Setup

  • Create a new repo on GitHub called eds221-day8-activities
  • Clone to make a version controlled R Project
  • Add subfolders data and R

Task 1: Do your data viz worst

Just like it takes a lot of work to make a really wonderful graph, it takes effort to make a graph really awful. Put effort and creativity into this - you will learn a lot in the process if you do.

Using the ‘space_launches.csv’ data (I’ll drop this into Slack), create a new .Rmd and create your worst possible graph by customizing (from the ggplot default) in at least 8 ways - more encouraged - to make it as terrible as possible. The data were previously shared for #TidyTuesday, and descriptions of dataset & variables can be found here. You can plot whatever variable(s) you choose, and make whatever graph type you want.

Once you’re done, drop your worst graph (as a .png or .jpg) into the course Slack channel.

Some ideas:

  • fonts
  • background images
  • coord_*
  • panel / plot / geom / text colors
  • point / line patterns and shapes
  • gridline updates
  • tickmark frequency
  • angles

Here’s some inspiration from a few Bren MESM students.

By Yani Pohl:

By Keene Morrow: