Creative Coding

My path to creative coding has been a recent one, after taking an art class on the topic. Now, I hope to continue my knowledge into the world of creative coding, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and more as I take "Mediated Spaces" this upcoming fall. As I learn new skills within the tech field, I am excited to continue merging them with my skills in the wood and metal shop.

BYO Donut

Artdes 239 - Creative Coding for Uncle John's Cider Mill

Executive Summary

Interactive object for donuts!

My final goal is to bring an easy to implement interactive object to the pie barn space, focusing on the new donut types. This will act as a force to bring interested customers in, as well as support the branding of the new sets of donuts sold in the barn. This project will continue to extend past the interactive space. The company is looking for a new donut box design with a focus on the names and differing types of donuts. The project goals include:

Create an easy to use interactive marketing device.

Teach users the new donuts the company has created within the last 3 years.

Proposal Deck

Mood boards and more

After deciding on the goal of the project, it was time to gather the creative inspiration of the device. I gathered a mood board, took inspiration from Uncle John's themselves, And began sketching out game pages.

Slide deck cover with donuts and gingham

Build your own donut game screen sketches

Coding

Building the scaffolding

I decided to learn how to use Raspberry Pi for this project. This allowed me to easily connect the needed accessories and pull code to the device easily. In a nutshell, I attached the Raspberry Pi to a monitor, an used a USB encoder to send the arcade button inputs to the device. This code was written in a p5.js environment, with a few additional executable scripts for the game to launch on start.

GAME ASSETS

TIME TO DRAW

If I am going to have a fun retro inspired arcade game, I better have some appealing visuals. I had a strong theme idea for the pages of the game, and I needed visual depictions of each donut element too. How can you build your own donut without a great deal of options? So, I began designing the game assets in Adobe Illustrator. I designed the background pages as well as digitally drew each donut and their toppings.

Build your own donut title screen with 2 donuts and stars

Arcade cabinet

Back in the wood shop

I have missed my time in the shop. I grew up building little things from the scrap material I could find. This project brought me right back to that joy. I followed the sketched schematics I created for my arcade cabinet, and got to work cutting and drilling wood.

The Final result

Soon to be setup

The client absolutely loves the piece. It is easy to use, built to last, and has an extremely enjoyable energy to it with the retro game feel. The device should be setup in the Pie Barn this upcoming fall, as the cider mill season begins to ramp up. I learned so many new skills with this project. Using new tools and software, and pushing my user experience skills into game design.

Order now page with a chocolat bismark donut with rainbow sprinkles

Creative Coding

BYO Donut

Rock on my friend.