Computer Science 101

0.0

It is the "learning of Alice" and not "the Alice program" that we are bootstrapping in this unit.

Bootstrapping is explained here and here.

Get acquainted with Alice.

Play with Alice.

Why is it called Alice? Alice is not an acronym: it isn't A.L.I.C.E. and it doesn't stand for anything. The team named the system "Alice" in honor of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), an English mathmatician and logician who wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll. Carrol wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

The above explanation comes from the textbook by Wanda Dann, Stephen Cooper and Randy Pausch, Learning to Program With Alice (Pearson Education, Inc., Toronto, 2005), page 6.

A free and well illustrated copy of Carroll's Alice In Wonderland is available from Home Office Mall.

For a great read, get The Annotated Alice, The Definitive Edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 2000). This particular edition has the original illustrations by John Tenniel, and notes throughout by Martin Gardner who was the mathematical games editor for 25 years for the Scientific American Magazine.

1. Download & unzip the most recent verion of Alice. Note that a JRE (runtime version of Java) is downloaded and installed with Alice. No further "installation" of Java or Alice is needed. If system requirements are otherwise satisfactory, Alice.exe runs "right out of the box".

2. Install the Java 3D Runtime for the JRE in order to view Alice 2.0 worlds on the web.

3. Install the Java Media Framework in order to view Alice 2.0 worlds on the web.

4. Launch Alice. Do the following Online Tutorials.

5. Help --> Tutorial 1 --> Open --> OK
        Learn the basics of Alice.

6. Help --> Tutorial 2 --> Open --> OK
        Teach worlds & objects to do things.

7. Help --> Tutorial 3 --> Open --> OK
        Mouse clicks & key presses.

8. Help --> Tutorial 4 --> Open --> OK
        Create your own scenes.

1.1

Review class expectations.

Using Alice

• Start Alice
• Make a new world
• Open a saved world
• Play a world
• Stop a world
• Save a world
• Add objects to the world
• Delete objects from the world
• Using the web gallery
• Mouse controls in the scene editor
• Move subparts of objects
• Using quad view
• Moving the camera
• Arranging objects
• Using popup menus
• Using methods with object subparts
• Motion controls

Movies are in Macromedia Flash format (go here: Flash player). Movies will open in a new window. If you have pop-up window prevention software you may not see the movie because of it.

View the movie which shows what Alice can do. Note that this video includes audio that narates the action.

View the movie to see how to bring an object into Alice from the gallery and move it around in the layout view.

Read and practice the following lessons in the Appendix.

1. "Getting Started" Tutorial, Part 1
2. "Getting Started" Tutorial, Part 2

1.2

Objects in Alice

What is interactivity?

Print the source code of the programs done for exercises 1-5 below. Click here to see how.

1. Exercise 1 - Island (p 16)
2. Exercise 2 - Winter (p 17)
3. Exercise 3 - Snowpeople Pile (p 17)
4. Exercise 4 - Tea Party (p 17)
5. Exercise 5 - Soldiers on Deck (p 17)

2.1

Creating your own animation (part 1)

Storyboards

1. Create a scenario and a storyboard for an Olympic ice skater. (as discussed in 2.1 (c) exercises on page 47):
2. Prepare a hard copy of the code for this scenario.

2.2

Creating your own animation (part 2)

Initial Scene

Code generation

1. Exercise 2.2.4: Circling Fish (page 48)
2. Exercise 2.2.5: Tortoise Gets A Cookie (page 48)
3. Exercise 2.2.6: Magnet Fun (page 48)

3.1

Instructions

Control structures

Questions

Expressions

1. Exercise 3.1.1. Robot to Lunar Lander (p 68)

2. Exercise 3.1.3. Hop (p 68)

3. Exercise 3.1.4. Volleyball Jump (p 68)

4. Revise the Volleyball jump world. Use an If/Else statement to make the tallest person jump up 1/2 of their height and the shorter person jump up 1/4 of their height.

3.2

Repetition

Loop

1. Exercise 3.2.5. SpiderRobot's Walk (p 69)

2. Exercise 3.2.6. Blimp and Dragon (p 69)

4.1

Creating your own methods

1. Complete Section 4.1.1: Snowpeople Flip Hats (p 109)

2. Complete Section 4.1.4: Helicopter Flight (p 111)

4.2

Creating your own methods

1. Exercise 4.2.5: Beetle Band Duet (p 111)
2. Exercise 4.2.6: Frog Escape (p 111)
3. Exercise 4.2.8: Dragons (p 112)

4.3

Class-level methods

Creating your own, more powerful classes

Inheritance

The following project is part of the next lab.

1. Alice Project 1: Electronic Greeting Card

2. Know how to copy an object from one world to another.

Tips
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4

Class-level methods continued

Using object parameters with class-level methods

1. Exercise 4.3.9: Enhanced Clever Skater (p 113)
2. Exercise 4.3.11: Funky Chicken Dance (p 114)

5.1

Events and event handlers

1. Exercise 5.1.2. Flight Simulator - Alternate Version (p 135)
2. Exercise 5.1.3. Robot Remote Control (p 136)
3. Exercise 5.1.8. The Cheshire Cat (p 138)

5.2

More on interactivity

Passing parameters to event-handlers

1. Exercise 5.2.10. Furniture Arrangement (p 138)
2. Exercise 5.1.12. Snow Festival (p 139)
3. Exercise 5.1.14. Penguin Slide (p 140)
4. Alice Project Assignment 2

6.1

Built-in questions

Creating your own questions

1. Exercise 6.1.2. Rotating Tires On A Car or Truck (p 171)
2. Exercise 6.1.3. Bee Scout (p 171)
3. Exercise 6.1.4. Pyramid Climb (p 172)

6.2

Decisions

Boolean expressions

If statements

1. Alice Project Assignment 2
2. Exercise 6.2.6. Modifications to the Zeus World (p 173)
3. Exercise 6.2.11. Spanish Vocabulary (p 175)
4. Exercise 6.2.12. Switch (p 175)

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6

Student presentations for Assignment 2

1. Project 6.2. Binary Code Game (p 178)

7.1

Introduction to repetition

The counted loop

Nested loops

1. Exercise 7.1.2. Square Bunny Hop
2. Exercise 7.1.3. Saloon Sign

7.2

Random Motion

1. Exercise 7.2.5. Frog and Ladybug
2. Exercise 7.2.10. Wind-up Penguin

8.1

Introducing Recursion

Comparisons with While

1. Exercise 8.1.1 Modified Horse Race
2. Exercise 8.1.2 Butterfly Chase:

8.2

Structural recursion

The Towers of Hanoi

1. Exercise 8.2.5. Towers of Hanoi
2. Project 8.2. Skeleton Reversal

9.1

Introduction to lists

Iterating through lists in order

Iterating through lists simultaneously

1. Exercise 9.1.1. The Wave
2. Exercise 9.1.3. Spring Flowers:

9.2

Whack-a-mole example

1. Exercise 9.2.3. Frog Crossing Pond
2. Exercise 9.2.4. Earthquake

3. Chapter 9 Section 2 Project 1: Halloween Treasure Hunt

   Note that you should make each tombstone (in the list) invisible when it is visited. When all tombstones are invisible, ghostlee wins!

10.1

Introduction to variables

Revisiting Inheritance

Student presentations for Assignment 3

1. Exercise 10-1.3. Binary Switches
2. Exercise 10-1.4. Steerable Car With Rotating Tires
3. Exercise 10-1.5. Steerable car With Shifting Gears

10.2

Introducfing arrays

Creation and access

1. Exercise 10.2.6. All Possible Permutations
2. Project 10.3. Car Race

Tips
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10

Allowing variables to be watched

Work on last class's assignment

Alice In Wonderland: An Interactive Adventure