PA4 – Digital Maps, Space and Place

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I have used my geo-referenced map from 1939 with an overlay of data applied by QGIS to create a chloropleth map that shows were the wrestlers will most likely be during Common Hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays (if limited to a certain area, as shown on my map).

The wrestlers chose where they would most likely be in this area during Common Hour.

I gathered my data by simply sending a message to the wrestlers asking where they would most likely be during Common Hour if they could only pick buildings that are considered to be in the same area of Chambers. This includes the Chambers, Freshman dorms, the Union, the Library, the Doe Weight Room (behind library), and all of the buildings on the “D”. The reason I only inquired about this range of area is because my 1939 map doesn’t include all of campus.

My data strengthens the information contained on the map because it provides understanding besides simple location of buildings. This map does two things effectively. First, it shows location of new and old buildings on campus; the fact that the 1939 map cannot cover the current campus shows how much the campus has grown. Second, it provides a narrative of where the wrestlers decide to place themselves when they have an hour of ‘free time’. Most of the wrestlers chose to go to the weight room while some went to the Library or Union, and others went to their dorms. From this we can figure that some wrestlers might have work or desire sleep, some may take this time to eat while most would try to work out. This data might be a good start to predicting the behaviors not only of wrestlers but of Davidson athletes. and even Davidson non-athlete students.

My greatest challenges were working with the limited 1939 map, acquiring answers from all of the wrestlers in a timely manner, and navigating QGIS. I limited the wrestlers’ choices to the buildings that the 1939 map covered in order to remedy my situation. As for QGIS, using the program is the best way to figure it out. Learning in class is helpful but actually working through mistakes is a true learning process. I’m beginning to understand the learning curve of QGIS; only “sort of” knowing it renders it rather useless, however, becoming familiar with QGIS opens up many doors to mapping.

As a Freshmen, getting to know people is an important part of life. Therefore, I have mapped out how many people I know in various dorms on campus.

One of the first issues I ran into in the creation of this map was the dissonance between the two styles of maps that were in the overlaying process. The given map of Davidson had a very large focus on portraying the buildings correctly, while the roads were simply one-dimensional lines. Conversely, the map of Davidson I used was very focused on portraying the roads accuracy, while the buildings had a lot of variation in their accuracy of scale. Therefore, in the first overlay of the map I did the points were very far off as I had attempted to approximate reference points on the roads as well as the buildings, which made the map very inaccurate. By focusing solely on the buildings for reference, I was able to get an overlay that lined up much more cleanly.

The second problem I encountered was the fact that when attempting to make a gradient with QGIS, my shapefiles would disappear. Since the shapes are rather important for the message of the map, I had to work out a workaround by using the categorized style. After inputting my data values into the categorized system, I set the colors of each category individually so as to represent a gradient. The downside to this workaround is that the gradient may not be equally spaces in its color values.

Interestingly, from this map I can see that my social web seems to either stretch to include a particular dorm or not. It is no surprise that Cannon has the largest amount of people, given that it is my home dorm, but the inclusion of Richardson is interesting, given the lack of proximity between it and Cannon. However, it is important to note that this map does not include those people with which I am friends or acquaintances whom I do not know where they reside. Despite that, I think this map presents an interesting picture of my social reach at Davidson and I would be very interested to see how it changes over the course of my time here.

Tag: PA4

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