the entire fellowship for the Return of the King midnight showing (2003) and quite a bit of the Harry Potter gang for both the Deathly Hallows book release (2007) and Half-Blood Prince midnight showing (2009).