The Rotting Apple

I was eating an apple when I was reading the project description. Then I thought, maybe I can make an apple clock! We all know that apple will oxidize and turn brown when it is exposed in the air. So I make the apple changed every 3 seconds to show the oxidizing process, and some worms to emphasize the aging of the apple. The rotting process is a way to embody the precious time in our real life - if you don't seize the day and enjoy the best stage of something, it will go bad; if you leave the task unfinished, npleasant consequence will happen.

Concept Draft

Design Process

I had four idea for the drafts: Sunflower, apple, a drunk man and tetris game. Sunflower will be following the sun as we know, apple will be rottting,the drunk man's face will turn red as he drinks more, and the tetris blocks will be eliminated as time goes by. The sunflower idea and the tetris game are not very unique ideas, so I was left with the ideas of rotting apple and the drunk man. I thought the drunk man will look better if I make an animation of it, but right now it is out of my ability. So I went with the rotting apple idea. I used BezierVertex to draw the apple and leave shape, and the quad for the stem. I want to make the apple turns browner as the sky goes darker, so I set the color of apple and the sky as variables. I originally set each stage for 5 seconds, but it tooks too long to show every change. So I set 3 seconds for every stage instead. I also make two worms instead of just one, since I want to show a story of the worms. The two worms are roommates living in this apple. They made holes on the apple because it is both their house and their food. Sometimes one worm is lost inside the apple and the other one will be looking for him. Usually they like to show up together and wriggle in the holes.

Reflection

My reflection about this project is that I would do better. I would like the clock to be able to loop back and last longer for more various changes. I was trying to make the holes appear randomly, but I coudn't figure out a way to make the worms always lean out from one of the holes - so I have to position the holes and worms manually to make sense of their existence. I want the apple to rot faster so that the effect looks more obvious and viewers don't have to wait, there must be a way to set up the code so that I don't need to position the holes and worms for every stage. I also want the apple to shrink as it rots, but it might require more variables to be set. Overall, I like the rotting apple idea as the unconventional clock, but I think it need to loop in order to become functional. On the technical side, I learnt how to use the millis as well as setting up variables. On the thinking side, I learnt that a clock doesn't always need hands to indicate the seconds, minutes and hours. The elapse of time can be shown in many different forms. In my clock, there are three ways to show the passing time: sky getting darker, apple turning browner, and the chronic destruction done by the worms.