CS320N - Assignment 6

• Placed online: Monday, March 23

• Due: All parts: Wednesday, April 8 at the beginning of  class. (11 am)

• Value: 80 points. about 11% of final grade.

• Purpose: To create a program that uses many of the programming tools you have learned in Alice.

You may either work with one other student in the course, or work alone.

If you choose to work alone, you may talk to other students in the course about your design and for ideas, but you are to write the complete Alice program by yourself. You may receive help from the instructor or TA.

The Problem:

• Create an interactive Alice program that teaches some concept or set of concepts to elementary, middle school, or high school students. The program may be a game to help teach the concept or concepts.
• You will complete a write up of the concept or concepts you are trying to teach and of your program.
• You will present you program in class Wednesday, April 8. I will email the order of presentations on Friday, April 3.

Here are some ideas for possible material. You do not have to choose a topic on this list. You should choose something that interests you. If you have a question about whether a concept is appropriate please email me.

• Math problem (multiplication, division, fractions, ...) You could do simple flash cards or something interesting like showing a problem and then clicking answers as they fall down from the sky.
• The concepts of greater than / less than
• Volume of shapes
• Sorting (ordering objects based on some criteria) or searching to meet some criteria
• primary colors, secondary colors, color mixing
• some event or series of events from history
• a scientific concept (projectile motion, simple machines)
• Playing a musical instrument
• Spelling words

Program Requirements:

You have a lot of leeway in the kind of program you create, but it must meet the following criteria:

•  Your program should be well designed and use functions and/or methods to break the problem up into logical parts. Each method and function will have a designated purpose and a comment.
• Some of the methods and functions must require parameters.
• The program shall handle at least 3 different kinds of events.
• You must use some type of repetition in your program. (Loop, While, Recursion, or repetition via events. You can certainly use more than one form of looping.)
• You must use lists in some way in your program.
• Your program must contain an introduction of some kind.
• Your program must make use of an imported image (billboard).
• In your program you must define at least one new class level method for some object, save that object as a new data type, and use versions of that object and its new class level method somewhere else in your program.

Part 1 - Write Up - 15 points

As part of the assignment you must complete a write up of you work. I strongly recommend completing this as you write the program. Don't wait until the end to do this part. I expect the write up to be between two and five pages. The write up must include the following information:

1. What the concept of concepts are your program is trying to teach or demonstrate.
2. The target audience for the program (elementary, middle school, high school) and which subject area.
3. A description of your program. What are the major methods, events, and functions. What methods and functions do those high level things depend on.
4. An explanation of how you meet the general program requirements.
5. What changes did you make as your developed the program? It is rare that the final program is the same as the initial idea. What changed along the way and why?
6. What was the most difficult thing about your program?
7. If you had more time what things would you add to the program to enhance it?

The name of the text file with your write up shall be your UTEID followed by a6WriteUp.txt. So my file would be name scottmd3a6WriteUp.txt. Turn your write up in using the turnin program. See this page on how to create a text file using Word if you are not familiar with that format.

Part 2 - Program. 50 points.

• Turn in your Alice world that meets the program requirements described above to your account using the turnin web page. If you are working with a partner only one of you needs to turn in the program. If you work with a partner be sure the partner's name is included as a comment in the program..
• The name of your world shall be your UTEID followed by a dash and a6. For example, my UTEID is scottmd3 so my world would be named scottmd3-a6.a2w.
• 35 points will be based on meeting the general program requirements listed above.
• 15 of the 50 points will be based on how creative and detailed your program is.

Part 2 - Demonstration. 15 points. In class Wednesday, April 8.

You will demonstrate your program  during class. The order will be random and I will mail it out on Friday, April 3.