Etoy issues

Alan Kay Alan.Kay
Fri Apr 18 14:54:42 PDT 2003


How old are these children? 10 year olds on up have no trouble with 
"x" and "y" (and that is a good convention for them to learn in math).

Pull out the

      car's x <- 5

tiles. Click on the caret in the "<-" to turn it to "increase by" so you get:

     car's x increase by 5

This is the same as
       car's heading <- 90
       car forward by 5

"Increase by" is a very powerful idea in mathematics and this is an 
excellent way for 10 year olds and up to start to learn it.

Don't give up on the running the maze problem. Do a few simpler 
things first. Get the kids to try to go around the inside of the room 
with a blindfold on by feel. You can usually help them discover that 
a good way to do this is (in English) something like:

     student move around room              ticking

      Forward by a little
      Test wall touch
        Yes turn a little away from wall
         No  turn a little towards the wall


This is a nice feedback program. Draw a road (say <brown>)with the 
paint system. Draw a dot of some color (say <blue>) on the front of 
the car. Try:

            car followroad

           forward by 5
           Test car's color <blue> sees <brown>           You can pick 
these colors from your paintings
              Yes car turn -5
               No car turn 5

This will make the car move about the outside of the road. I think 
there are some examples of projects kids did branching out with this 
idea on the squeakland.org site.

A good next project is to figure out ways to make a car go down the 
middle of a road. Children have come up with many solutions to this 
that include different colored stripes, more than one sensor 
(sometimes they use the two headlights, etc.)

Once this is done, then one only has to realize that a maze is a kind 
of road ...

Then there are some very nice ways of thinking about how to get out 
of an arbitrary maze. A good start to this is first just make a 
script (or two) that will move the car through a maze and around 
corners. Then think about trying to explore the maze with the car.

Here's another way to think about "bounce". Ask yourself about what 
is the change of angle that happens when your player senses an 
obstacle. Do it for horizontal and vertical lines first....

Cheers,

Alan

-----

At 4:56 AM -0800 1/22/03, Jahanzeb Sherwani wrote:
>Hi Phil,
>
>I had the SAME experience today. I was interested in making a maze-like
>game, and was stuck at how to make it bounce of a wall. There are a couple
>of ideas that came to mind:
>
>- if it touches the wall (overlap, touchesA, color sees), make the car move
>back.
>
>The problem here is if you had turned around, and gone backwards to crash
>into the wall, you would continue to go into the wall -- not what we want!
>
>- if touch, make car go in the opposite direction to the joystick.
>
>Again this isn't satisfactory at all.
>
>- if touch, make car stop.
>
>This means the car will be stuck indefinitely.
>
>Also, the lack of left/right movement tiles make the movement very
>un-PacMan like which is unintuitive. If one uses the language construct:
>
>car's x <- car's x + 1
>
>.. it's too intimidating for schoolkids who've had no programming
>experience to understand.
>
>
>If anyone has any better ideas on how to make a maze, I'd also really like
>to know. Further, any word on how to use the keyboard to do anything? Also,
>if the kids want to see how the tetris game was made, for instance, what's
>the best way they would do this?
>
>With the Squeak team busy, I guess we'll have to wait for some time for a
>response. Is there anyone on the squeak team who's not going to Japan? :)
>
>Jahanzeb
>
>At 07:43 AM 1/22/2003 -0500, Phil Firsenbaum wrote:
>>Thanks for the offer, BJ.
>>I'm currently working with an elementary school,so I'm sure the
>>students I have contact with are similar in age to your students. Right
>>now I'm teaching a MicroWorlds class in which students are creating
>>their own games (mazes and the like) So, I tried making a maze in
>>Squeak. One problem I've encountered involves getting an object (my
>  >car) to stay within a confined area...I want it to bounce off the wall
>>of the rectangle I drew, the way it bounces off the perimeter of the
>>screen. With the lack of documentation, I'm at a loss.
>>
>>Phil
>>
>>On Saturday, January 11, 2003, at 10:22 AM, Kidd, Gary wrote:
>>
>>>  I am BJ Conn a teacher at the Open Charter School.  I have been using
>>>  Squeak
>>>
>>>  with my kids for a couple of years.  What exactly are you looking to
>>>  do?  I
>>>  am currently wrting a guide for using Squeak to enhance math and
>>>  science
>>>  skills and am nearly finished but it is not ready yet.  can I help you
>>>  with
>>>  any ideas?  What grade level (age group) are you working with.  I work
>>>  with
>>>  9,10, and 11 year olds.
>>>
>>>  BJ
>>
>>
>>


-- 



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