Week #8 Assignment: Flower Heliotropism by Abdelrahman Mallasi

Concept

The concept of this project revolves around simulating heliotropism, which is the ability of certain plants to grow and orient themselves in response to the direction of sunlight. , which regulates cell elongation and growth.
This phenomenon is primarily controlled by the plant hormone auxin, which stimulates growth. When light shines on one side of a plant, it triggers the redistribution of auxin, causing the plant to grow more on the shaded side. This growth pattern leads to the plant bending or turning towards the light source. Sunflowers are an example of plants that exhibit heliotropism, as they follow the sun’s path across the sky during the day.

In this project, I aim to represent heliotropism through an interactive simulation. I created a visual display where a flowers grow towards the sun, which is controlled by the mouse cursor. As the flowers reach a specific height, it blooms, showcasing the transition from growth to flowering. Each flower has its own maximum height and growth rate that are randomly generated each time the sketch. The project exhibits properties of autonomous objects by illustrating seeking behavior, with the sun acting as the target and the plants as the vehicle.

Highlight of Code

grow() {
   if (this.height < this.maxHeightForBlossom) {
     this.height += this.growthRate;
   }
 }

 blossom() {
   if (this.height >= this.maxHeightForBlossom) {
     fill(255, 0, 255);
     stroke(255, 0, 255);
     ellipse(this.root.x, this.root.y - this.height - 20, 20, 20);
   }
 }

These two methods are under the Plant class

grow() represents the process of the plant growing over time. The if statement checks whether the current height of the plant (this.height) is less than the maximum height for blossoming (this.maxHeightForBlossom). If so, the plant’s height is increased by the growth rate (this.height += this.growthRate). This means that the plant grows a certain amount with each frame of the animation until it reaches the maximum height.

blossom() is responsible for checking whether the plant has reached the height for blossoming and displaying a flower if it has. Similar to before, it checks whether this.height is greater than or equal to this.maxHeightForBlossom. If so, it draws a flower at the root adjusted for its height (this.root.y – this.height – 20). The 20 is used to position the flower slightly above the top of the plant stem.

Embedded sketch

Link to Sketch

Future Ideas

• The initial idea for this project was to depict realistic plant growth with the root firmly anchored at the bottom of the canvas, creating a curving stem as the plant grows towards the sun. However, this proved to be a challenge to implement