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FRIDAY, MAR. 20, 2015 ·
2 NEWS
EDITOR: LIZ PEMBERTON
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VOL. 87, NO. 20
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Contributing Writer W ant to chill out in the Hall of Sciences? Need some time to relax, procrastinate or let your mind wander? The new interactive display, located on the third floor of the
Hall of Sciences, next to Dr. Minjoon Kouh’s office, Room S338, allows students and faculty to interact with a new video display that detects motion. The display is a simple computer program that re-calculates the value of color pixels using very little mathematical functions.
According to Jason Asaytuno
(’15), who is a computer science major and who worked on the programming in conjunction with
Art Professor Lee Arnold and
Kouh, “the purpose was to do an implementation of the open source library for computer vision called OpenCV. My goal was to learn C++ programming language and use that with the OpenCV framework and have the computer react to incoming visual data.”
Furthermore, the display serves as a representation of abstract art using a little bit of technology and encourages interdisciplinary interaction with students and faculty. People can stop by and are welcome to interact with it whether it involves motion or playing a pong game.
The project began in the summer of 2014, when Kouh and
Lee applied for the Andrew W.
Mellon Arts and the Common
Good Grant. The purpose of the grant was to illustrate the various ways in which the arts could benefit and help us understand the common good. It thus allowed students and faculty to conduct ADVERTISING
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Drew’s Theological School presented Police/Community
Relations Forum: Improving
Police-Community relations in the Midst of Turmoil on March
4. This panel was organized by grad student Linda Wiggins-
Edwards, who came up with the idea while working on her
Masters degree.
She focused on the recent issues of police violence and deadly shootings against people
A new interactive display is located on the third floor of the Hall of Sciences. It allows students and faculty to interact with a video display that detects motion. research, in conjunction with art, art history, theatre and dance and music as well as the social, natural and physical sciences.
With this opportunity available to them, Kouh, Lee and Asaytuno saw this as a chance to pursue their project in computer science.
Originally, Kouh came up with the idea to install a new interactive display.
He and Lee applied for the grant and then recruited Asaytuno to work on the project, while they become advisors. “I did the pong game,” Asaytuno said, “the visual data, webcam feed, goes through an industry standard image analyzing algorithm to discern motion. A simple output of this complex community maintained algorithm is coordinate points, which can be translated to controls for a simple game like pong. The relation with the foundation is the fusion of current technologies of color. The panel featured several speakers and was meant to address three core issues: what factors are contributing to the death of people of color at the hands of police officers, what needs to change between communities and how can people work together to fix these problems.
First to speak was Chief
Robert H. Lucid, director of
Drew Public Safety. During his talk, he stressed the importance of talking with communities a s o p p o s e d t o t a l k i n g t o communities. Drawing on his
40 years in law enforcement, he spoke of the violence that permeates our society. He cited confrontational charged language, explicit entertainment that features graphic violence and sexism as well as gangs for the reasons behind the increase of violence. Lucid hopes to combat this violence within with the creativity encouraged by the grant. The simple geometric shapes of the pong game is then a piece that interacts with its viewer. When a student passes by and discovers they can play the game by moving their hands, it encourages spontaneous games of pong, breaks the monotony of transiting to class and then becomes a source of conversation.”
Kouh added that he likes to think of it as “a way to kinda distract yourself for a while. We wanted to create something fun using a little bit of technology and interactive display.” Ultimately Asaytuno,
Lee and Kouh had the funding to support interactive video display with art and science students.
After most of the programming was done, they installed the new interactive display at the beginning of the semester in the TV lounge, located in the hallway between
Brother’s College and the Hall communities by having difficult conversations about race and racism, listen to what each other has to say and not tolerate any unnecessary violence.
The next speaker was Pastor
Hodari Williams, a preacher who uses theology to confront relevant social, political and economic issues. He talked about how the death of Michael
Brown in Ferguson, M.O., united people to take a stand and start the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
This movement is bringing to light systemic racism and the prevalence of white privilege.
Williams focused on how some use religion to suppress people and how society uses racism to condition the idea that black people are a threat. The relationship between police and black communities is currently tense and marked by a feeling of distrust.
RYAN GENUALDI/ CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER of Sciences. It had been in the hallway for two months, from
February to March, but after receiving complaints from students they had to temporarily move the display outside Kouh’s office.
Some people felt uncomfortable, having a web-camera look at them. It made them feel very selfconscious.
Kouh however hopes to find a suitable place for it. He also added that one way to look at it, would be to think an Xbox Kinect.
“It is similar to that, in the sense that you can interact with what’s being displayed. However the display is not exactly like an Xbox Kinect because it’s not polished and it can’t be sold. You basically interact with a video using motion.”
All in all, the interactive display is an opportunity to help people take their minds off busy schedules.
Rashawn Williams, organizer on policing policy in Newark and other urban centers, was the next to speak. He spoke about the importance of minority groups working together to end discrimination and inequality.
Rashawn Williams is currently working with Newark’s mayor to help change the culture of policing. The work they do has the potential to affect all corners of New Jersey. Williams hopes they will be able to create a civilian board that would be separate from the police department to handle cases of police misconduct.
This was followed by a question and answer session where police brutality continued to be discussed and condoned.
The panelists agreed that change must happen, and that for it to happen people must work together and speak out when they see injustice happening.