Pixel Pete the Cowboy Sprite
I built a tiny cowboy who runs across my slides and makes jokes about grad school. Claude's version was awful. ChatGPT got it on the first try.
This is one of those late-night projects that I hyperfocused on when I should have been doing something more productive. However, that’s what happens when you have ADHD.
Sometimes slides can get quiet after a while, so before my AI research workshop at Oklahoma State this October, I built a small pixel-art cowboy to live inside my HTML presentation. Every other slide, he runs onto the screen, says one line, checks his watch or tosses his briefcase, and leaves.
His lines are about grad school. “Still waiting on IRB.” “My briefcase is just 400 unread PDFs.” “I’m not procrastinating. I’m formatting references.” There’s also one bit that only fires now and then. He runs in, sees someone, says, “Oh. Hi, Dean,” and bolts.
I used Claude and ChatGPT to try to build what I was imagining in my mind. I first tried Claude, and the first build was pretty dang awful. I tried to iterate, but wasn’t getting much better, so then I went to ChatGPT, which, on its first turn, made the best-looking version of the entire batch. I wanted to keep the famous Pistol Pete scowl and align with the Pistol Pete Spears School of Business version with a briefcase in hand.