Hi!!

I've been super busy over the past few weeks with various final projects and a writing portfolio and all that. Now I have no finals while almost everyone else is kickin it into full gear to ace their own tests and theses.

Below is the link to my final project for 4.502/4.564, an undergraduate/graduate class which uses programming to design stuff. We learned Rhinoscript, which you can use to program pretty much anything in Rhino 3D, but we also learned Processing, a neat little open source programming language developed by two guys from the Media Lab (naturally...). So instead of making weird shapes in Rhino, I decided to use Processing to turn some data into something a bit more fun to play with.

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http://web.mit.edu/bloggers/www/cristenc10/
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The map linked above (if you can't see it, you probably need Java installed) shows domestic undergraduate enrollment at MIT for each of the past ten years (go back and forth with the bracket keys). Mouseover a data point to see the number of undergrads from that state.

Now that I've gotten the hang of this (note: I've never really programmed in anything before 1-1.5 months ago..) I'd really like to expand this project to students from all over the world, and to graduate students as well. Right now with so little data it isn't as interesting as it could be.. ^_^;;

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

you have no idea how long it took for me to embed this in a blog post. or maybe you do. i dunno.

Posted by: cristen on May 16, 2009

First (since bloggers can't first themselves!!! tsk tsk tsk!) lol

Very interesting project! I guess when I met you at meet the bloggers you were just learning the basics of programming. That's so crazy!!!

Posted by: 0 on May 16, 2009

you broke the rendering in Opera with that applet; probably other browsers.

http://www.browsershots.org; i havent looked at the source, i think the mitadmissions page is fixed width. pro tip is to make the applet less wide.

kudos on the applet itself.

Posted by: 0 on May 17, 2009

hah, thats really weird/cool!
i liked how i could scroll over specific states to see the actual numbers.
altho its weird that you couldnt tell if the map had re-loaded for each new year, since the numbers seem to stay so consistent.
kudos on the neat app, should definitely post an international + graduate inclusive one.

Posted by: 0 on May 17, 2009

Hmm... Interesting. I thought that there would be much larger changes in the amounts!

Posted by: Chris Praley on May 17, 2009

hahaha i knew 3 of the 7 people from west virginia

Posted by: lulu on May 17, 2009

oh also, it only opens on internet explorer for me, it crashes firefox, just fyi to all the kids.

Posted by: lulu on May 17, 2009

I'm surprised there's so many from Cali. I always thought more of them go to Stanford or UCLA or Berkeley or Caltech, etc. Heh, so many smart kids in California that they should make their own country.

Posted by: 0 on May 18, 2009

We West Virginians are small in number, but we carry a pretty wise head on our shoulders.

WV Resident '12

Posted by: WVU fan on May 18, 2009

Very Very interesting way to portray the information. Great job!

A few observations at the superficial level ...

1. Idaho is a state with 0 admittance from 1998 to 2008. Could it be that the potatoes doing too much harm to the brains?

2. California was doing extremely well early on, but started the downwards spiral starting 2003 through 2007. What could have caused this? Could it be the hippie movement is resurging in california, weaning away the nerds into other pursuits?

3. NY and MA have been tumbling down - I see an overall downward trend. It could be that the winters are getting harsher in that part of the world and high school nerds are all worried about getting a brain freeze and are hitting the ground in droves and running westwards.

Posted by: Ram - a parent on May 18, 2009

every thing is fine???????????

Posted by: ravi kumar on May 22, 2009

hi
i like to be your friend
i like to study in mit
please send for me email.

Posted by: mohammad javad oghyanoosi on May 24, 2009

I always thought more of them go to Stanford or UCLA or Berkeley or Caltech, etc. Heh, so many smart kids in California that they should make their own country.

Posted by: clubpenguin on May 25, 2009

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