Animal farm
Welcome to the second lab.
There will be lots of labs this term. Make sure you keep your work well-organized. Your exercises from Lab 1 should be in a directory (folder) named Lab1. Make a sister directory (folder) to Lab1 called Lab2. That's where you'll keep your work for this lab.
Credits
A play by George Unwell. Directed and produced by YOU!
Cast (in order of appearance):
The background grass
A big building localGallery Farm Barn A tree localGallery Nature PineTree other scenery of your choosing A cow localGallery Animals A horse localGallery Animals A chicken localGallery Animals A cowboy localGallery Old West other characters of your choosing
Scene 1
A bucolic pastoral scene: a barn and a tree stand placidly on a vast field of grass with a perfect blue sky filling the top half of the screen! A cow and a horse enter the scene from stage left and stage right respectively while a chicken comes out from behind the tree. They all gather and face the barn doors. In turn the three express:
- I am hungry
- There's food in the barn
- Let's break in
Scene 2
The same scene.
Scene 2, Shot 1
Simultaneously
- the barn doors (both of them) open
- a cowboy appears in the doorway
Scene 2, Shot 1
Simultaneously the camera moves in to get a good look at the cowboy's head as he turns his head to look straight at the camera (what a ham this actor is!). Then the cowboy says "What do you varmints want?".
Scene 2, Shot 3
The camera returns to its original position and point of view. The three animals together say ...
Over to you
Exercise 1
So far I have told a user story. Use the methods you have studied to convert my user story into an Alice program. Remember to update your lab notebook (begun last week) with your lab notes. Save your world as exercise1.a2w
If you're like me you will be dissatisfied that the animals seem to glide into view in Scene1. It will be very hard to do a good job for this next exercise, so don't be afraid to hand in a comical near-failure as your attempt at Exercise 2. Of course, you should do the best you can but don't spend more than about 100 minutes working on Exercise 2.
Exercise 2
Begin by saving the world from Exercise 1 as exercise2.a2w. Choose either the horse or the cow and add an object method walk. Like the pterodactyl's wings flapping from lectures you will need to create the new method and figure out how to move the various pieces of the animal to make it look like it's walking. You will need a lot of trial and error so be sure to work with a small enough scenario that you can test early and test often! You can do this by temporarily removing some of the statements from your "my first method" so you can concentrate on getting the walking without being distracted by the rest of the story. When you've done the best you can, restore all the functionality of Exercise 1, so that you will be able to save and turn in a world exercise2.a2w with your animal walking onto the set in Scene1 instead of gliding. Don't forget to keep notes of your thoughts and observations in your lab notebook.
Exercise 3
Finally this week I want you to use your imagination and finish off this story any way you see fit.
Begin by saving your world exercise2.a2w as exercise3.a2w. Now think of a way for the story to continue and implement your continuation by extending the Alice program. You're free to do whatever you like subject to the requirement that I want to see at least one more scene with at least two shots from different camera positions.
Extra credit (20pts) - Can you tell your joke in Alice?
Are you good at telling jokes? Here is an opportunity for you to show off and make us all laugh. If you are not good in telling jokes do not despair, for this extra credit opportunity you can search the internet to find a good joke which YOU like.
Your joke will be your user-story. Put your director's hat and create a program in Alice to tell your joke. Be creative in your work and try to make us all laugh, but please do stay away from inappropriate jokes.
Possible Points: 20 (which can be used to offset any missed points on your homeworks for the semester).
How to submit your homework
Create a folder on your computer and name it 'CS053-Spring10' (if you do not have it already). Create another folder and name it 'Lab2'. In the newly created 'Lab2' folder copy your solutions to the exercises: Exercise1.a2w, Exercise2.a2w, and Exercise3.a2w. In the future, I suggest that you create the folders for the labs and then directly save your sulutions to that folder.
Next, go back up to your folder 'CS053-Spring10', right click on your folder 'Lab2' and compress it either in a or file.
Your newly compressed file should be named:
- FirstName_LastName_Lab_2.zip or
- FirstName_LastName_Lab_2.rar
After you have compressed your homework, then proceed to submit it via Blackboard.
Got problems? If you have any problems make sure you clear them with your lab instructor because if you do not follow these requirements for submission your lab homework submissions will not be accepted and you will get zero points.
