In South Africa, potholes are a frequent hazard on the roads. This project allowed for real-time interactive information reporting and traces the potential effects of the information, with a humorous twist.
Using Google Maps, users can register the location of potholes in real-time. They can also remove ones that have been repaired.
South Africans frequently overexaggerate the size of potholes and how quickly they are growing.
And so, the webpage takes these complaints into consideration! As people report potholes, the potholes grow in size and number, much as people claim that they do.
However, as time goes on, the potholes reach impossible proportions, swallowing entire suburbs, cities, and countries, and supposedly growing deeper until they begin to reappear on the other side of the world. This is a playful, interactive approach to the pothole challenge.
The project utilized Google Maps, where users clicked to add a pothole to the map. Once the pothole was added, the system automatically sent an email to the “pothole repair person’s” email address. Users were also able to click on potholes and remove them after selecting “yes” on a confirmation screen.
Social Flocking
This mini project plays with the role of social media in our daily lives.
This mini project plays with the role of social media in our daily lives.
These posts scroll past, often rapidly, not always allowing users to read them easily. The boids decide their own narrative, independent of the users’ influence. A broad story is created, offering a glimpse into the unseen social networks and real life interactions which we can only infer from the multitude of text updates and images that we see in social media.
Mechanics: This project uses the p5.js Flocking Example, derived from Craig Reynolds “Flocking” Behaviour. Users connect to a server, and are asked to enter their name in a dialogue box. The system loads them onto a webpage, and creates a boid with their name attached to it. The relationships between all the boids are calculated and cause various statuses regarding the boids’ interactions to be posted to the screen.
