About¶
Me and My Hometown¶
Hi, My name is Yuki Oka (call me Yuki)! I am very excited to join the Fab Academy course in 2020.
I am working as a community-reactivating cooperator squad for Kuriyama-town, Hokkaido, which is in the northern part of Japan.
Kuriyama-town is a kind of rural area with heavy snow whose woods accounts for about 35% of its total area and whose main industry is agriculture.
Our Mission¶
Our town has a problem that whose population has been declining recent years.
Our team which consists of two members (Toshiki Tsuchiyama and me) have a mission to revitalize the town.
As one means to accomplish that, we are trying to create a new FAB facility and communities to invite people from outside of the town.
And also we wish the place is going to make communication between the townspeople and the visitors. That is why I am participating in Fab Academy and learning FAB skills there for running FAB community in our town.
Fablab Kamakura¶
I am taking the course from FabLab Kamakura. FabLab Kamakura is one of the oldest FabLab in Japan. Lots of graduates have already existed and they are thankfully helping us as mentors. And, Kamakura-city is an old city which has lots of temples lead Zen culture in Japan and eco-conscious city as well. They also declared participation in Fab City Network in 2018. So from Kuriyama-town to Kamakura-city, both of two members have been sent on a mission to know successful cases of FAB space with local community in this leading-edge city in Japan until October 2020.
Previous Work¶
Personally, I like to make something with electronic circuit, sensors and micro controller boards like Arduino. I used to make some artworks using easy programming languages like Arduino, processing and max/msp. And also, I have experience working as a mentor of programming for elementary school students at LEGO school (using the kit named wedo 2.0). Collectively speaking, I am interested in expression using computer programming and it is kind of my background (though my skill level is poor…). So I would like to develop understanding of this area in the Fab Academy term.
The installation of wine bottles and sounds relate to wine. Inclining the wine bottle can make the sounds which volume depends on how much inclined it like poring wine.
The machine convert a photo to music. Reading a photo by scanner, then convert scan data to music data and play it with crank handle like musical box.
Projecting on pyramid shaped screen about stellar evolution.
Finally¶
Taking the course, I will go through varieties of skills to make almost anything. I need to learn and develop them for our mission to establish new FAB facility in Kuriyama-town. But more than that, it would be good to learn project management skills and documentation skills because these skills might be useful to create programs like workshop for our new FAB space which activates local community when I go back to our hometown. Making good use of the skills I would acquire in the course, I would like to find and solve the local problems and create active communities in our town in the future.