[Newbies] E-Toys and Morphic for simple point plotting exercise?
Daniel Green
dang at splunge.com
Tue Nov 14 14:54:10 UTC 2006
I'd like to challenge some students (9 years old to 14 years old) to
use Squeak to draw a Sierpenski Gasket (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Serpinski_gasket) as an experiment with random numbers. To draw
something like you see at (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
Sierpinski_triangle), one method is to pick a starting point,
randomly select one of the three fixed corners, plot a line half way
there and repeat from each new position. I can seem to accomplish
this awkwardly using E-Toys as follows:
- draw a sketch morph using paint tool or however you wish to obtain
something that is visibly positioned at different points below
- add 2 number variables for each point to be used, i.e, point1X,
point1Y, Point2X, Point2Y, Point3X, Point3Y
- add a script with random number tile generating 1, 2 or 3 that loops:
- determine which of 3 fixed points is to be used this time
- turn pen off
- move half way to new fixed plot point
- turn pen on
- move one pixel to draw dot
- turn pen off
- move back one pixel and repeat above from current point
This works but it feels very clunky using E-Toys. Screen shots here
if there's interest:
http://dang.ath.cx/media/Squeak/plotting01/drawing01.jpg
http://dang.ath.cx/media/Squeak/plotting01/drawRandomly01.jpg
Things I'd like to improve:
- a shorter E-Toys version
- a morphic version other than just 'view source' of E-Toys tiles
version
- be able to subroutine or parameter-ize an E-Toys script with a
point or two numbers instead just one parameter and/or repeating code
- find a suitable PlotMorph or other class which can be used for the
E-Toys version rather than just scribble with penDown=true or create
millions of 1 pixel LineMorphs
- most of the documentation for morphs with a "point: color" method
indicate it is obsolete -- what is one to use plot a point if
different than a one pixel line?
Any input, thoughts or suggestions for improvement appreciated!
Thanks.
Best regards,
-- DanG
Daniel Green, Sun Microsystems
dang at sun.com, 877-481-0917
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