Month: April 2024

Project Title: Mouse Trap

Link to sketch: https://editor.p5js.org/mld9095/sketches/-u6gqGiy5

Documentation & Reflection

For this project, I intended to mimic mice interactions with food, poison spray, and mousetraps.  With functions like avoid() and seek() in mind, I aimed to have a mice object class seek out food, while avoiding the mouse trap objects, and having the user spray poison to get the mice to scurry away.

For my initial experiments, I first created a mouse (‘rats’) class that was attracted to food (‘cheese’); however, during this process I noticed that the mice would disappear when they reached the cheese.  Additionally, on mousePressed I intended to have objects resemble poison spray, but when the mouse was pressed the steer force wasn’t strong enough to get the mice to move away from the food.  Or, the mice would still continue to travel to the food, even if the steer force/mouse click moved the mouse object in some way.  I had difficulty fixing this issue, so I changed my idea to having the food be presented on mouse clicked, attracting the mice, while having them avoid mouse traps.

 

While I intended to have the mice avoid the mousetraps, I faced challenges with using the avoid() function and having one object class avoid another object class.  Following the NOC example codes, I believe there may have been issues with calling the avoid() function with an object class as opposed to a single object (ie. m = one new mouse vs. a for loop creating multiple mice).  As shown in the process video below, I tried manipulating different variables to see if that had any impact on how the mice avoid the mousetraps; however, this seemed to not work and may need more exploration in the future.   This project was an interesting exploration of autonomous creatures and their interactions with objects, each other, and environment.  I found that combining different interactions (ie. seek, avoid, etc.) was the most challenging aspect of this assignment that created a lot of bugs, but I hope to continue learning about them as they created unique visuals and user interaction.

References:

• NOC example codes – seek(), avoid(), wander()

Project Title: Kaleidoscope

Link to sketch: https://editor.p5js.org/mld9095/sketches/AMcUsa7tr

Inspiration

For this assignment I was inspired to create a repeating pattern like a kaleidoscope, that would change color and pattern with the gui parameters.

Documentation

In my initial exploration for this assignment, I first created patterns using Daniel Shiffman’s 8.6 Fractal Tree code as a base.  I wanted to deconstruct this code to create an interesting pattern, with more shapes, movement, and colors to create the kaleidoscope.  Additionally, I wanted to see how other shapes would be visualized with the fractal pattern, like circles and hexagons as opposed to lines.

   

Using a function pattern(len), with len or length being included in the shape parameters, the length of the shape would be changed as the pattern recurs.  I started with one pattern to understand how the code is visualized when sin() and cos() functions are added to the rotate() function.

I then duplicated this pattern four times at different angles to create more complex geometric patterns.

To create more complex patterns, I played around with different colors and shapes, and changed the angle() parameters like the width and PI angle to change the speed that the shapes were moving at.  I then added GUI to change parameters like the value “len”, the RBG color of the hexagon, and the width and PI angle that the angle of the pattern is mapped on.

Process Videos

Reflections

My biggest challenge for this assignment was adding the GUI, as I wasn’t sure how to incorporate the gui parameters with a function as opposed to an object class.  This led to a lot of experimentation (https://editor.p5js.org/mld9095/sketches/3hTJnRk9X) trying to use both functions and object classes to create the same effect; however, I wasn’t able to figure out how to smoothly incorporate both, and looked for references that utilized gui not with an object class.  

Additionally, I found that the shapes I used in the fractal pattern didn’t visualize the fractals as clearly as Daniel Shiffman’s tree example did.  I tried to incorporate lines, circles, and squares to see if the fractals could look more connected or branch like, but the shapes seem to be more similar in size despite the increments of length changing.  Going forward, I would experiment with the pattern and shape orientation to see if the visual output would look more reminiscent of a kaleidoscope.

Final Assignment

References:

• https://editor.p5js.org/slow_izzm/sketches/rJXAyI7JV
• https://editor.p5js.org/natureofcode/sketches/DaINq2A85