There are many ways to do this! Here are a few examples:

Counters that increase at different rates

Events that happen at different rates using modulo

Events that happen at different rates using millis()

How to use sliders from the ControlP5 library for Processing to dynamically change on-screen designs.
+ how to use background colors.
+ where to look up more ControlP5 features.

Link to code (with some added comments): gist.github.com/nataliefreed/ef0f9d9eb34875bf27b2

DraggableCircle example code used in the video can be found here: gist.github.com/nataliefreed/9633499