CSc 101: Creative Coding

In this assignment, you’ll be creating an original, custom, and interactive program! You get to choose the specifics of what the program does, how it looks, and how it functions. You could go a lot of different directions with this one: design a game, create an interactive animation, build a generative art piece, etc.

However, there are a few ground-rules and limitations. Your program must:

React to the mouse position and/or mouse clicks in some meaningful way.
Interact with at least two keyboard keys. These key presses must have some effect on the program.
Draw at least 6 shapes and/or images to the screen.
Incorporate some type of motion.
Have at least 4 if-statements or for-loops (or a mix of both).
Be at least 75 lines of code (not including comments).
Have at least 3 custom functions.
The draw() function may only have calls to your custom functions. No drawing shapes, for-loops, using mouseX/mouseY, responding to the keyboard in draw()!
Only use features we have discussed in this course, unless you get special permission from us. If you want permission to use a particular feature, ask before using!

Perhaps you’ve thought about this assignment for awhile and you are thinking: “I can’t think of anything cool to do, please help!”. I would suggest thinking of something you are really interested in or passionate about. Then, choose a program based on that topic.

Like playing basketball? Try creating an animation of a basketball player dribbling, or shooting.
Like aquatic life? Create a simple “Finding Nemo” game.
Enjoy working on cars? Write a program that gives instructions for how to change the oil on a vehicle.

If you need help or inspiration on what to do, don’t hesitate to discuss with the instructor or your section leader. Don’t worry if you’re “not a good artist”. This doesn’t need to be an artistically beautiful program, as long as it fulfills the spec requirements.

You may not:

Let someone else do the work for you
Re-use an assignment from earlier in the semester
Submit the same code as someone else - the program should be your original work!
Copy our example programs

Comments

All of your programming should be well-formatted and easy for the graders to read and comprehend. You should follow the style guidelines that we have discussed in class. The program file should have a header comment at the top that has roughly the following format:

//
// Author: Student Name
// Description:
//    A short description of what this program does!
// 

If any part of your scripts are particularly complex, you should put documentation comments above those lines of code. Name your program netid_creative.pde (where netid is your UA username).

Documenting Functionality

As you can probably tell, there is a lot of flexibility in this assignment. In order for us to be able to grade it, you need to clearly describe the purpose, behavior, and interactivity of your program! The header comment at the top of your program should be very detailed. You must describe what each button, mouse click, and animation does.

Examples

We have provided a few examples, so that you can see (very roughly) the type of programs and documentation we are looking for:

Submission and grading

This was assigned on 11/13/2017. It is due on 11/20/2017 at 5:00pm.

Turn in each of the files described in the spec (just 1) the assignment drop-box in D2L before the due date. Make sure to name the files exactly as this document specifies. In general, make sure to follow these instructions precisely. If you don’t, we will deduct points!!!