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Schedule

The Weekly Agenda

Week 1

February 22
  • Assessment of student skills, levels, and interests
    • What do you want to learn in this class?
    • What sorts of data/information graphics work have you done previously?
    • Any coding experience?
  • Introduction to course goals and expectations
  • Intro talk
  • Exercise: Catalog & Classify
Assignment
  • Next week we'll have an in-class programming workshop. In preparation for that, please read this selection of tutorial chapters.
  • As with every reading assignment, you will be expected to post 3 questions to the class blog the night before the next class meeting to help guide our in-class discussion. Be sure to add the tag "R1" to your post by clicking on the gear icon at the top of the screen.

Week 2

February 29
  • Presentations
  • PlotDevice Q&A
  • PlotDevice exercises
    • experiment with the size and background commands to control the ‘canvas’
    • draw a rectangle (rect) and a circle (oval)
    • draw a grid of shapes (either manually or using the grid command)
    • use the poly command to draw a series of regular polygons (triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon) and label each using the text command
    • set the background color using hex-strings, RGB values, and color names
    • use the fill command to change the ‘ink’ color and draw shapes with various levels of grey
    • experiment with adding an additional 'opacity' argument when setting a fill and note how overlapping shapes become translucent
    • try using different blend modes to affect how overlapping colors are combined
    • set a stroke color to outline shapes
    • use the radius argument to the poly and arc commands to draw a series of concentric circles/squares
    • try using the random command to choose positions, sizes, colors, etc.
    • use the WIDTH and HEIGHT constants with random to choose coordinates that will be visible on the canvas
    • draw a smiley face using a combination of arcs and polygons
Assignment
  • develop 3 different ideas for the A Thousand Suns project.
  • read National Geographic article (and post 3 discussion questions using the tag ‘R2’)

Week 3

March 7
  • Presentations
    • Janice on Ladislav Sutnar
    • Oscar on Experimental Media Research Group
  • Reading #2
  • A Thousand Suns progress
    • share external data sources
    • meetings in small groups
Assignment
  • select final direction for A Thousand Suns project and bring in finished visualization.
  • read Chapter 3 from Ben Fry's dissertation (and post 3 discussion questions using the tag ‘R3’)

Week 4

March 14
  • Presentations
    • Atulya on Jennifer Daniel
    • Kevin on Jer Thorp
  • Reading #3 from Ben Fry's Thesis
  • A Thousand Suns progress
    • wall crit
Assignment
  • complete final A Thousand Suns visualization.
  • read about Richard Saul Wurman's five hat racks and bring in images and information representing a small collection from home. Be able to describe each item in terms of the L.A.T.C.H. attributes.