scratch - Calculator simulator (addition)

Our task in Control Tech was to work in pairs and do the same task both on scratch and Etoys. My partner was Mr.Unknown and we had the task of creating a calculator type program that simulates two numbers for addition and we would need to input an answer for that and then it would tell us if our answer was right or wrong.My job was to do this on scratch.

I did this task by creating 4 variables, they were for the 1st number, 2nd number, actual answer and our own answer. I started by making the 1st and 2nd number variables generate random numbers each time i clicked the "new sum" sprite that i created.

I then created an answer sprite and when clicked it would either switch to a costume that said incorrect or correct depend if you were right or wrong. This was made possible by the "If" command; If input number= 1st number + 2nd number "switch to costume 2" which would mean correct and if the incorrect it was exactly the same except i used the "Not" command ( If "Not" input number= 1st number + 2nd number "switch to costume 3". If the answer was wrong the answer variable would show the right answer.

I also made the "New Sum" sprite reset everything by using broadcast. So when clicked it would broadcast "reset" and then i used the command "When i receive :reset" then set number variables to random, answer and input answer variable to 0 and "answer" sprite back to costume 1 which read answer.

I did not find this task difficult at all because scratch is an easy to use program with its simple layout and lego-like scripts.

My "answer" sprite script

Before answer check:

Correct:Incorrect:
Click this link for the Etoys version of this; By Mr.Uknown : http://mrunknown1337.blogspot.com/

Sugar - Colours activity

Our class has been trying some new games.

Activity – Colours
Personal rating – 3.95/5

Colours, is an activity similar to paint except the drawings you made are able to be played back to you so that you can see how you've drawn something.

The positives of this activity are that it allows a user to see their progression after they've drawn a picture. It is a fun program for people who enjoy drawing as this activity has a play back feature that no other common drawing programs, such as Photoshop and Paint would have.

The negatives of this activity are that there are not as much drawing tools as the other drawing programs and the brush options to change colour and change its opacity were hard to find.

In my opinion I thought it was an interesting game, simply because of its play-back feature and I have also had experience with drawing with a mouse at home.

This is a good activity for practicing your art skills because it allows you to see your errors. It is also good to help you explore when using a new activity because most the features are pretty hidden.

I would recommend this programs to all ages and for all art lovers.

My drawing i did:

The screen you work on :

Half way finished while at playback mode:

Final product :

Sugar - Etoys Activity

For the past 2 weeks our control tech class had been working with the activity from sugar, Etoys. Etoys is an activity that allows us to animate pictures that we draw by using scripts. In each script we put in commands, similar to the turtle activity; commands such as forward and turn by a specified number. We could also change the speed in which an object moved either by a set number or random.

Our task was to draw cars and make it move and do this according to each task. All the tasks involved cars or race cars.

One of the tasks was to simulate a car race using many commands from the command window. We had to use variables for the cars speed and make it random and we also had to make a time variable to create a time that started and stopped whenever the race started and ended.

The cars were able to stop using the "Test" command which allowed a car to do certain things whenever a colour on the car touched another colour (both colours are chosen by us). In this racing case the test command made all scripts (time scripts, cars scripts) stop whenever one car won the race.

All cars had to move on their own. This was made possible by using another test. That test would work by if the colour on the car touches the colour of the sides of the lane it would bounce and turn left or right depending on what side it bumps into (If it hit the right side it would bounce left to put it back in place).

We also had to make a timer to time how long the race went for and it would stop when the race ended. It was pretty simple, we just had to make a time variable and make a script telling it to increase its value by 1 each second.

All this is started by a start button which we could create. It was simple to create a start button because the script for the start button only consisted of "start" commands, starting all scripts (time scripts, car scripts).

We also had to make a reset button, similar to start except it would put all cars and time to its original position and value. I used a script type called "World" because that way it was able to start the same scripts if they were under the same script names and I found that this way was easier. To reset the positions of each car we had to go to each of their command boxes ( a window with commands) and take their coordinates X, Y and heading so that when the reset button is pressed the car would return to those coordinates and facing/heading the same direction. The time would have to reset to 0 as well, which was done by putting values of 0 from the timer variable into the script.

This is my script of the great race, racing 4 cars with all random speeds.

My thoughts on Etoys are that it was pretty simple and easy to follow. The only problem was that we could not view the script while the race started because it would have gotten in the way with the test commands and it would just put the cars off course.

The race without the script in the way.

Sugar - Turtle art activity

Our class spent about three weeks looking at the activity, Turtle art on the sugar operating system.

Turtle art is an activity that allows a user to create pictures/shapes using various commands and values using a little turtle icon as the pen (e.g. forward 100 would move the turtle 100 steps forward from where it was). To get a command to work you had to double click on the command. Every command has bumps on them so that many other commands could join up with each other like Lego pieces. Once commands were joint together when we double clicked it all the commands would act at once.

This is the panel containing all the functions and commands:

There are also two modes, turtle mode (slow) and rabbit mode (fast). The rabbit mode made it so that with a click the shape co ordinates are drawn in immediately. The turtle mode made it so that we could view the movements of the turtle and that gave us a better understanding of what was going on.

Our 1st task was to create shapes that were shown on a page we were given and we would receive marks depending on the difficulty of shapes that we did. All shapes had to be drawn using one click instead of us clicking one command at a time and drawing it. To make it so we wouldn't have a long line of different direction commands, a function called repeat made this easier. This function had a value box next to it and whatever number was inside it, the repeat command would repeat whatever was under it, the number of times specified by us. Using one click prevented the lost of step because there was no way to undo something, we had to simply clear the whole shape and do it again. There were also other commands that did their own unique thing.

After we had gotten used to drawing more difficult shapes we were ask to add variables to draw shapes. A function called 'store in box' made a number variable of our choice. Next to every direction command there was always a value telling the turtle how far to travel, if that value were to be replaced with a 'box ' command then the value changes to whatever was in the 'store in box' command. This was helpful for changing a shape's size because we could just change the number in the 'store in box' and it would change the size of the shape depending on the number placed in the command without have to go to each value and changing their numbers.

The shape i drew on Turtle art using variables:

The command script i used to create the shape:


All the shapes we did had to be extremely perfect and precise to what the pictures on the sheet looked like, therefore when adding variables we must made sure we used divide and multiply commands in order to keep a shapes dimensions. Some shapes may only have looked the same but they weren't exactly perfect. There were two ways to work out what values were needed in order to create a shape which could change in size and still keep it's correct dimensions. First was to use trial and error and we had to simply guess each value until we got it correct. The other way was to use mathmetics and actually calculate the values. I mostly used trial and error because i was too lazy to do the maths but in the end i found that using maths i got a much more accurate shape.

Tutle art:

My thoughts on Turtle art is that at first it was hard to understand but I gradually began to understand how things worked ad i became easier for me. It was enjoyable working with this activity although the sugar occasionally froze when we tried to save a finished shape.

Creating own sugar icon

Learning about SVG (scalable vector graphic), we were told to create our own sugar icon using the same concept as an SVG. An SVG is a picture format which is small in size and uses maths to create its unique property. It's unique property is that when re sized, an SVG does not lose it's picture quality and pixelates.

Using Html kit we learnt about basic x and y co-ordinates of simple shapes, lines and curves and a 55 by 55 grid. We had done a few practices using coordinates to draw in shapes and lines. using what we had learnt it was then time to create our own icon to that we could later use that picture and put it onto the sugar operating system as our icon.

This is my icon i made using a few straight line co-ordinates and many curve/arc co-ordinates ;viewed on opera an internet browser:

After finishing our icon, all we had to do was using terminal activity on sugar to insert the picture as the icon. We could then make it change colour to what ever we wanted and demonstrating that we have done this to our teacher. Below is a screenshot of what my changed icon looks like, a bat looking creature.

physics- make a game

As a group or single our task was to create a game using the activity 'Physics' on sugar. Me, Airsokand DarkDragon had created this game.

The aim of the game is to try and get three balls of any size (your choice) and using the rubber band like tool to throw the ball over the wall and get the ball to land on either of the three platforms which have points on them (5,10 and 20 points). The ball must be on one of the three long platforms in order for the point to count. Once all three balls have been thrown it is the next player's turn to throw.

After all players have had a shot throwing the points of each player is added up and the person witht he highest total in the end is the winner.

My views of this game is that it can be quite challenging trying to get the 20 points.

Joel Stanley's Talk

Today Joel Stanley came to answer some of our questions.

Joel Stanley is a student at the University of Adelaide studying computer system engineering or electrical engineering. Electrical engineering is all the hardware of a computer/laptop not software. Joel had decided he wanted to study this in year 10 when he was at a camp. He learnt to touch type through msn and prefers Linux over Windows because Windows annoys him.

He was working on a 10 week project involving the XO’s, the laptops I mentioned in my other blogs. He was testing their resistance against certain things such as heat and if they were dropped. He cooked them at 65 degrees using a kettle and testing if they still worked because some of the developing countries have temperatures that high, so they would have to make sure it could endure heat. It was also tested and proven that it is drop proof and Joel even demonstrated that to us. His main focus was on testing the power usage of the XO’s. Testing out how much each part uses and developing ways to lower the usage if required. The display used the most power on the XO followed by the CPU.

He went to places to further develop this project. He went to Massachusetts institution of Technology and Romania to talk to children about the XO, about why they exist and the benefits of the XO. Many of the kids were unaware of these things. He was also at America for 3 months. There was a project in America called the give one get one where you buy two XO’s and one was for you keep while the other once had to be donated to a child in a developing country. Joel was also part of the Google Summer of Code which paid university students to work on an open source project. He found that he did not see this as work but more of helping children change their lives and it was enjoyable to him, and if he could he would go and do it again.

Joel also met many talented people. He met Mary Lou who invented the screen for the XO and Richard Smith who made the low level software of the XO. Mary Lou was actually once working on project to project adverts onto objects and she was aiming to project it on the moon so that people could see. There was also two 10 year old children who were able to take apart the Xo and fix it which shows how simple the design of a XO is. The XO has only 8 screws all the same size (So only need one screw driver) and is basically a three part laptop (The Motherboard, Display and Casing).

The XO laptops wireless receivers in their clips on the sides of the screens and i thought that doing this was very clever. Unfortunately there have been no plans to sell these Xo laptops in stores for everyone’s use, it is designed only to be used by the developing countries.

The Children who were disassembling the laptops can be seen on this youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pus_fA1Tv9w