CSC 151.01, Class 41: Project Kickoff

Overview

• Preliminaries
  • Notes and news
  • Upcoming work
  • Extra credit
  • Questions
• About the project, revisited
• Group composition and construction
• Playing and brainstorming

News / Etc.

• Happy Patriot’s day! (or Patriots’ Day, if you prefer)
• Sit anywhere you’d like! (I’m going to make you move, anyway.)
• Extended office hours today: 11-noon, 3-3:45 pm

Upcoming Work

• No lab writeup!
• Reading for Tuesday: Design Patterns and Higher-Order Procedures
• Exam 3
  • Exam due Tuesday night.
  • Epilogue due Wednesday night (earlier is better)
• Project Proposals due next Monday evening (sketches Tuesday).

Extra credit (Academic/Artistic)

• The Barber of Seville, Monday, 17 April 2017, 7:30 p.m., Herrick
• Any of the Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Symposium events April 17-20.
• Quince Contemporar Vocal Ensemble. 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 19, Sebring-Lewis.
• #robinhoodfail: The Ethics of Public Scholarship and the Digital Liberal Arts, Thursday, 7:30 pm, JRC 101.

Extra credit (Peer)

• Any of the Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Symposium events that involve your classmates, April 17-20. (No double dipping!)
  • Posters, 4-6pm, Tuesday, Burling Lounge: “The Effectiveness of Aesthetically Pleasing Rain Gardens” (also good: “Computing for Diversity” and “Algorithm Accountability”)
  • Thursday, Noon-1pm, JRC 226 “Econophysics Modeling of Dow 30”
• Submit to (or attend) the Art House Arts Fest on April 22nd. They want visual art, performance art, musical talent, crafting skills, culinary arts etc. If anyone is interested in participating they can email our Art House member.

Extra credit (Misc)

None right now.

Other good things to do

• Dag Field Day, Saturday, April 29, noon-5pm, in the Club Athletic Field.

Questions

About the project, revisited

• Goal (image-series n width height) that makes one image in a series
  • Should work with any integer n, between 0 and 999
  • No duplicates within that series
  • Same inputs, same output (no randomness)
  • If width and height change, scale/stretch appropriately
  • Images engage the viewer for more than a trivial amount of time
  • At least three different techniques (much more is probably bad)
• Think about design issues as you progress
  • Onscreen and offscreen
  • Symmetry / asymmetry
  • Building blocks: Line (explicit and implicit), shapes, colors, texture
  • Scale and relative scale
  • Positive shape / negative space
  • And more
• Things that often make it easier to read, and therefore less interesting
  • Representational art
  • Centeredness

Group composition and construction

What skills do you need for a successful project?

• Creativity/conception - Ability to come up with a good project.
• Artistic/design skill/knowledge - Knowing what makes a good composition; color theory.
• Time management.
• Know when “good enough”.
• Leadership
• Writer

What skills do you need for a succesful team?

• People with whom you work well / People you trust
• Communication.
• Coding well.
• Flexibility / Adaptability - “Damn; there are five hours before this is due. Nothing works. What will let us pass?”
• Being able to ask for help
• Open to inspiration.

Main roles

• Code - Blue
• Design/art - Red
• Write - Purple
• Manage - Green
• Other - Yellow

Playing and brainstorming

• Lab - Play
• Interweb search
• Just chatting