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Mona Lisa at Play: Part 7
The Paintball Assault on the Mona Lisa
As a fan of both the cable program Mythbusters and Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, I am pleased to talk about both in this posting.
The paring of Mona and Mythbusters is at first blush an unlikely one. But as the most universally known work of art, it isn’t much of a stretch to think that if the Mythbusters duo were going to re-create a work of art, then the Mona would be their likely target. And as target, I’ve aptly described how they re-created her. Since paintball guns were the brushes Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman used to make their version of the Mona Lisa.
In August of 2008, the boys of Mythbusters were invited to the Nvidia’s NVISON conference in San Jose, CA. Mythbusters was enlisted by the conference organizers to provide the closing act. That last bit of sparkle and pow, everyone would go home and talk about.
Their closing act, as Adam describes it, was a “science lesson” on how a GPU processor out performs a CPU. And with all things Mythbuster, blowing stuff up and shooting things was involved. And on a good day…they’ll use robots.
This was a good day.
Taking six months to build two robots, Jamie and Adam fashioned a demonstration on Parallel Processing for the closing performance at NVISION. Not a subject I would find particularly scintillating, but as always the Mythbusters demonstrate you can have fun with just about anything.
Two robots were built. One robot to mimics the performance of a CPU. (A CPU works by performing a series of discrete actions, executed sequentially.) The other showcases the enhanced power of a GPU. (GPU’s can do immense parallel processing, producing high quality graphics for video games.)
The first robot, dubbed Leonardo, exhibited how a CPU processor works. And Leonardo functioned as designed when he methodically painted a Smiley-face using a single paint gun that was attached to its head.
It came off like a clever party trick. Amusing, but lacking wow.
Leonardo’s lackluster performance acknowledged, the Mythbuster boys set themselves a task to paint something more complex. Hence, their decision to re-create the most famous Smiley-face of them all… the Mona Lisa.
And of course, this was going to require a bigger bot. The Leonardo 2.0.
Leonardo 2.0 was built from a thousand pounds of aluminum and steel…a mile of high-pressure air hose… which required hundreds of pounds of compressed air… with 1,100 specifically addressed paint balls in 1,100 paint ball barrels.
When the trigger on the Leonardo 2.0 was hit…
… 2,100 gallons of air went through accumulators… then out a series of valves… into 1,100 paint gun barrels (all of exactly the same length)… at the bottom of which was a paint ball… which flew across 7 feet of space… and in 80 milliseconds… hit their target.
When it was all said and done… there was a new, freshly painted Mona Lisa and a new Guinness World Record. (Fastest painting of a Mona Lisa.)
Take a look at the video.
Be warned, it may take awhile to download. And once downloaded it’s a whopping 9:21 minutes long. Shorter versions of this performance can be found on YouTube. But the image quality on everything I looked at was grainy and unstable. This link is from the conference, and the production values are superior to anything else I’ve been able to find. Trust me, if you are going to watch the video, this is the video to watch.
Today’s paint ball post, marks the last entry on “Mona Lisa at Play”.
At least for now.
What’s next in the Mona exploration?
Not sure. Thinking about showing off Mona in the many off beat places she has appeared. But I don’t know. Might be fun to start talking about some of the serious artists who have used her image. Or some of the ads she has appeared in. Or I could talk about why she is the global icon she is. I just don’t know.
I’ll wait and see what my mood is when I sit down to write about her again. In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to read and explore with me, the Mona Lisa in all her iterations.
Paintball med jobben!
Det ble full krig da vi stakk en tur til Nittedal og Oslo Paintball
for å spille litt paintball med jobben. Vi kjørte hardt fra start til
slutt, spurtene oppover ble etterhvert tregere og tregere. Noen
blåmerker og nye hårfarger ble det også. Flere måtte også straffes
etter å ha tatt av seg maska før en skulle. Straffen var et skudd i
baken mens du bøyde deg fremover.
ble til slutt 4-3 til det blå laget! Etter at krigen var over, ble det grilling og sosialt før vi tok turen
hjemover. Takk til alle for en knall kveld i skauen!
Alle foto er tatt av Jonas Holten.
Paintball Fun @ Velocity Park 06.07.09
Just another FunDay of paintball at the local park, Velocity Paintball in Ramona.
Here are some shots of BMC members RAREMAC and BRIO-1.
More paintball shots after the URL jump. Check it out.
http://picasaweb.google.com/raremac/PaintballFunVelocity02#
Weapon of Choice
Name: RAREMAC
Affiliation: Boogie Monsters Crew
Marker: Etek2 w/ Star Frame & 14" Stock Barrel
Hopper: Dye 09 Rotor
Tank: Ninja 50 cu - 4500 psi "peanut"
Support Local Shops!
If you're into paintball and you're a San Diego native, you should support your local shops.
Velocity Paintball has most products in stock. But if you can't find something at their shop, check out their online store at http://www.velocitypaintballonline.com.
They have three shops located throughout San Diego: Bonita, Poway and El Cajon.
With paintball products on hand and great customer service, what more can you ask for?
Bonita (shown)
4248 B Bonita Road
Bonita, CA 91902
(619) 470.3533
Poway
12643 Poway Road
Poway, CA 92064
(858) 513.2778
El Cajon
1622 N Magnolia Avenue
El Cajon, CA 92020
(619) 448.4165
Paintball Weekend
Past weekend was fun and tiring at the same time. Went to two different paintball parks with family. Good times.
Saturday - Paintball action at Velocity in Ramona. Weather was tolerable. Played for almost 4 hours, and had a very good time laying paint on biotches. Can't wait for my next time out to Velocity.
Sunday - Went to Jungle Island in Lake Elsinore. Forgot my camera though. Weather was excruciating. But overall experience was fun. Had a good time blasting paint on fools. Had 10 kills on one field. Can't wait for the next trip.
http://www.jungle-island.com/jihome.asp
