New Additions

There are a few good suggestions that were made that I’m excited to try to add.

The first addition is an option where the coloring of each state is based on the year directly previous. Personally, I would never use this feature because I’m not sure how much info it would tell you, but I think it would be a good option.

Next, I want to change the option for “change over time” to use a baseline of whatever the starting year is. Right now, it uses a baseline of 1850 automatically, but I am hoping to use the user’s input.

I also want to add a “Rewind 5 Years” button up next to the current year on the top left. This would only appear when the map is paused.

There was also a suggestion to try and make the options faster, but I am not sure how much faster I want to make it. I am going to continue to play with it to see how fast the data can come back without breaking it.

I am excited to add these new features over the next couple weeks before presentations which are a month away!

The Gantt Chart focuses on specific dates and how long each section of the project is going to take, making it very similar to a timeline.

PERT Chart

Meanwhile, the PERT Chart focuses more on the process of creating the application instead of focusing on the specific timeline.

Which is better?

For my style of planning, the Gantt Chart I think is going to work better for me. However, I do appreciate the process that is shown using the Pert Chart because I can see how I can keep working on a different segment even if get stuck. Overall, I think because the Gantt chart (aka timeline) does use specific dates, it will help me to stay on track more than the PERT Chart.

My project is about visualizing data related to climate change and interpreting that data in easy-to-view ways. If you want to learn about my project in its entirety, click here.

First, looking at the project, I had no idea where even to begin and quickly panicked.

But, after a night’s sleep and talking to a few people much smarter than me, I slowly hacked away at what I think could be a plan.

The first plan (of I’m sure many)

The main tool I am planning to use is called Arc-GIS. It is a data mapping software that specializes in something very similar to what this project asks. I have only very briefly worked with this program in the past, but there are a lot of great tutorials and example projects online, so I am hopeful what I am envisioning can come true.

Here are a few examples of what is possible in Arc-GIS. First is a map of election data from the UK General Election in 2015. You can click a color on the map and it will bring up the election data for that area. If you hover over the bottom of the map, you can also view the map in different regions. You can view it entirely and learn more here.

Below is what is called a story map and it animates different charts and figures together in almost a webpage fashion. These types of groups are not super friendly for mobile phones, so if I do create something similar, I am expecting it would be more for a website. You can learn more and view it better here.

Lastly, is a GIF of the average number, location, and size of tornadoes from 1950 to the present day. Part of my project includes animating data, and I am intrigued to dive into the tutorial given on how this was created. You can view the animation here.

The biggest hurdle is going to be making sure that these maps can be embedded in applications. Each of the example projects has been able to be embedded, but overall, I am not sure if every project has this capability.

Besides using Arc-GIS, I would like to dive deeper into app development maybe in react because then it can be viewed on both iOS and Android phones. However, I did enjoy Android Studio and am not opposed to using it again.

My overall goal would be to create both an app and a website, but I want to make sure I’m not overwhelming myself right now. I am much more uncomfortable creating an app, so that is where I would like to start.

The first step as I dive in is going to include making sure that I can find current and detailed data about the maps I want to create. Even before that, I think I need to try to think of the main maps I would want to create (if the data exists). I know the main one I would like to dig deeper into is the average temperature per day/month/year over the course of multiple years.