New Ants

We just recieved a two new colonies of Temnothorax ants for our lab. These pose new problems for us as they are only about a tenth the size of the ants in our Aphaenogaster colony. Entire colonies of this sort of ant can live inside an acorn. To image them properly, we are using a new Canon 100mm L series Macro lens and, on the recommendation of amazing ant photographer, Alex Wild, decided on using fiber optic microscope lighting (lighting not shown below).

Charicature from Stupid Fun Club Artists

It's me! I do hate 12 oz mouse!

Clam Cannon for Sea Otter Fun

The Georgia Aquarium apparently uses Clam Cannons to add some excitement for their Otters.

Cells and Organelles Rap / Animation

I worked with my sister who is a 7th/8th grade science teacher to provide animated visuals to go along with her educational rap song about cells. She is freely distributing this to science classrooms and students around the world to foster interest in the life sciences. She is also taking suggestions for more topics for her youtube channel, Tunes2Teach.

Visit to the Gordon Lab

Last Friday I was excited to get to visit Myrmecologist Deborah Gordon and her Ant lab at Stanford. I scoped out their research and computer vision techniques and shared what we have been doing at Georgia Tech. This fall, we'll be getting in better touch and do more thorough collaborations with them.

Man, Stanford has such a gorgeous (and expensive) campus!

Stupid Fun Club Summer

This summer I am working as a designer at the Stupid Fun Club. This is Will Wright (creator of "The Sims," "SimCity," and "Spore")'s crazy think tank for Toys, TV, and Games. Most of what I do here is TOP SECRET, but here are some examples of things that have come out of the SFC

http://unclemilton.com/news/press_releases/

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/02/bar-karma-will-wright/

Digital Naturalism Beginnings

This is Andy and I am starting a new blog to chronicle adventures in developing new digital tools and technology for science, art, and adventure!

Here's my bio:

Andrew Quitmeyer is a polymath adventurer interested in discovering new means of exploring and sharing our world. A fascination with science, nature, and the unknown lead him to his current work, designing and implementing computer-vision based animal behavioral research and documentaries. As a Digital Media PhD student, he also develops techniques and tools for expressing ideas in engaging and powerful new ways. His trans-disciplinary, multimedia works have been featured in outlets such as PBS, Cartoon Network, and BoingBoing.

Here's a nice little picture of me to get this started: