Storyboard Assignment

After looking over the pictures for this assignment, I decided to pick three that I would definitely focus on: the girl holding the apple while being surrounded by bushes, the man praying, and the four guys covering their noses and mouths while being surrounded by dust. This assignment really made me use my imagination to think about the types of pictures I could use, and how I could tell a story with them. I ended up using google and clicking on various pictures to make sure that their qualities would be good for the storyboard. All of the pictures have captions next to them to help tell a story.

I did not think that the picture of the girl holding the apple went with the other two pictures, so I did a separate story for that picture. I knew that the girl had to be holding an apple because she was surrounded by bushes like she had just picked it. Since it is the fall, I thought that a story of her and her mom making an apple pie would be perfect. For this storyboard, I used the scene to scene transition. First I showed the picture of her. Then, I showed a picture of a filled apple basket like she had just picked apples. Next, I showed a picture of flour, butter, and other ingredients that are needed to make an apple pie. Finally, I showed a picture of an apple pie to conclude the story.

For the second part of the assignment, I used the picture of the guys in the dust, and the man praying. The story is about a man who lives in an area where conditions aren't good. The guy decides to pray for conditions to get better. This really made me think, because I had to come up with other problems that dust could cause. I thought about how people and other things would be affected by the dust. This made me realize that dust could make people sick, and plants could die because of it. I ended up using the scene to scene transition for this storyboard as well, and started the story with the picture of the four guys standing in the dust. Next I put a picture of a kid being treated by the doctor to show how the dust affected him. After that, I put a picture of dead plants to show how crops and other plants that provide health could be destroyed. Finally, I included the picture of the man praying to show how much he wanted things to get better. Pollution is a problem, and will continue to get worse if we do not do anything about it.

Various Charts

Here is my simple Chart of Data and my stacked area, scattered plot, and connected scattered plot charts:

This assignment was very difficult. In order to get statistics that related to RWU, I had to travel to a lot of places on campus. I finally visited DSS to see if they had anything, and they gave me a couple of books that alumnus receive. These books have reports that include statistics on certain things like the numbers of students who applied and got accepted to RWU over the years. In excel, I had to incorporate three things into charts: the years, number of applicants, and acceptance rates. I even had to convert the percentages of the accepted students into whole numbers.

In order to create these three charts, I put all of the information into three columns and highlighted them. Then, I experimented with the different types of charts to see which ones would display the information best. I could not use the bar chart because the years would not be displayed best visually. I could not use certain charts because the years would not be displayed well, and the charts would not be visually pleasing. Originally, I had the percentages in my chart before I converted them to numbers. The percentages did not appear to show, and I did not know why. I realized that they did not show because the numbers of students were in the thousands, and the percentages were not above one-hundred, making them hard to see since they appeared at the way bottom. The last problem I had,was after I had converted the percentages into numbers. Somehow, those numbers turned into prices!

The story I was trying to tell is that RWU is getting more and more popular as the years go on. This means that anyone who applies to this school could have trouble getting in with all of the competition. As a result of doing this project, I learned that excel really is not an easy application to use. However, when displaying data, and once familiar with excel, it is a great application to work with!

Flow Chart

Even though I have ordered most of my books for school on Amazon, I did not remember all of the steps completely. I ended up having to pretend that I was actually ordering a book on Amazon. I went through all of the steps that I would have to take if I was ordering the book The Lovely Bones, and was careful not to click "place order." As I pretended to shop for The Lovely Bones, I made my flow chart. It took me a couple of tries to finally get my flow chart right. I was not completely satisfied with the first one, which is why I made a second one.

In my first diagram, I felt that everything kind of looked the same. In my second diagram, I solved this problem by making certain shapes different colors. I made the circles red, the rectangles blue, and the diamonds green. The first diagram's direction did not look that good either. I solved this problem by making the diagram go to the side and down again, instead of having things go to the side and up.

Making the second flow chart on finding dual-coding research on google scholar, was easier than making the flow chart for purchasing books on Amazon. This was probably the case because I had already gone through the process of making a flow chart, and knew what mistakes not to make. Once again, I used the primary colors to make the shapes stand out more, and had the diagram go in the same direction as before. Finding research on google scholar is not as hard as buying a book on Amazon. Also, depending on how much or what type of research you need, finding research on google scholar does not take that long. To make the flow chart accurate, I went through the process of researching dual-coding on google scholar. I did this while making the flow chart, and got my final result.

As a result of making these flow charts, I learned that even though making a flow chart looks like a simple process, it is not that easy to make. A flow chart may look simple, but if you do not involve every step for a process, the viewer might have problems. Ordering a book on Amazon is a long process. I had to be really careful when I went through each step because at one point, I almost ordered a book I did not need! Finding informtation on google scholar is not that long of a process, but it requires many steps.

*Note: I took another close up picture of the bottom of my flow charts since the font is hard to read in the original pictures.

Emergency Exit Diagram

Something that needed improvement was the emergency exit diagram located in my dorm room. The first thing I did was take a picture of it, and put it on my computer. Next, I made the diagram bigger, and printed out copies of it to work with. Since the diagram was the most important thing, I decided to focus on that before working on the layout of the instructions.

In my first draft, I color-coded the rooms, bathrooms, and hallways to see what colors would work. I also outlined the building in brown since that is my building’s color, and made notes, such as making the yellow rooms purple, using only four colors, and outlining every room’s border with the room’s color. I drew eyes with an arrow pointing to the stairs because it reminded me of a sign I saw once, and I thought that it would help people to see the stairs better. This looked funny so I ended up not using it.

I made the next draft’s diagram even bigger and used fewer, and primary colors to make it easier to read. I also experimented with three different ways of coloring in and outlining the diagram.

In my final draft, the building and everything inside of it is outlined in black. Certain borders/objects are also outlined in their room’s color. I also drew arrows pointing straight into the parking lot from the building instead of to the sides of the building. The titles and important parts of these directions (such as public safety’s number) are red so that they stand out. The wording is also bigger and moved so that it is easier to read.

This assignment was definitely interesting, because it made me realize that there are many diagrams that need improvement. While doing this assignment, I was hoping that I would make an easier diagram for students to follow. I’m happy that I chose this diagram, because it is very important to everyone!

How to Make Spaghetti...

While making this diagram, it was hard to show so many steps in a simple way. What I ended up doing was combining certain pictures with each other. For example, instead of putting the running water with a plus sign and a pot next to it, I put the two pictures together so that the running water was entering the pot!
Since making spaghetti involves two parts (making the pasta and the sauce), I decided to make two sections. The top part of this diagram involves making the pasta, and the second part focuses on making the sauce.
In the first section, I drew an arrow from the faucet and pot to where the pot should be on the stove. I then drew an arrow to a stove nob. The stove nob has a circle of arrows around it demonstrating how to turn the stove burner on. After that, I drew arrows from a box of spaghetti and a wooden spoon pointing to the boiling pot of water. This demonstrates that those are the two things that have to go into the pot. I also got a picture of a timer, and drew it an arrow on it that pointed to the number nine, explaining how long the pasta has to be in the pot. Next, I drew a similar timer that is pointing to the number zero, and looks like it's making noise and shaking. This means that when the timer goes off, the pasta is done, and has to be drained in the sink. Next to the shaking timer is an equal sign that leads to a small diagram with the pasta-filled pot next to a sink. In the sink is a pasta-filled drainer. When the spaghetti is done, you have to drain it in the sink.
The second part was a lot easier to draw, since it's not hard to cook sauce from a jar. All I did was draw an arrow from the sauce to a covered pot that is heating. I then drew an equals sign between this pot and another uncovered pot with heated sauce in it. After that, I drew an arrow from the uncovered sauce pot to a bowl with plain spaghetti, symbolizing that you have to pour the sauce onto the spaghetti. Finally, I drew another equals sign between the bowl filled with plain spaghetti and a similar bowl filled with spaghetti and sauce. The bowl of spaghetti and sauce is circled, showing that this is what spaghetti should look like once it's finished.