This was my first interactive coding sketch. It's funny, because it's entire concept was decided based on my limited knowledge of all the syntax and capabilities of p.5.
To summarize my creation. It's a cute face that always misses its chance to eat the fish. The fish is connected to the mouse by mouseX and Y which changes the openness of the mouth. The eyes bug out like an addict by setting the diameter argument to random. The fish changes color every time the page is refreshed.
I think my biggest challenge was finding out that my sub-optimal solution, needed to removed completely to pursue the optimal answer. I originally had the height of the mouth correlate to the Y axis of the mouse and and the width of the mouth correlate with the X axis. The mouth would open and close randomly as I put limitations on the max size of the mouth. I later realized that drawing a line from the center of the mouth and measuring the X and Y distance of the mouth would provide a way cleaner interaction.
I think the main thing I learned was how to organize my code with comments and how to use variable in an efficient manner. In my own words, variables allows one to create boxes/ categories within boxes/ categories. So in order to build up to complex functions, it/s important to know how to compartmentalize the arguments so that the code of each line is legible. I think a skill I need to master as I code more often will be to learn how to logically organize code and recognize syntax.
Kevin, your freestyle exercise is delightful! You nailed the animation with the mouth chop. Great work incorporating a mix of your own and built-in variables, object literals, the dist( ), map( ), and max( ) functions for the calculations, and implementing a debug condition to help develop your program. The code is extremely well-structured and easy to follow. As you mention, this practice will serve you well as you continue!