Marty's WordArt

Inspiration

We have been looking to improve our coding skills and got to know about this hackathon through a friend. We found the topic quite intriguing and wanted to delve into the intersection of language and art. We were inspired by synesthetic art and word clouds.

What it does

Marty’s WordArt takes text input and creates abstract art from it. Each character is mapped to a specific brush stroke that is splattered across the virtual canvas to create your own unique painting. If you pay close attention, you might even be able to decode the message behind it!

How we built it

All the code was written in Java, and the art was drawn using Procreate. We spent a lot of time on the ideation process and initial documentation of the project. Then we divided tasks and spent a lot of time on debugging. Lastly we made the logo and came up with the name.

Challenges we ran into

One particular challenge we faced was prioritizing tasks to finish by the deadline with a high-quality finished product. Coding in a classroom setting is different from coding in a hackathon, because we had to prioritize the end over the process. That meant we had to put “band-aids” over some problems rather than hunting down the root cause, because we knew our time was better spent on other aspects.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of our blend of coding and art. While we all love computer science, we also love showing everyone how much we can do with it. We like that this program is very accessible to kids and can possibly be used to teach them about the power of coding. Perhaps the little artists who use our program will become the coders of tomorrow!

What we learned

We learned how to code outside the context of a class. While our class lessons usually focus on one specific aspect that we work to master, this project taught us to do everything. We also learned a lot about organizing code, reading documentation as well as where to get help from.

What's next for Marty’s WordArt

In the future, we hope to add more customization, like giving the user the option to have their art in a certain shape (ex: a bone for art about a dog). We would also like to have custom color palettes. Perhaps, one day we could use AI to determine the context of the text to decide these things automatically. Turning this project into an app would also be fun, as I predict kids would have fun playing with Marty. Additionally, we want to animate the painting process and have Marty walk around the screen as if he’s actually “painting” each brush stroke. We would also like to have an option to save and share your artwork.