Hi Saber!
I’m following up on Jesús’s post to clarify our questions. Any feedback would be amazing!
Proposal
Many learners already know the benefits of watching mathematical animations on YouTube; we want to show them the joy and usefulness of programming their own! Especially interactive ones. An example sketch is below, from an interactive simulation I made.
Starting from graphical primitives means that basic mathematical visualizations can require an intimidating amount of programming. In Python, Manim has become a popular solution, and for good reason. But, there are still unmet needs, all of which the p5.js community prioritizes highly:
- Accessibility: It must be easy for total beginners to use in the browser, with no setup.
- Interactivity: It must be easy to include interactivity! Interacting > watching.
- Expressiveness: It must be easy to customize for different aesthetics.
In short, we want to create a library as capable as Manim, but beginner friendly, and built for the web. Based on the response to this proposal on Twitter, there’s a lot of interest already!
QUESTIONS
Applying: In the Medium post that you shared, we noticed that “For a collective body of work/project, only one person (a lead applicant) should apply.” Would it be okay for us to describe both of our respective backgrounds in the application, while indicating which one of us is the lead applicant?
Funding: Since we’d each like to commit 100 hours during the fellowship period, would it be possible for each of us to receive a full stipend? If this is not possible, we can look into securing matching funds, but we don’t have any leads on that yet.
Prioritizing:
As Jesús noted, our project aligns with two priority areas. Do you have any feedback regarding which area makes the most sense for us to focus on? Further details are below.
- Our top motivation is accessibility for beginner coders in the math and science community. This includes beginners who don’t have access to a machine on which they can install custom software like Manim.
- We also want to build on existing work whenever possible, so we’ve been talking with the creators of p5.teach.[1] [2] [3] [4] That library had similar goals, but it’s looking like we may need to create a separate library. However, we will certainly build on existing work in less direct ways. I’d be happy to provide more details if that would be helpful.
Thank you so much!!
Greg