Our project takes a look at the motions that lie behind the classic freestyle stroke and re-represents it using the abstracted form of a fish.

We attempted to record in a pool. We popped phones into Ziploc bags, strapped on goggles, and -- after a series of excited questions from gym staff -- hopped into the water, one of us with a laptop propped on their knees poolside. We discovered quickly that the phones lose signal once submerged, and recordings we managed to get were choppy. Nevertheless, we persisted, and recorded a couple of headfirst dives to get as much 'above-water' content as possible.

A combination of ellipses and elongated diamond-shaped polylines overlap on the planes' origin points to generate the body and fins of a fish. The extended fin exaggerates the twisting motions, and accentuate the velocity-controlled shape by a greater multiplier than the body. We implemented as many editable parameters as possible to keep our design options open-ended.

We hoped to create something reminiscent of a fish jumping in and out of the ocean; something that one of us used to imagine a lot of their hand dipping in and out of the water as a kid during swim practice.