For each module, I will provide written and video tutorials on the topics. You can review whichever format suits you best. If the amount feels overwhelming, please reach out and we can help you narrow things down, and select a subset of the material to focus an exercise around. It's a lot!
- 📗 Chapter 2
- 🚂 2.1 Simulating Forces: Gravity and Wind - 24 min
- 🚂 2.2 Mass and Acceleration - 12 min
- 🚂 2.3 Friction Force - 14 min
- 🚂 2.4 Drag Force - 11 min
- 🚂 2.5 Gravitational Attraction - 16 min
- 🚂 2.6 Mutual Attraction - 22 min
- Mud Tub by Tom Gerhardt
- Crawling Through New York City, performance by Pope.L
For each module, I will provide a list of additional video tutorials and readings that you may draw on for further exploration. It's unlikely you would be able to consume everything in one week and if you are looking for guidance about what might fit with your interests and learning style the most, please reach out.
- 💻 Nature of Code Chapter 1 Book Example Collection
- 💻 Nature of Code Chapter 2 Video Example Collection
- 💻 Attraction and Repulsion
Develop a sketch with motion driven by forces (vectors). Here are some ideas:
- Using forces, simulate a helium-filled balloon floating upward (and bouncing off the top of a window). Can you add a wind force which changes over time, perhaps according to Perlin noise?
- Create an example where instead of objects bouncing off the edge of the wall, an invisible force pushes back on the objects to keep them in the window. Can you weight the force according to how far the object is from an edge, i.e. the closer it is, the stronger the force?
- Create pockets of air resistance / friction in a p5 sketch. Try using circles instead of rectangles, i.e. pockets of mud (or ice). What if you vary the strength (drag / friction coefficient) of each circle? What if you make some of them the opposite of drag—i.e., when you enter a given pocket you actually speed up instead of slow down?
- Research a force not covered in class and implement it as a vector.
- Use the concept of forces to visualize some input (Could be data, literal example would be use wind data and translate to a wind force in p5 (see: The Wind Map), but feel free to think more abstractly.)
- Build a sketch that has both "Particles" and "Attractors". What if you make the Attractors invisible? Can you create a pattern / design from the trails of objects moving around attractors? This p5.js coding challenge attraction video and corresponding source code offers starting point. For inspiration, take a look at Emily Webster's ‘The Abscissa Cycle’ from Nature of Code 2012 and Laws of Attraction by Wipawe from Nature of Code 2016.
- Document your work on the web with a short blog post. Here are some guiding questions if you are not sure what to write about:
- What did you originally intend to create?
- Narrate the process of creating your sketch.
- What resources and examples did you draw on to create your sketch? What was most helpful / least helpful from this week’s materials.
- What problems/discoveries did you encounter along the way?
- Submit a link to your post to the course wiki.
The following emoji key will hopefully help you navigate the material for each module.
- 🚂 Video tutorial from Coding Train
- 🎥 Other video tutorial
- 📗 Nature of Code book
- 📕 Other reading
- 💻 Code examples
- 🎨 Creative project references