The first thing I chose from the ds106 assignment bank was the coding assignment to create an interactive program. I decided I would create a program to find all the factors of any chosen number (why? you might be asking. I truly have no idea). I was originally going to code in C++ but then I figured “why not utilize everything I know and have some fun as well as practice with it?”
I recently learned about creating websites and haven’t really had a chance to practice for myself or outside of what was required for the course so I saw this as the perfect opportunity. One of my favorite things about this class is that I get to do stuff I enjoy, but normally wouldn’t have time for.
Click the image below to go to the website:
I began working on the HTML code first to give myself some sort of vision for what the site would look like. I figured simple was the way to go for this assignment, so I included what I thought was necessary: some description, instruction and a place to enter input.
After figuring out the look of the website, I then had to get it to actually work. This part took a few lines of Javascript code defining what a factor was and then allowing it to be displayed on the screen. Honestly, this was the most difficult part because I’ve had less practice with Javascript compared to HTML and CSS. The W3schools tab on my computer was always open, searching for ways to get my code to work. I also found myself looking at old projects and tweaking its code to fit this website.
Finally, I reached the fun part, where creativity really comes in. Using CSS I experimented with different designs for the website; I enjoy discovering the different fonts and color combinations to use. Again, with the point of the site being simple I used a nude color for the entire page and different shades of brown for the text. I also added a gif to make it less monotonous, and animated some of the text.
The second assignment I chose was a mashup assignment to find two similar songs and edit them to show how they are identical. I imagine it would be fun to learn how to edit/mix music.
Analyzing the different sounds to find minor similarities seems like it would be really exciting. A couple days after reading about this assignment I was listening to music and actually found two songs that are actually quite alike but I just never realized.
Excellent work on this!
Super cool!
Thanks so much for the detailed tutorial and description of the assignment – both from the ct end and the ds106 end!
This assignment looks like fun and you have inspired me to try it too!
Exciting work!
Thanks a lot professor! I remember you said to track our progress so I took a few screenshots along the way so I could include them in the post. Also glad I could be a source of inspiration!
Excellent!