Behind the Scenes: The Comspoc® Video

Earlier this year, we were commissioned by an aerospace company named Analytic Graphics, Inc. (AGI) to create an animation. They were launching new software and service that aids the operation of commercial and military space missions. This is the story of that project.

THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM

The minute I heard we were doing a project about space, my mind started turning on final frontiers and galaxies far, far away. But this project hits a little closer to home: to the space immediately surrounding Earth. 

Turns out that the space just around our Little Blue Marble is getting rather crowded– with satellites large and small, working and dead, and with chunks of satellites that met with an unfortunate end. 

AGI has developed a system of software and hardware called The ComSpOC – The Commercial Space Operations Center – to track these expensive pieces of metal more accurately than has ever been possible. Accurate tracking means that satellite operators can navigate their space objects around dangerous fields of space junk and are more likely to avoid crashing into another satellite and exploding. 

That’s kind of a big deal, don’t you think?

We began to see how immense this topic really is, and how vitally important the work of AGI has become. You can thank satellites for weather predictions, the map on your phone, and your ability to binge watch Netflix. And we’re launching more and more satellites into space all the time. 

What if we lost these Eyes in the Sky?

 A few definite outcomes: You wouldn’t be able to Skype with your mom, you’d lose the GPS in your car, and also we couldn’t accurately predict when and where a hurricane will make landfall. 

OUR DIRECTIVE

AGI came to us to make a video. A short animation, explaining what they do and why it’s important, and announce their new SpaceBook platform. 

Seems simple: develop a firm grasp of space situational awareness, describe the overwhelming need for more immediate and comprehensive space conservancy, and explain in relative detail the technical aspects of the Operations Center and tracking platform AGI has been developing for years... In less than 500 words.... Riiiiiiiight.

TELLING THE STORY

Thankfully, The ComSpOC team were extremely gracious with their time and energy during this project.

The ComSpOC Director of Marketing (and erstwhile Engineer), Joshua Poley, worked with me on the script to ensure that it covered all of the technical ground it should, and helped me find ways to explain the concepts in the right amount of detail. We then sent the script to the Engineers to re-check that all of the technical aspects were accurate. 

With the content finalized, we moved into conceptualizing the piece.

Rather than just put out a series of images portraying the features of a product, it's more effective to show the audience what our sky would look like if we could see all of the objects in orbit around Earth. It was important to tell the story of space as it is, and then show what it will be like in the future– both with and without the services that The ComSpOC provides. 

The subject matter called for especially clean, crisp illustrations in the animated whiteboard style. Here you see some of the concept images we generated to show the AGI team the final artwork style.

After the concept was laid out, we went into storyboarding the piece. This is where we go sequence by sequence and roughly draw out what images will be drawn and when. 

View fullsize

Results from one of our early whiteboard sessions to work on the placement of scenes and the composition as a whole.

Our process for storyboarding involves a lot of huddling around a whiteboard sketching out ideas, interrupting each other (and then apologizing), drinking coffee to a medically unsafe extent, and hula-hooping to clear our heads.

Our first task: find a way to display the immensity of space in a 1920 x 1080px frame. Not an easy task on a whiteboard, especially if you want to avoid nauseating camera movements. 

I’d love to say that we figured out the layout of images in one go because we’re all geniuses, but basically we had to adjust the positions of images over and over until we got it just right. 

After a round of edits to make sure we had the technical aspects correct (Again, thank you, AGI team!), we went into Full Production Mode.

DOWN TO THE DETAILS

For such a complex and detailed piece, every illustration and animation had to be precise, smooth, and meticulous. We packed in a lot of detail on the satellites (which, by the way, the AGI team could name on sight), and added in some easter eggs for fun and texture.

(Did you notice the glove and the toothbrush in the “Hazardous Debris” cloud? Yeah, those are actual catalogued space objects.)

Our animator pulled out some specialities from his bag of tricks, like employing a physics engine on the satellite collision.

The AGI team sent us visualizations of their software in action so that we could make the animations accurate, albeit somewhat scaled-down, and still keep the style of a hand-drawn cartoon. 

THE “WHY” OF IT ALL

Even though we spent plenty of time and effort making sure the satellites looked slick and the visualizations were accurate, the real stars of the show are the people.

In all of our pieces, we focus on the human element. Because really, the whole point of AGI working tirelessly to conserve and protect space is so that these satellites can make life better for human beings. The real power behind The ComSpOC is the AGI team — the people who wrote these programs, who developed the SpaceBook platform, who run the Operations Center day in, day out, and sometimes all night long. 

THE BIG SHOW

We finished the animation while the folks at AGI were at the annual Space Symposium. I know to some, a Space Symposium sounds like that awful extra credit thing you had to attend in college. But trust me, it’s basically the Space Geek Worlds Fair slash Techapalooza. 

We delivered the final video to the AGI team, not thinking anyone would have time to watch it until the Symposium was over. 

We were wrong. Almost immediately, I got a call from Josh Poley exclaiming, “It's f***ing awesome!”

Within a few hours, the video was playing on the 20 foot jumbo screen in the main hall of the Symposium. Josh reported that “it is getting a great reception from everyone who sees it. Our CFO says he is going to use it for all of his meetings with Congress and all kinds of high-ranking military [personnel].” 

We are absolutely over the moon (*wink*) that this video got out there and began doing its job right away!

Have a look at the full video here. If you’re looking for a team to work with you to create an animation for your company, contact us.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR PROJECT

A total Dr. Who fan and Trekkie, Stacy Cohl is Content Developer and Production Lead at Alphachimp Learning Systems, LLC. Stacy also has a degree in Anthropology from Lee University. 

Behind the Scenes of “How to Clone a Mammoth”

ABOVE: Book trailer for How to Clone a Mammoth by Beth Shapiro (Princeton University Press, 2015)

In the summer of 2010, I went kayaking on the Huntington Harbor with a colorful group of scientists.  We were on the coast of New York State for the week as part of the PopTech Institute's Science Fellows Program taking place at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a stately 125-year-old research and education institution at the forefront of molecular biology and genetics. 

While gliding around ridiculously oversized yachts and dodging speed boats, I pitched an idea to one of my co-kayakers, Beth Shapiro, a research scientist then at the University of Pennsylvania:

“You should totally take me with you the next time you go to Siberia and look for frozen mammoths.”

Beth Shapiro describes the science of de-extinction at the 2010 PopTech Conference.

Beth Shapiro has the coolest job ever. A self-proclaimed molecular paleontologist — or paleogeneticist — Beth looks more like a stunt double for the Icelandic pop singer Björk than a woman who does what she does for a living.

Paleogeneticists find and grind
the bones of giants.

As part of the 2010 PopTech Science Fellows program, Beth Shapiro describes her cutting-edge DNA research, I illustrated some of the fun details. Her research is helping us make informed decisions about how to preserve the species that are currently under threat.

Shapiro and her team collect both partial and fully-preserved giant mammals from the Pleistocene epoch — giant sloths, giant wolves, giant bears, giant beavers (that one always gets a chuckle), and of course giant wooly mammoths. So, naturally, I wanted her to take me with her on the hunt!

ABOVE: "Beringia land bridge-noaagov" by NOAA

Well, that is what Shapiro has done in her new book, How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction; she takes the reader on the hunt in Beringia — also called “Bering Land Bridge” — where these giants roamed the dry, grassy plain that once connected Asia with North America during periodic ice ages.

Shapiro on the hunt for bones at the site of a hydraulic gold mining operation in Alaska.

In her hands-on research, Shapiro digs in dirt and hauls bones around, rides in a rustbucket Russian helicopter, camps among a gabillion mosquitos, and labors in the lab to piece together chopped up strands of DNA.

In the fall of 2014, I ran into Beth and her mammoth bones again. This time, she was one of the presenters for the National Academy of Sciences and The Kavli Foundation Frontiers of Science program in Irvine, California. 

This symposium brings together some of the very best young scientists to discuss exciting advances and opportunities in their fields. I was fortunate enough to scribe for both her National Academies of Science public presentation, part of the Distinctive Voices lecture series.

Beth Shapiro and Peter Durand at the National Academy of Sciences in Irvine, California.

See full presentation (52 minutes)

Once again, Beth's presentation, her personality, and her message were a hit.  

She presented to a full auditorium, walking the audience through the challenges and possibilities that cloning a mammoth make available, namely, the science of de-extinction.

 

After her presentation, we looked at the resulting image, and I did not even have to pitch her... we both had the same idea:

“We totally have to animate this!”

So in November of 2014, we started the process. Along with the team at Princeton University Press, Beth began working on the script and the Alphachimp team began coaching her on how to record a voiceover. No easy task!

Shapiro is now associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also runs a busy research lab, carries a full teaching load, parents two small children, and is in full-scale promotion mode for the book's publication.

At one point, Beth lost her voice giving talks, teaching, and catching cold from her kids.

Initial concept sketches completed on an iPad.

In parallel with crafting the script and voiceover, the Alphachimp team worked through sketching out the ideas and illustrations. 

A preliminary sketch showing image placement and the camera movements across the painting.

Originally, we considered the whiteboard time-lapse style, but that did not capture the richness of Beth's adventures and the main goal of her work and the book:

Bring these creatures to life!

In the end, we created a watercolor painting (with some animation sprinkled in) that allows Beth's voice to express the wonder of the science and to inspire audiences to read the rest of this amazing story.

For more information visit:
www.cloneamammoth.com

TEDxNashville 2014 : Going to Mars, Ending Slavery on Earth, and Fighting for a Dignified Death.

This was Nashville's sixth TEDx event, our locally organized, independent instance of the decades-old TED events.

“TEDxNashville crackles with bright ideas and emotion” as speakers and performers played a sold out crowd of about 1,800 inside the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Alphachimp's Peter Durand was on stage for the sixth year to capture these ideas worth sharing. Speakers included political activist John Jay Hooker, entrepreneur Turner Nashe, NASA manager Chris Crumbly, End Slavery Tennessee's Derri Smith, Tulane University's Joel Dinerstein and other impressive speakers. 

For more detail, read this article by Tony Gonzalez writing for The Tennessean with some behind the scenes photos of artist and curator Sally Taylor, Tulane "professor of cool" Joel Dinerstein, and emcee Eddie George.

More information at: www.tedxnashville.com

A Visual Summary

Facebook's 5th Annual Compassion Research Day

Alphachimp spent a fascinating day, scribing for and learning about Facebook's research on encouraging people to resolve conflicts and reach out to friends in need.

Speakers pose with Alphachimp's artwork created live from their content.

Facebook has partnered with some amazing experts in human interaction, developmental psychology, emotion science, and evolutionary theory to help people have more meaningful and authentic dialogue and to resolve disputes that might arise.

In line with the mission and core values of Facebook's Compassion team, this public event shares the team's research questions, specifically: How does the perception of a hurtful post by a viewer often widely varies from the intent behind it?

In the words of Dalai Lama himself:

Experience has shown me that the greatest inner tranquillity comes from developing love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove our fears and insecurities and gives us strength to face obstacles — it is the ultimate source of success in life.

The organizers write: “We are passionate about helping people cultivate and express this compassion in interactions both on and off Facebook, and we are honored to have the opportunity share what we've learned.”

Learn more about Facebook's research on prevention of bullying, self-harm, and dangerous speech at:

FACEBOOK.COM/COMPASSION

PopTech 2014: A Decade of Documenting Rebel Lions

PopTech is a unique gathering of brainiacs, maniacs, rebels, spectacles, and indefinable superheroes. This year, the 18th annual conference was hosted by John Maeda, formerly of MIT and RISD, and truly a rebel in the zone of graphic design, computer science, art, education, and leadership. 

PopTech 18: Rebellion

PHOTO by Michael Duarte

And, 2014 was Alphachimp's 10th year to capture ideas graphically.

Traditionally, Alphachimp's founder Peter Durand creates paintings and drawings for each speaker using acrylic, oil pastel, Sumi ink, brushes and charcoal.

For the 10-year anniversary, however, Durand went digital. He served as an electric scribe for each of the 20+ presenters and performers, working in real-time on a large Wacom Cintiq 22HD tablet (think of an iPad the size of a suitcase).

Peter describes his first PopTech experience:

When I was first invited to scribe in 2004, I was standing in Radio Shack, shopping for cutting edge mobile technology: a new Motorola Razor cellphone.

The guy on the phone was Andrew Zolli. I was busy and distracted, but the guy was so excited and convincing, so I said yes.

Before I arrived, I thought PopTech was going to be another typical business conference. I remember listening to the first few speakers and having the same reaction as any first-timer:

‘Whoa... this is waaaay more than I expected.’

Along with the excitement of traveling with PopTech to events in Kenya and Iceland, my greatest pleasure has been to be involved with the Fellows Programs, working with social entrepreneurs and scientists right at the tipping point of their careers.

Every year, to my great relief, I have been shocked and honored to be invited back to witness brilliant people bring ground-breaking ideas to life.

View a 10-year visual catalog of PopTech Speaker Art by Alphachimp on Flickr.

Visual Learning Mythbusters

You find this questionable statistic all over the dang place:
83% of people are visual learners.

From Stanley Kubrik's A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Sometimes it appears as 65% or some other percentage. Yet rarely — if ever— is that number attributed to any clinical research. 

Our friends at ImageThink point towards a likely source of this idea.

Research conducted by Richard Felder resulted in a standardized test called the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) which sorts learners according to several different spectra, including visual-verbal.

And who doesn't love themselves a standardized test?

But that research was done well before fMRIs became available to measure brain activity and produce activation maps showing which parts of the brain are involved in a particular mental process.

(Felder's research was done primarily with — gasp! — engineering students.)

Unlike standardized tests, fMRIs work by detecting the changes in blood oxygenation and flow that occur in response to neural activity. When a brain area is more active it consumes more oxygen and, to meet this increased demand, blood flow increases to the active area.

The resulting activation maps can show us how our brains biologically react to thoughts and external stimuli. And what have these images revealed? Learning is a whole brain activity and no matter what kind of learning activity we are engaged in, we are making movies in our mind.

Now, for me — a former art school student, professional image maker and chronic daydreamer — saying that 83% of people are visual learners is like declaring: 

“Study finds that 83% of people think that legs make walking easier!”

Or this claim from our favorite fake news newspaper, The Onion: “Study finds High School students retain only one-third of obsolete curriculum over summer”

So, why then is the 83% stat slung about so freely?

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The Peer Pressure to Produce Percentages

photo: The Uniform House of Dixie by Dystopos (Flickr Creative Commons)

A huge motivation may be our human need for social proof — also known as informational social influence — in order to validate an activity.

Social proof  is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.

Simply put, people want to make sure the behavior is alright — whether that behavior is wearing leather pants to a wedding, sporting a bow tie and a mullet hairstyle (which I did briefly in the late 80s) or allowing someone to draw big pictures during the boss' big presentation.

Think about the social calculus of High School, but with strategic planning sessions, careers, and mortgages on the line.

Ultimately, any professional who takes a chance to incorporate a new and artsy element, like graphic facilitation ( ! ), to a corporate event is taking a risk.

Granted, this particular risk (graphic facilitation) does not involve potential bodily harm or worldwide economic collapse.

No, this risk is of something much worse in the eyes of many — the fear of failing publicly.

More specifically, the fear may be of wasting time and treasure on something that does not yield concrete, quantifiable benefits.

Matthew McConaughey in his breakout role from Dazed and Confused (1993)

Hence, the affirmation that 83% of us need visuals to help us on our learning journey may be just the thing to make a jittery client feel alright, alright, alright!

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Visual Learner, Schmisual Learner

photo: Stefan the Photofan (Flickr Creative Commons)

In a 2013 article in Scientific American, Sophie Guter asks if teaching to the student's style is bogus.

This may be anathema in a world of user-centered design and student-centered learning environments, but from her vantage point, she finds an educational landscape where many researchers suggest that differences in students’ learning styles may be as important as ability, but that empirical evidence is thin.

There is no shortage of ideas in the professional literature. David Kolb of Case Western Reserve University posits that personality divides learners into categories based on how actively or observationally they learn and whether they thrive on abstract concepts or concrete ones. Another conjecture holds that sequential learners understand information best when it is presented one step at a time whereas holistic learners benefit more from seeing the big picture. Psychologists have published at least 71 different hypotheses on learning styles.

Perhaps, this speaks less to learning styles — visual vs. kinesthetic vs. linguistic vs. mathematical — and more to this fact: any disengaged person ain't learning much.

A surefire way to engage learners of any age, is through consciously crafted stories and experiences that involve multiple senses and trigger multiple parts of our brains — without cognitive overload.

(Hello, Ritalin!)

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Mythbusting Brains & Masters of the Mind

ABOVE: Illustration by one of my heroes, Dave Gray (source: Flickr, Creative Commons)

Because we are all visual learners — even blind folk, as you will learn by reading further down — I have collected some videos that have expanded my own horizons when it comes to understanding brains, visuals, and learning.

Below are several subject matter experts who explore the complexity of human neural networks to reveal rich constellations of biology, cognition, creativity and learning…

Antonio Damasio

“This rich film is continuously rolling in our minds.” Researchers like Antonio and his wife Hanna use imaging technology to explore the biological architecture influencing experiences that have traditionally remained the stuff of philosophy: The Mind, The Self, Consciousness and Culture. Like no one else, Damasio describes the biology that enables our memories and imagination.

What I Learned: Our ability to visualize emanates from our physical bodies, through the oldest parts of our brain stem, and echoes throughout our cerebral cortex. Now, I cannot trust anything I think or feel after hearing Damasio describe consciousness.

http://www.ted.com/talks/antonio_damasio_the_quest_to_understand_consciousness

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David Eagleman

“Are we free to choose how we act? Is the mind equal to the brain?” A neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Eagleman's research includes time perception, vision, synesthesia, and the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system. He is a pioneer on the power of the unconscious brain.

What I Learned: I asked David where dreams come from. He answered that dreaming is our brains natural function; it uses the body to check if the dream is reality!

http://poptech.org/popcasts/david_eagleman_brain_over_mind

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Daniel Kish

“They call me the real life batman. My claim to fame is that I click.” World Access for the Blind, founded by Kish, trains the visually impaired to achieve greater freedom and mobility through echolocation — a technique that simulates a bat’s night vision of perceiving the environment through sound.

What I Learned: Kish taught me that unless severely damaged, all humans, regardless of visual ability, rely heavily on the visual cortex to navigate and shape their world.

http://poptech.org/popcasts/daniel_kish_blind_vision

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Scott Barry Kaufman

“Depending on what you are creating, the stimulus, the content and what stage of the creative process you are in, different brain areas are recruited to help solve the task.” Cognitive psychologist by training, Kaufman unravels some of creativity’s mysterious origins with the help of brain scanning equipment. Kaufman's blog on the Scientific American website, Beautiful Minds, shares Insights into intelligence, creativity, and the mind.

What I Learned: The Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain debate is a farce: we are all whole-brained people, yet the phenomenon of “talent” and ”creativity” is vast and mysterious. 

http://poptech.org/popcasts/scott_barry_kaufman_creative_brains

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Pawan Sinha 

“Being a blind kid in India is tremendously tough.” Sinha's humanitarian and scientific work sheds light on how the brain's visual system develops. Sinha and his team provide free vision-restoring treatment to children born blind, and then study how their brains learn to interpret visual data. The work offers insights into neuroscience, engineering and even autism.

What I Learned: The brain (not the eye) is what integrates all the different visual elements we see into objects we can understand; the one thing that the visual system needs in order to parse the world is motion.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/pawan_sinha_on_how_brains_learn_to_see

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Duygu Kuzum 

“Have you ever seen the super computer, Watson? It is bigger than my apartment.” Kuzum develops nanoelectronic synaptic devices which emulate synaptic computation in the human brain, then works to interface these synapses with biological neurons. Such nanoscale synaptic devices have the potential to lead to interactive brain-inspired computer systems that can learn and process information in real time, bridging the gap between the human brain and digital computers.

What I Learned: The brain is so freaking efficient for the amount of processing it can do! Powered by less energy it takes to light a lightbulb, the human brain is really tough to replicate mechanically—or digitally!

 http://www.alphachimp.com/poptech-art/duygu-kuzum

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 Miriah Meyer

“We need to move beyond the idea that data visualization is about pretty pictures, and instead embrace that it is a deep investigation into sense-making.” Meyer explains how data visualization can be more concise, practical and scientifically useful, and still be aesthetically pleasing.

What I Learned: Good data graphics can accelerate the progress of scientific research—not simply serve as a nice illustration of that research. 

http://www.alphachimp.com/poptech-art/miriah-meyer-seeing-data

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Sunni Brown

“Doodling can have a profound impact on how we process information and how we solve problems." Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension — and our creative thinking. So why do we still feel embarrassed when we're caught doodling in a meeting? Sunni Brown says: Doodlers, unite!

What I Learned: Doodling should be leveraged in situations in which information density is very high and the need for processing that information is very important. Learn more from Sunni's book The Doodle Revolution.

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QUESTION FOR YOU: What has your research revealed about visual learning? Let us know in the comments below!