Category Archives: Interactives

Data visualization of a sperm whale dive

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Marine biologists place sensors on sperm whales to track their vitals (by shooting the sensor into their skin with a gun). This sensor generates a long spreadsheet of numbers that is very difficult to visualize. Students are asked to look at dozens of different numbers that were generated during the hours that the whale dove deep into the sea to forage for giant squid.

The goal of this project was to display changes in the whale’s internals over time, along with all the numbers from their spreadsheet. The whole journey is sped up to take about 6 minutes instead of 6 hours. The teacher speaks over each section of the journey, giving context for the depth, intense pressures, lack of light, etc. as the whale completely exhausts it’s blood oxygen and muscle tissue. And as an added bonus we threw in two violent interactions with giant squid, as this is the reason the whale is diving (to risk death in order to eat).

It was animated in Autodesk Maya, enhanced in Adobe After Effects, with audio editing in Audition and the final assembly in Premiere.

pH and Plants

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phandplants

pH and Plants is an interactive learning module about the importance of pH in agriculture. It seeks to explain the consequences of a pH imbalance, as well as a few common techniques to manipulate pH balance effectively.

The module is laid out in a non-linear fashion, and allows the user to explore at their own pace and order.  Adobe Illustrator was used to create the graphics and Adobe Audition to edit the audio, while Adobe Edge Animate was used to animate and code the module for the web.

The module is bi-lingual, English/Chinese. The flags at the bottom of the screen will switch both the on-screen text and the accompanying audio.

Seed Germination Module

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germination

This module seeks to explain the process of seed germination.  With the assistance of animated and interactive elements, it breaks up the monotony of a linear presentation, while explaining a complex process with a light and entertaining look.

This module is also bi-lingual.  At any point, a user can click the Chinese flag icon to switch both the text and the voice-over into Chinese.