mmiller5-Looking Outwards-07

Google News results by year appear in the physical bar graph, Centograph

Centograph is a dynamic physical bar graph made by Tinker in 2009.  Users type a keyword into a desktop computer connected to Centograph which then searches the Google News Archives for the number of times that word was used in articles since 1909.  Centograph then displays word usage by raising physical bars representing 10 year spans, giving a physical representation of the data.  Centograph is a permanent installation at St. Paul’s School for Boys, which is part of why I think it’s so cool — it’s made specifically for an educational setting.  By turning data from something esoteric into something tangible and cool, it helps to incite a level of interest in the areas of computation and data visualization, especially in students.