Tom Lehrer’s The Elements
I’ve been a fan of Tom Lehrer since my childhood. When I first learned about Tableau’s capabilities versus, say, Excel, I wanted to build something that demonstrated the interactivity that Tableau’s dashboards provide. I thought an interactive version of Lehrer’s song The Elements would be the perfect way to demonstrate that interactivity.
This was a bit of a challenge as it was one of my very first dashboards ever! But I was eventually able to link the lyrics section to the periodic table information, allowing the element information to populate every time you mouse over one in the lyrics. I also wanted to attempt a visualization showing the number of elements discovered in the past few hundred years which worked out great, except for the span from 2001-Now. With my current knowledge, it’s likely something I could prevent in the future.
The main dashboard for The Elements
This is the lyrics page. Each word is assigned a number. As you mouse over, Tableau looks at the number in the spreadsheet and verifies if the next column has an element name. Then it passes the info over to the Periodic Table page, matches the element, and then displays the full information.
The Periodic Table worksheet
The spreadsheet I assembled with all of the relevant information. Originally, I had hoped to include shading to indicate the group blocks (Noble Gas, Alkali, et cetera), but that proved to be a bridge too far for my skills at the time.