Overview / Usage

With my Blue Dragon workstation, powered by the most powerful consumer processor ever made, the Intel® Core™ i9-12900K, I have awoken to the dawn of a new technological age. For at least the next decade, my elegant dragon and I will work and play together, matching or exceeding the capabilities of the increasingly competitive world around us. We will keep each other updated and healthy. I, through my meticulous care and creative code, and it, through an inspiring appearance and through the continuous monitoring of imperceptible environmental factors which can cause me harm.

Originally conceived as a novelty, my Gamer Wellness Hat, integrated on top of the desktop, has already proven essential in the two short weeks since it became operational. It alerted me to a snowstorm, the greatest in Toronto’s history, hours before it started and, surprisingly, hours before the local news gave it any importance.

Likewise, while creating a large collage for the side panel, I briefly entered fits of despair when it seemed my intricate jigsaw lacked any aesthetic cohesion. A quick glance at the sensor showed I had spent the past five hours in concentrations of CO2 around 1300 parts per million, far greater than the low to mid 400s I am used to. So I went outside for a stroll and felt completely rejuvenated, finishing my design soon after.

Competitive gamers and avid chess players, for example, should see a strong correlation between their performance and the quality of the air they are breathing. However, everyone can benefit from having a vigilant companion by their side, whether at home or at work. I’ve already programmed it to pop up a message box on my desktop when it senses my neighbours smoking, two floors below, so I can close my window. I may even program it to turn off and encrypt my workstation if it ever senses a breath other than mine. Mixing highly sensitive CO2, particulate mater, temperature, humidity, pressure and light sensing can yield many creative applications and I’ll enjoy discovering each one!

I hope I’ll be able to take my Blue Dragon with me to work in the near future. I designed it to be neat, stylish and look at place in a studio or in a Bay Street office. I’ve noticed the i9-12900K’s efficiency cores allow the system to run near ambient temperatures, ensuring unoffending silence during the great majority of daily tasks. The few internal lights are a chic, subdued reminder of the powerful components inside, while occasionally serving as warnings, reminders or instruments for self-hypnosis.

The Blue Dragon is my essential, dependable tool, and thanks to its indomitable silicon heart, it should serve me unwaveringly for this next stage of my life.

Methodology / Approach

While conceiving and planning this project I experimented with different media. At first I planned to make an articulated dragon which offered a glowing purple bauble upon start-up, in honor of extreme ultraviolet lithography. I decided this would be too heavy and the 3D printed plastic parts wouldn’t arrive in time. Likewise, I played with modeling clay, foam, and papier-mâché but I discovered those materials all disintegrate into very fine particles which may damage the fans and the system in the long term.

Since the white, colour-anodized, steel panels of the case will fade over time, I concluded a wrap would both protect the components and offer the most vibrant colours. I had originally planned for two opaque side panels but the motherboard, graphics card, cooler and fans all looked so nice and aesthetically cohesive, I had to show them off. Occasionally, I find myself staring at them while lost in thought.

My original plan, which you can see archived below, included an articulated robot arm. After assembling the PC components for a boot test, I realised there is very little useable, free space in the case. My project would have been a tower with a robot arm beside it on a desk. This wouldn’t be aligned with the sleek, professional focus of my build.

Likewise, I sketched a castle wall for the dragon to perch on, as well as a few hidden fairy creatures. This too would have clashed with the competition’s theme; turning a workstation into a diorama. My solution, as detailed in the log below, was to create an intricate fractal pattern, growing imperfectly in all directions. I think this fusion of manual and procedural design captures the present and future of computer-aided work and play.

I truly hope you enjoyed my project and that I did something wonderful. If you have any questions, please message me or leave a comment. Merci beaucoup!

Technologies Used

Intel® Core™ i9-12900K Processor

Gamer Wellness Hat prototype which includes an infrared (NIR) CO² sensor, a PM1.0 to PM10.0 particulate matter sensor, an ambient luminosity sensor, and a pressure, humidity, temperature sensor

be quiet! Silent Base 802 Window White

Seasonic FOCUS PX-850 Power Supply

WD_BLACK™ SN850 NVMe™ SSD

CORSAIR K68 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard — CHERRY® MX Red

Logitech G305 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Mouse

MSI MEG Coreliquid S360 CPU Cooler

MSI MPG Z690 CARBON WIFI Motherboard

Micron 2x32GB UDIMM DPARXPM001 RAM