Rockwell Collins
A 4' x 6' panel for Rockwell Collins. It is made with circuit boards, lenses and other junk from the optics lab where they make HUDs for airplanes.
"This project started two years ago when RCHGS moved from the old building to here. Rob called me and said you gotta come look at this stuff that we’re going to throw away. And so I went down and looked through a bunch of boxes of junk that were ready to be loaded into a dumpster.
Not knowing anything about what they were for, I thought some of them were really beautiful and interesting on their own. Glass pieces with iridescent sheen, weird cogs, circuit boards, things that had mirrors in them. I thought that all the junk was worth keeping and should be on display somehow.
I’m a mosaic artist and I like to incorporate junk and interesting objects in my work. So I pitched an idea to Terry Zimmerman, John Desmond, and Helene Bloch and they said go for it. We had an open house in the new building in the fall of 2009. I brought part of the artwork for people to help get started, and several of you placed the tile around the lower area.
Rob and I have been married for 15 years so while I know what a HUD is I can’t describe it in technical terms to save my life. So this mosaic is definitely an abstract interpretation. I divided the design into two juxtaposing regions, one area represents what a HUD is physically and the other area represents what a HUD does. The radiating lower area represents all the deliberate, precise and linear thinking that goes into creating a HUD. Calibration, tolerances, ray tracing, direction, speed, vectors are all parts of the equation. Metal, glass, circuit boards, and lens are put together on the ground in preparation for a flight into the sky.
The upper area is an image of what you see when you look out the window of an airplane, softly woven landscapes below, the curve of the earth, undulating cloud formations. Basically, the beauty and vastness of the sky. But with all its beauty the sky can also be disorienting, devoid of points of reference and an unpredictable force to be reckoned with. And so the large circles represent the HUD figuratively harnessing the sky and precisely defining a point of return for the pilot. It’s an amazing and kind of magical thing that you are all doing when you make a HUD.
The mosaic has been in Rob’s office for a couple of days and I think the best compliment I’ve heard so far is an engineer who looked at it and said, “I don’t know which part of me it appeals to most, my artistic side or my geek side.” And now I’ll turn it over to Rob for those of you who will be more on the geek side. " -Julie
"The piece is also a sort of historical document. In it you can find items labeled Flight Dynamics and A Collins-Kaiser Company. Many of you can identify personally with at least some of the items, and you each have a story to tell about your experience. You will find stuff that was experimental, stuff that was tangential to our main business, stuff that never made it to production, and stuff that did make it to production but probably should not have. And taken together there is the story of how Flight Dynamics got started, had some early successes and failures, but grew into a strong and viable entity that is now a keystone in Rockwell Collins.
You are all encouraged to participate in the next phase of this artwork, which is to interact with it. Hopefully this will start conversations among us that need to be started. Hopefully this will provide insight into ourselves and how we deliver value to our customers. Perhaps even it will give our customers a chance to pause a bit and see what we are really all about before they go into the simulator lab or a conference room. For me, it’s an honor to all those who have worked on our products and made us a successful company that I am proud and lucky to have been with for so long. " -rob
Read More"This project started two years ago when RCHGS moved from the old building to here. Rob called me and said you gotta come look at this stuff that we’re going to throw away. And so I went down and looked through a bunch of boxes of junk that were ready to be loaded into a dumpster.
Not knowing anything about what they were for, I thought some of them were really beautiful and interesting on their own. Glass pieces with iridescent sheen, weird cogs, circuit boards, things that had mirrors in them. I thought that all the junk was worth keeping and should be on display somehow.
I’m a mosaic artist and I like to incorporate junk and interesting objects in my work. So I pitched an idea to Terry Zimmerman, John Desmond, and Helene Bloch and they said go for it. We had an open house in the new building in the fall of 2009. I brought part of the artwork for people to help get started, and several of you placed the tile around the lower area.
Rob and I have been married for 15 years so while I know what a HUD is I can’t describe it in technical terms to save my life. So this mosaic is definitely an abstract interpretation. I divided the design into two juxtaposing regions, one area represents what a HUD is physically and the other area represents what a HUD does. The radiating lower area represents all the deliberate, precise and linear thinking that goes into creating a HUD. Calibration, tolerances, ray tracing, direction, speed, vectors are all parts of the equation. Metal, glass, circuit boards, and lens are put together on the ground in preparation for a flight into the sky.
The upper area is an image of what you see when you look out the window of an airplane, softly woven landscapes below, the curve of the earth, undulating cloud formations. Basically, the beauty and vastness of the sky. But with all its beauty the sky can also be disorienting, devoid of points of reference and an unpredictable force to be reckoned with. And so the large circles represent the HUD figuratively harnessing the sky and precisely defining a point of return for the pilot. It’s an amazing and kind of magical thing that you are all doing when you make a HUD.
The mosaic has been in Rob’s office for a couple of days and I think the best compliment I’ve heard so far is an engineer who looked at it and said, “I don’t know which part of me it appeals to most, my artistic side or my geek side.” And now I’ll turn it over to Rob for those of you who will be more on the geek side. " -Julie
"The piece is also a sort of historical document. In it you can find items labeled Flight Dynamics and A Collins-Kaiser Company. Many of you can identify personally with at least some of the items, and you each have a story to tell about your experience. You will find stuff that was experimental, stuff that was tangential to our main business, stuff that never made it to production, and stuff that did make it to production but probably should not have. And taken together there is the story of how Flight Dynamics got started, had some early successes and failures, but grew into a strong and viable entity that is now a keystone in Rockwell Collins.
You are all encouraged to participate in the next phase of this artwork, which is to interact with it. Hopefully this will start conversations among us that need to be started. Hopefully this will provide insight into ourselves and how we deliver value to our customers. Perhaps even it will give our customers a chance to pause a bit and see what we are really all about before they go into the simulator lab or a conference room. For me, it’s an honor to all those who have worked on our products and made us a successful company that I am proud and lucky to have been with for so long. " -rob
