Creative Coding

The Building Blocks of Programming

The Kent State course Creative Coding explores the expressive side of coding. Learn the fundamentals of programming in a way that is accessible to tech and non-tech majors alike and encourages out-of-the-box thinking — through play, creativity and self-expression.

Open to all Kent State majors
No prerequisite
Honors sections available
Core course for both the Emerging Media and Technology major and web design and development minor
Instructor: Abe Avnisan, Adam Stephens, Josh Talbott
Search in FlashLine: EMAT 15310 – Creative Coding

Creative Coding is a hands-on introduction to computational thinking and programming, taught through the framework of creative coding. Course content is both technical and social:

The technical: Students will learn how to use variables, loops, functions and APIs to make original works of creative code that move, interact and unfold over time.
The social: Explore technology's intersection with society by engaging with the ways artists and designers use code to critically interrogate social issues of our time.

This course will prepare students who wish to pursue tech careers for jobs as interaction designers and web and software developers. For student in any major, it will teach in-demand technical skills that are desired across all professions and all facets of society.

“I think the idea of taking a coding course can sound intimidating (...), something that only computer science students would take. However, I think this is a perfect medium for someone that has an interest in learning more computer skills or that wants a more artistic class in their schedule.”

Britney Hargis, Communication Studies Class of 2021

Student Work

Explore some of our students' work below. Student work will include:

Micro-Projects: Allow students to playfully experiment while synthesizing the technical skills they've learned in each course unit
Final Project: Build a simple, interactive game that critically engages with an issue they're passionate about.

Choose Your Adventure: Interactive

Click to interact. Project by Nike Adewumi

Algorithmic Storytelling

Click to interact with the piece. By Joshua Behler

Self-Portrait

By Katie Carpenter

Bubbles

“I wanted to create a digital representation of blowing bubbles with interactive elements. I created a bubble wand using circles and a line, that follows the mouse around the screen. ... As you move the mouse around different bubbles appear. ... I created a popped bubble in the first third and lower half of the screen that makes all the bouncing bubbles disappear and the lines in the static bubbles disappear. If you click the mouse the lines in the bubbles turn a different random color.”

Britney Hargis | Communication Studies

Moving Wallpaper

“The premise of my code was inspired by both John Conway's Game of Life and a recent fascination I had with learning about bees and how they built their hives. I wanted to make a program where a random premise of hexagons moving around could result in a unique and interesting end result which mimicked how nature builds things.”

Joshua Behler | Computer Science