Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I'm still alive...

It has been a while since I have written on my blog. I'm not sure why writing on this blog has become such a difficult task to remember but it has proven to be the hardest and easiest thing this semester. I have been sick for what seems like weeks and missed our last class on the 13th but I feel alive again and am now ready to get to work.
I have been doing some work trying to see if my work will let me do a project which includes updating the drawings for the building and it hasn't paned out like I was hoping. Pretty much our corporate lawyers don't want any information about the building plans to become public information so a project doesn't seem like the route. I still want to research drafting programs advancements and I think I will have to write a paper, while leaving out any information about the company I work for and use examples from other companies. So with that change of plans here is my rough outline for the paper. My concern is that I'm not giving both emphasis equal time and I think I might focus on Technology Management rather than Art History. I'm not sure if I can do them both justice with the outline I have.

Part 1 Building an artistic foundation (high detail)

In this section I would like to work on showing how drafting can be considered an art form. I will show examples from Leonardo da Vinci which he draft his inventions while still in conception and how these drafts are hung on many walls for their aesthetic beauty. Other artists that had their drafting held on the same level as their paintings would be Michelangelo and Walter Gropius. This section needs to show how it takes an artist to design and the ability to take an image or idea from the mind onto paper so that others can understand each other on a new plane not achievable by the spoken language alone.

Part 2 Road map of drafting practices (low detail)

In this section I want to show where drafting came from and some of the technological advancements over time that has brought it to its current form. I think this section should be low detail and should take too many pages. I’m not writing a history paper but I do want the reader to see how small advancements made huge impacts on the design.

Part 3 New drafting techniques in use (medium detail)

This section will cover how technology companies use and rely on advanced drafting practices to stay competitive in their industry. Give examples including a study done on Crate & Barrel stores saving millions by using new design practices and programs. I think it’s important to show how drafting is in use in different industries. I want to show that not only in construction is drafting being used but how construction has actually fallen behind compared to the rest of the drafting world and should be playing catch-up over the next few years.

Part 4 Future of drafting (high detail)

Thanks to advancements in technology where will drafting be headed in the near future will be the focus of this section. This section needs to be in more depth to show that thanks to technology advancements drafting design will be making huge strides in virtual reality. How much of what will be forth coming is already here but it just needs more high power computers to tap into the full potential of where it could be.

Part 5 Bring them together and close (high detail)

I want to bring my two emphases, Technology Management and Art History, closer by showing how the advancements in art and technology rely on each other. I want to make sure that I am clear on what my emphasis are and how they impact each other. Even though these two studies are very different they have more impact on each other than we might give them credit for.


If anyone has any ideas on how to improve this outline please don't hesitate on letting me know.
Thanks.

3 comments:

  1. Ok Nick,

    This feels promising. Using da Vinci and Gropius will help you pull in Art History.

    In fact, I'm particularly intrigued by your suggested "Part 5." One tack rarely taken by capstone thesis writers is to use the thesis itself as a platform for arguing that the two emphases are in fact inter-reliant. You can even make that the whole point of your thesis: i.e., that you aim to demonstrate how, using this example, as you say "advance[s] in art and technology rely on each other." If that's your thesis goal, then drafting becomes the example illustrating your point.

    And that could work really, really well.

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  2. I like what you've done here. It gives me comfort to see a plan (even if it evolves).

    One concern could be the scope of this project. There is a LOT going on here. Maybe you can pull all of that off, but perhaps it will be a bit much, we'll see.

    That said, perhaps the next focus will be to get into the literature on your sub-topics.

    This is a good start and will help us begin to focus.

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  3. I think that the subject may be broad but as you begin to have your sources and the focus can funnel like we have talked about in class.

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