This spring, I’m sitting in on a class called Technology: Art and Sound by Design, taught by John Harrison. The class interfaces engineering students with fine arts students, and microcontrollers with artistic expression. I’ve seen some of John’s cool toys, and I’m really looking forward to the things we’ll be building!
I’ve seen John for several years in his role as concertmaster of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, so I confess to being a bit star-struck at actually talking to him and attending his class. It’s taking quite a twist of my brain to reconcile his stage presence (I’ve watched him play the solo violin in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, for goodness sake) with his fun-loving, geeky side. Turns out he’s my age and has almost the same technology background I do–we both grew up with lots of the same microcomputers, programming assembler, writing games, etc. He diverged to music as a primary career, and I to computers.
I’m very grateful for his welcoming me into the class. He encourages my participation in discussions, in doing the projects, and in contributing to the class wiki. This should be a fun semester!