Projects
Introduction
Here are projects that we will contemplate creating at the end of the course. All the techniques, software, packages, theory, hardware…will be pieces aimed the realization of these projects. So we begin this course with the end in mind.
The projects below have been grouped into two groups, one for the junior students and the other senior students, who are both paradoxically in the same class. But there is an opinion that prerequisites are irrelevant.
Do not start with fundamentals. This is an awful approach to learning. Start with so-called “advanced” topics and ask questions until every term/concept is understood. This is the correct, rigorous, scientific way to learn, because the advanced topics are embedded in larger, more convoluted, more abstracted constructs. This embedding is what gives the individual pieces their meaning. Foundational studies have removed this embedding, and present only the isolated, sterile pieces. They have no meaning. They have no context.
Read the full tweet, and the discussion that follows at the link above.
Project #0: Make an ad for a wellknown logo
Description
- Use the logo and split it up into the geometric pieces that make it up
- Generate these pieces by
transformingother well-known geometric shapes - Create an animated coming together of the logo using these basic shapes transforming and aligning into the logo
Project #1: Garden of Eden
Description
- Use simple geometric shapes, fractals, L-Systems, symmetries, colours, and animations to build a garden
- Create different types of biological creatures and non-biological structures
- Can you mathematically mimic birth-and-death processes?
- What about natural processes such as wind, rain, snow, or fire?
Project #2: All good things begin with a Song
Description
- You will be , uh, given a set of very old Hindi Songs
- You need to generate just the initial music leading up to the point where the singer starts singing
- Use
p5.soundand the sound synthesis techniques you have learnt to make this happen - Play special attention to timbre and spectral depth of the sound. It needs to sound like the instrument used in the actual song!
- Besura?
Grade = Grade - 1!!
Project #3: King/Queen of the Mountain
Description
- Each participant in the exhibit chooses whether they want to be on a mountain or in a valley, or in a grassland/meadow. More choices if you are up to it…volcano, anyone?
- Their position within the space will be sensed. And they can move.
- A terrain map will be projected, either on the ceiling, or the screen, or on the participants themselves, with each individual being located on a specific terrain feature type that they chose at the start.
Pieces
| Theory | Tool | Wait, but why? |
|---|---|---|
| Terrain Generation |
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| Location Sensing |
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| Projection |
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Project #4: Sound Relationships
Description
- The floor is divided into footprint-sized areas. Each area is mapped to a particular note in a musical scale, that can be selected. Multi-octave.
- Participants are told of the mapping and given a smartphone. And they can play hopscotch or dance or move, in sync with other participants to create a jam session.
- Can they make music / rhythms?
- They are given headphones?
Pieces
| Theory | Tool | Wait, but why? |
|---|---|---|
| Sound Generation |
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| Location Sensing |
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| Projection |
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Project #5A and #5B: The 100-Acre Wood with Winnie the Pooh
Description
- Create natural shapes / images / illustrations / characters based on kolams/ lu-sona / fractals / L-Systems and graphs.
- A: Use grids, smoke, and mirrors to create laser diagrams in a table-top maze.
- Pointer laser? Smoke? Agarbatti?
- Movable mirrors ( 0/90 degrees only so black paper clips should work.)
- Single Point of entry for laser.
- Look from above through the smoke.
- B: Viewers can draw their illustration on a large paper canvas to create a Hundred Acre Wood
- Paper and Pencil / Colour / etc
- Check with Code and replicate by hand.
- Catalogue of Shapes is essential
- Grid, Kolam Choice for shape, changes, innovation are possible
Pieces
| Theory | Tool | Wait, but why? |
|---|---|---|
| Shape Generation |
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| Hardware |
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Project #6: Kagazi hai Pairhan
“Naqsh fariyādī hai kis kī shoḳhi-e-tahrīr kā
Kāġhzī hai pairahan har paikar-e-tasvīr kā”
— Ghalib
Description
- Dress/Clothing design with paper
- Participants will turn and pirouette/turn about in front of a camera
- Measurements will be taken and modelled using non-Euclidean geometry
- Paper cutout diagrams which can be fabricated to “dress up” the viewer in paper.
- Paper can have their favourite theorem or piece of text printed upon it!
Pieces
| Theory | Tool | Wait, but why? |
|---|---|---|
| Measurements of Fixed Points on/from Camera Image |
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| Math Model of Connecting Points with Hyperbolic Geometry Functions |
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Project #7: My Face is a Fourier Series
See this:
https://gofigure.impara.ai/drawing/5711774133256192
- People stand in front of camera
- Detailed picture is taken. Profile preferable!
- The code will generate a Fourier Series of their profile and present an animated version on the screen.
- Reset and Play should be possible
Pieces
| Theory | Tool | Wait, but why? |
|---|---|---|
| Measurements of Fixed Points on/from Camera Image |
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| Generating Fourier Series with Waveform + Animation |
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Project #8: Music by Hand-Waving
Project #X: Other Project Ideas
- Link the IFTTT app to p5.js using for instance OSC messages, and make things happen over WiFi, from other classes or buildings