This post describes what I want my first processing program to do.  It’s for an exhibit we’re prototyping called “Bird Data.”  Visitors start a timer, count the behaviors of live  birds in a cage for 60 seconds (are they preening? eating? sleeping? flapping? stretching?) and place black round magnets in the appropriate columns depending on what the birds are doing.

A camera above counts the magnets in the columns and graphs the data to show ratios that are hard to envision when watching all the birds at once.

My first step was to find code that evokes a camera (result below) and it was super easy.

Next, I’m going to work on identifying black circles against a white background in a set column space. 

After that, I’ll have to come up with some interesting and kid-friendly ways to visualize ratio and then use processing to build those based on the data it sees.

As a side note, I finished GSwP and have moved to Learning Processing (LP).  GSwP will actually get you started because it’s so small and easy, but LP is head and shoulders above it in terms of actually teaching the language (vs showing, which is what GSwP is mostly about).  If you’re interested in learning Processing, I recommend getting both books — GSwP to get you somewhere quickly before you lose momentum and LP to round out the confusing bits/apply what you’ve learned in a helpful environment.