Hi, I'm Dieter
Iām a design student at Olin College of Engineering working on computation and design focused projects.
I also draw every day on paper with ink, watercolour, and pencil. It's important to stay grounded in medium, and the limitations and affordances of these traditional methods gives a fresh perspective on the abstraction of modern design practices. At Olin, I've taken a variety of transdisciplinary course work which varies between design, engineering, and computing curriculum.
I'm open to work, commissions, and projects! Drop me a line, and take a peek at my resume for a condensed summary of my work.
If you want to stay up to date with what I'm up to, I have a newsletter and blog you can subscribe to, or you could poke around this site for an rss feed : )
Projects
- The magical realism of Cassette Players
Throughout quarantine, I've been captived by portable cassette tape players mainly sony walkmans, and I've been sketching them in ink and watercolor.
- A stairclimbing robot for transporting snacks
Designed, built and documentated a stairclimbing robot in a cohort of 4 engineers and designers. Featuring specialized feet, high torque drivetrain, and fully wireless robotic control. Take a look at our Presentation Site
- Seeing the world through a new lens
This is a collection of sketches styled as representational art. Each was made with the Rotring Isograph pen by hand.
- Drafting impossible scenes in pen and ink
This is a collection of sketches which, in a loose framing, constitute a series of abstractions and pattern. Each was made with the Rotring Isograph 0.3mm technical pen, entirely by hand.
- Laser cutting spray paint stencils
Designing and producing a series of generated art prints derived from a traditional drawing
- Alternative ads & event architecture
I cut, arranged, and shot a short advertisement for a design experiment centered around an apple cider press in a very small, cramped closet
- Explaining concepts through illustration
Over the past summer I designed and illustrated a small article (or "zine") about film photography which I hope to bind into a small book in the future and distribute.
- Accessible app development
Headed by assistant professor of computer science Paul Ruvolo, I and my working group developed tools for people who are blind or who have low vision. I focused on developing my skills in accessible design, co-design processes, modern iOS application development, and collaborative programming.
- Automating a dorm room
My college roommate and I set up an interconnected system of smart lights which we can control from a smartphone. We also created a sign to show when people can come and hang out using a shadowbox technique and vinyl routing.
- Piloting a vacuum
As part of Olin's Quantitative Engineering Analysis (QEA) class, I developed software in a two person team to detect obstacles using LIDAR, generate a gradient field with maximums representing objects to avoid, and a robot control system to execute a path that successfully descends that gradient field.
- Designing and Optimizing a boat
For Olin's Quantitative Engineering Analysis (QEA) class, I designed a model boat in a two person team that satisfies specific specifications using only analytical approaches, only performing a final experiment to determine how successful our analysis-based approach was.
- Collaboratively building a scheduling tool
LetsShedIt is a web-based scheduling system built to optimize meeting times around several people's schedules which I developed in a team of 4 in Olin's software design class. I focused on the development of the web client and its dynamic elements, including form actions, routing, api-access, and calendar systems
- Reimaging how colleges market themselves
During the spring semester of 2019, I assisted in designing and illustrating the "Olin Snapshot", a newly made marketing material for Olin College of Engineering. Along with the collaborative design process throughout, I created traditionally-made illustrations for a spread styled after a "Classified" section about a yearly Olin event.
- Making a zine about computers
An illustrated zine about the history and future of computation, made in collaboration with Sam Daitzman.