Lab 7

In this lab you'll practice using SmartArt, charts, and more advanced animation effects. The lab will not focus on you creating content (e.g., typing up bulleted lists).

This is not a typical lab. It was released Saturday morning (March 27th, 2010 @ 5AM) and will be due before the midnight that turns Saturday into Sunday. See the last section in this lab for grading/submission information.

I'd like you to create 2 slides, each having 1 piece of SmartArt (so, 2 SmartArt pieces total). What you show is up to you, but it should make sense considering the content (the words) and the layout (what kind of SmartArt you're using, such as cycle, pyramid, process, hierarchy, etc). Here are some ideas for concepts that you could show (feel free to make up your own):

• U.S. Government organization (judicial, legislative, executive, who is under each branch, etc)
• some kind of animal family classification (types of dinosaurs, types of ants, etc.)
• biological processes (mitosis?)
• pros and cons of some debatable topic (abortion, death penalty, drug legalization, U.S. bailout plan, free trade, owning Ligers, etc.)

Then, completely change the colors/style/look of each piece of SmartArt. Possibly, you may want the colors to match what you are showing.

Sometimes we want to insert a chart into a presentation. Using PowerPoint (and indirectly Excel), create a new blank slide with an appropriate layout and insert a chart. You can make up your own data or use the following example data (be sure to choose an appropriate chart type):

Be sure to spend some time making sure that your chart looks nice. Don't worry if the chart shows random data and/or data that is not related to any other previous slides you've made in this lab.

Now, we'll work on doing some animations. Animations can be distracting, and usually are, but they can also be very powerful. We'll create a simple, silly animation but then we'll create a second useful animation to help the viewer understand something.

Create 2 new, blank slides. On the first slide, we'll create a simple animation that animates a scene. Make it silly, make it weird, make it fun, so long as it demonstrates that you know how to do more complicated animations in PowerPoint. You'll want to use several pieces of clip art. An example scene, in terms of complexity, might be the following (feel free to make the animations fast, so that you don't spend time waiting for various pieces of clip art to slowly move across the screen):

1. The sun enters the scene
2. a penguin enters
3. a cloud covers the sun
4. the penguin becomes sad (i.e., a sad face appears over top of the penguin)
5. the cloud leaves
6. the penguin becomes happy!
7. the penguin walks away
8. the sun leaves

Then, using the custom animation pane: change the animations in your scene so that it plays out with out you having to click the mouse button at all.

On the next slide, you'll want to do something more serious, something more useful. Using the drawing tools on the Home tab, create a diagram/figure to explain something. Connect the steps in the process with arrows as appropriate. Change the colors and then, animate the steps. Example processes include (feel free to use your own!):

• filing taxes (steps include finding a job, making money, paying taxes at each pay check, then at the end of the year, filing taxes, and getting a tax return)
• making & eating cheese (milk, curdle, age, eat, etc)
• some kind of process related to your studies
• starting a car (check fluid levels, get in car, start car, let it warm up, etc)
• how mail works (e.g., have pictures of a house, a mailbox, a truck, plane, etc, then have a piece of mail clip art move around to each in the right order)
• the advancement of a basketball team through the March Madness brackets

For the purposes of this lab, the animation that helps explain your diagram should use several motion paths.

1. You MUST email me your lab BEFORE the deadline (23:59 March 27th, 2010) in order to be able to earn credit.
2. I will be reachable via email on Saturday (but may not be at all available Saturday night), so plan accordingly. I intend to spend a good part of the day being able to respond reasonably quickly to emails, to help you out if you get stuck / want clarification.
3. As with all labs, you may work together and help each other out, but you must do your own work and turn in your own, original, lab.
4. This lab will be (slightly) graded, unlike typical labs which are merely pass/fail (see details below).

The lab will be graded. This means that partial credit is available. I won't grade in a very detailed way. Instead, I'll judge whether your submitted lab meets the following requirements:

1. Requirement: SmartArt example slide #1
2. Requirement: SmartArt example slide #2
3. Requirement: A slide with a chart with a non-standard look (e.g., change the colors, add axis labels, do something so it isn't so standard looking)
4. Requirement: Scene Animation slide that plays out on its own (e.g., maybe 1 click to start it)
5. Requirement: Explanation slide (should be useful, should use motion paths, and should explain more clearly than text would explain). The animation should play out on its own (e.g., maybe 1 click to start it).