The standard 90349 on coding and writing code involved two parts. The first part was to learn how to use a program called processing to write code. The second part was to use these skills we had learnt and apply them to making an iteration for the WHS Virtual Walk-through Application.
We first started this standard 90349 at the start of term 2. Terry told us that we were going to learn how to write code in a program called processing. I knew absolutely nothing about coding let alone the program processing. This made me excited to learn a completely new skill. The first task we were given to do is to learn a bit about code and what can be done with code. Terry showed us a site called Open Processing. This site where people posted code that they had written. It's an open source website so anyone can use the code that someone has written as long as they acknowledge the creator of the code. For a few weeks we spent a lot of time browsing through different bits of code on Open Processing researching the different things that could be done writing code in Processing. While we were doing this we also had been told that we would be making an iteration to put inside the main walk-through application. This iteration had to relate to a subject at school. So in the back of my mind during the time spent on Open Processing I was thinking about what subject I would want to make my iteration for and checking out bits of code already made that related to subjects at school. For example I looked at a basketball bit of code which could relate to P.E. and I looked at a wave generator iteration which could relate to Physics.
All though we spent a lot of time on Open Processing during this time we also began to learn how to write some basic code in Processing. This was done by Terry showing us how to write a few basic lines of code and then us following what he wrote. We learnt functions like 'voidsetup' which is how you set up a bit code and within this we learnt things like the background size and background colour. We learnt how the colour system worked in Processing both black to white scale and RGB. At this point in coding there weren't too many problems encountered the only problems were small things like forgetting to put semi-colons at the end of a line of code or forgetting letters in names of functions or for getting to close brackets. These problems were easy to fix especially because processing usually pointed out where and what the problem was. We also learnt a bit about how the coordinate system worked in processing which I took awhile to get my head around because it was different to what we learn in maths.
After this we began to move on to Terry giving us a bit of code that he had written and then we were told to look through the code and modify the bits that we knew how to. This started out with simple things like changing the background colour and the colour and thickness of lines. I found this quite fun and satisfying because you had a whole bit of code which you had modified to make your own. From here we learnt more advanced lines of code for example the 'mousepressed' function which meant when you clicked on something it changed and the 'loadImage' function which allowed to upload images in to Processing and in to our code which proved to be a very useful coding skill for me later on.
The next step was to take bits of code that we had found and liked on Open Processing and modify them to make them our own. We were particularly advised by Terry to find bits of code that related to a subject at school. I personally wanted to do subjects that I took (or had taken in the past) or one that I was interested in. So this meant I was looking for iterations to do with Outdoor ed/P.E./Sport, Music and Physics. Though I did find one iteration on OpenProcessing which was to do with art. One of the bits of code I really liked that I found on OpenProcessing was a Basketball game where you have to shoot the ball in to the hoop like taking free throws in a game of Basketball. After doing this for a few weeks we were ready to begin work on our final iteration.
The second part of the coding standard 90349 was the final iteration that each of us students in the class had to write up in processing with the help of Terry. The brief we were giving was that we had to make an interactive iteration using code in Processing. Also the iteration had to relate to a subject from within the school. We didn't necessarily have to write the complete code from scratch. We could if we wanted borrow bits of code from other people work as long as we acknowledged that and we also had to modify it enough to make it our own. After a lot of thinking I decided that I was going to make an interactive drum kit for my final bit of code. This would obviously relate to the subject Music. The idea was that when you touch your finger on the drum/cymbal (on an iPad, iPhone or iPodTouch) or when you move the mouse over the drum/cymbal it makes the sound that that certain drum or cymbal makes. I also wanted so if you hold the mouse over the drum/cymbal or you hold your finger overthe drum/cymbal then the sound keeps playing on a loop. Originally I was planing to have a birds-eye view picture of the drum kit. I also wanted to make it so you could change the style of the drum kit so for example you could change it from a rock kit to a jazz kit.
At first I had no idea where I was going to start so I asked Terry for some advice. Terry had in the past already written up some code for an interactive drum kit. Though his one had circles in the shapes of drums and cymbals instead of real drums and cymbals. This bit of code was extremely useful and is what I used to base my drum kit around. As well as using this bit of code I also had a play around on Terry's iPad trying out virtual drum kits that had already been made. This gave me some ideas for my own iteration. The first plan was that I was going to get one birds-eye view of a drum kit off the Internet on Google images. Then I thought rather than wasting time trying to find the ideal picture why not go and get a picture of the school drum kit which also made more sense because the app was a walk-through of the school so I may as well have the school drum kit. Then Terry gave me the idea that I should take pictures of each drum individually which would make it easier to embed in to the code. I credit for Isaac taking the pictures of each drum and cymbal.
My next job was to take out all the backgrounds in Photoshop. This started of as very tedious work because I didn't know how to use Photoshop properly and was using the eraser to wipe out the backgrounds. This was slow work and the finish wasn't very smooth. Then Isaac showed me a much faster way to take the backgrounds out and which also gave a better finish. This sped up my process significantly. While doing this we had originally taken a picture of the bass drum with tilted up. This didn't seem to look very good with the background taken out so we went back and took another picture of it lying flat. Once I had taken the background out of this picture it looked much better than when the bass drum was tilted. I managed to get through taking all the backgrounds out pretty fast after Isaac had showed me the faster way to do it. Part way through taking the backgrounds out, we learnt of a new program a called G.I.M.P. (GNU Image Manipulation Program). G.I.M.P. was pretty much the same as Photoshop but simpler and easier to use. So for the last few drum pictures I took the backgrounds out in G.I.M.P.
The next task I had was to get the sounds for the drum kit. At first I was going to go to the music block and record drum sounds using the school kit but then we realised that we probably didn't have enough time for this. So Terry gave me a folder that had hundreds of professionally recorded drum sounds. Some of them were acoustic drum sound which is what I wanted and some of them were electric. I spent about two periods going through all of the sounds creating a short list of the ones I wanted for each drum/cymbal. After cutting it down to two or three sounds for each drum and cymbal I managed to pick the final ones I wanted.
Now I had all the pictures and all the drum sounds all I had to do was put it all together in processing using code. The only problem was I had no idea where to start. Terry told me the first thing I should do is put the new audio files in to the already existing drum code to replace the old ones. I did this with relative ease. After doing this I gave Terry a copy of all my data (pictures, background picture, drum audio files and existing drum code) and he had a look at it over a weekend to try and get me started. What Terry did was put the bass drum in to the code to give me a start. All I had to do was follow the code he had written except use the other drums and cymbals and work out the different coordinates. One problem Terry had found was that all the pictures were to big so I had to open them up in G.I.M.P. again and scale them down. Also Terry had come up with the idea that you have a small picture of the drum/cymbal when you aren't hitting it and when you move your finger over it the drum/cymbal becomes bigger. So for each picture I made a big one and a small one.
The only problem I had when putting all the code together was a small problem when I first tried to follow the bass drum code that Terry had done. I was putting the snare drum in and when I played it all the drums had disappeared and there was no sound. I looked back through the code and it turned out I had spelt the file name for the snare drum picture wrong. After I had put the snare drum in I didn't take long at all to finish the drum kit.
The only thing I would do now is play around with the scales of the cymbals because one is much bigger than the other. I would also think about adding some more drums or cymbals.
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