Processing

My second task was to create a visual program using Processing. The idea for this was something I could come up with myself and so my first idea was to create a screensaver type bouncing object within a box. Before this however I needed to learn how to use Processing With the help of David Jonas, one of the people who worked on creating processing, I was able to learn the basics and create a simple program.

After learning how to create objects like rectangles and ellipses and learning how to place them in a window, I began to experiment with moving objects and how to get them to move around the screen on their own. This then led me on to making objects bounce around the border of the screen. This wasn't very interactive however so i decided to make it so the mouse being clicked in different corners would change the colour.

My final idea for Processing evolved from my last idea. I decided I wanted to be able to move a ball from a click and then have it bounce around the screen. I had it so the ball would start on the screen already and then set it so when the mouse is pressed the ball would bounce in a random direction. Also from the last idea I kept the colour change depending on the corner where the mouse was. I also added a random colour generator too.

For the final product of my processing I found that I could make it somewhat simpler than the second however it worked better. Also I found that my second design would'nt always work with Hotglue so that was one of the reasons for simplifying it. I prefer my third design as there is less going on and the actions are more random however I would like to have been able to add more than one ball on the screen per mouse click. I found this would have taken much longer to do however and may not have been compatible with Hotglue either. I also added a random background colour to make it less dull.