ICS 10 • David G. Kay • UC Irvine

Second Homework

As usual, you'll do parts of this assignment with a partner, preferably someone you didn't work with on last week's assignment. When you and a classmate agree to be partners, in addition to exchanging contact information (and maybe both Email and cellphone number would be good to exchange), it's a good idea to agree on when you plan to get together to start working on the assignment. It's an aspect of basic professionalism to keep in touch with your colleagues, to be clear and definite about your commitments, and to follow through. Employers all say that one quality they look for is the ability to work as part of a group; that's what we're talking about here.

Be sure to use the Partner App so your partnership is recorded.

Part (a)

Read Chapter 4 of Blown to Bits, which talks about internet searching. We won't be covering this topic in class until next week, so you have a little time.

Part (b)

With your partner, create a very brief "fan page" on the web about one of the subject individuals chosen from our list. To pick a subject, first use the Partner App to register your partnership. Then just one of the partners (presumably in consultation with the other) needs to fill out the EEE signup sheet for this assignment; do that as early as possible for the best selection of subjects. If two people (representing two different partnerships) have signed up for a subject already, pick someone else; if two people from the same partnership pick the same person, that needlessly prevents another group from signing up for that person.

You may not ever have heard of the subject you pick; that's fine. There's plenty of information available about each of them, so this is an opportunity to learn something (and someone) new.

To create your web page, you will use Google Sites; if you already have a Google account (e.g., for Gmail), you already have access to this feature. Even if you don't have a personal Google account, your UCInet ID should give you access (see http://www.google.uci.edu).

1. Gather information about your person—birthdate, birthplace, family, background—together with some description of the person's major accomplishments. Use at least three sources, the first of which should probably be Wikipedia. You don't need to make this an extensive treatment; we already have Wikipedia for that. Just a paragraph or two will do. But try to find at least one photograph or other appropriate image. (For this purpose, it will be fine to copy short passages of text directly to your page from your source(s), but it's still essential that you put quotes around what you directly copy and say on your page what sources you used—where the copied material originally came from.)
2. Set up your web site using sites.google.com (or the UCI equivalent). Using it should be straightfoward; just allow yourself enough time to experiment. Your site should include the information you gathered, including at least one image, your three sources, and at least four hyperlinks to other relevant pages.
3. Test your page out by viewing it in at least two different browsers (the lab machines have Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer). Also look at the underlying HTML using the browser's View Source option (though you don't have to do anything with the HTML at this point).

When you're satisfied with your page, create a simple document (in Word or plain text) that includes this information:

1. Both partners' names and UCInet IDs
2. The URL of the web site you created
3. A sentence or two to answer these questions: What did you find hardest or most confusing about this task? What differences in appearance, if any, did you notice when viewing your page in different browsers? What would you add to your site if you had the time and ability?

Save this document using a file name that includes the problem number and both partners' UCInet IDs (e.g., hw2b-bjones-asmith). Submit this document via Checkmate. Just one partner should submit one copy; the file name will let us give both partners credit.

Part (c)

Take a look (or another look) at the Scratch Pong Game tutorial on YouTube. With your partner, build that game in Snap on your computer and then modify it as follows. After each step, test out what you've done to make sure you're still on the right track.

1. Make the paddle move when the user hits the left-arrow and right-arrow keys (instead of when the user moves the mouse)
2. Make it a two-person game by creating a paddle at the top of the screen that a (different) user can move left with the "a" key and right with the "s" key. Also make a "dead area" at the top that corresponds with the "dead area" at the bottom.
3. Create two variables named "Top Score" and "Bottom Score," starting each one at zero. Check the boxes so that the values appear on the stage.
4. Any time the ball hits the dead area at the bottom, increase Top Score by one. When it hits the dead area at the top, increase Bottom Score by one. Then automatically start another game with the ball starting in the middle again. (Optionally, you can have the ball start moving towards the person who lost the last point, as it would in tennis or volleyball if the winner got the next serve.)
5. Display a message declaring the first player whose score reaches 10 as the winner. (You could do this with "say" or by creating new costumes ("top winner" and "bottom winner") that the paddle or dead zone can change to when that side wins.)
6. Play the game a few times with your partner. You might find that you need to add some blocks so that each new game starts out the same way (with scores of 0 and 0, with the ball in the middle, and so on). Then think about what features might make the game better. Optionally, try to implement one or two of those features.

Because this task is a little more tightly specified than the open-ended task on last week's assignment, you may run into a little difficulty. Start early so you have the easy opportunity to get your questions answered (and time to go on to the next part). And don't give in to the temptation just to split up the work with your partner; working in pairs and talking about your solution really helps you learn the concepts.

When you're done, export your project, using a file name that includes the problem number and both partners' UCInet IDs (e.g., hw2c-ann23-bill42; Snap will add the ".xml" suffix). Submit the saved project file via Checkmate. Just one partner should submit one copy, and it must be the same partner who submits both parts of this assignment; the file name will let us give both partners credit.

The TAs will hold some lab hours during the week in the third-floor ICS lab, room 364 ICS: Stay tuned for details.

Have fun!