Duration: Feburary 2020 - March 2020
https://stevenzhang337.github.io/Geometry-Calculator-JS/
This project had come in and out of my head for awhile before I decided to actually start it. The idea with this project was to create a geometry playground where the user can draw and create whatever geometry object they want whether it was to explore and to solve a problem. Often times math is done on pencil and paper but this project brings math to the digital sphere. I was more excited about this project than the others and honestly felt like this had potential to become something bigger. I had compared this concept to Desmos although it is far from complete.
Although this project is incomplete, the concept of this project is here. You can create points and lines, and join them into shapes. You can find the midpoint, perpendicular bisector, or create circles. Any geometric property or idea could be illustrated through this program. As such, I imagined the main use for me was to solve geometry problems. Say you had a hard geometry problem, you could use this program to either find the answer directly like if it asked to find an angle or length of something, or it could assist you find formulating a proof. That was the general intent of this program. I also imagined it could be a good educational tool to teach students about basis geometric ideas like a triangle's incenter or orthocenter. Although we can just draw out these concepts, nothing beats a computer who can draw exact lines and angles. While this project could go on forever as we keep finding new geometric concepts to implement, we were far from done with implementing some basic features like circles, drawing exact triangles or calculating area.
One initial struggle I want to bring into light is the user interface. I knew that this program would have a lot of features but it was challenging organizing these features so that a new user could learn easily. Finally I have settled for its current UI. The system was modelled after programs like photoshop or illustrator. There are drawbacks to it but it seems to achieve what I want for the most part. This hurdle really made me appreciate the though that goes into user design. Maybe that will be something I can study because so far most of my projects have involved user interface.
While this project is still something I find value in making, I decided to leave this project unfinished because the ambitions I have for this program have exceeded my current capabilities. Mostly, I found that the graphics package I am using for this project has brought many challenges especially when it comes to the user interface design, namely I have to manually create and detect mouse presses. These challenges while possible to overcome greatly undermine the code and logic behind the program. I do believe there are packages out there that are better suited for a task like this and as a result I have decided to postpone this project until my skills as a programmer improves.
