PUZZLER ACTIVITY - Main pieces done

A "Puzzler" will be the final activity of each Unit that a student can do at home. They log in with their username, four-digit number that they got from their note-taking, and the unique 2-letter code that goes with their username (that they earned by completing two Unit activities.)

The Puzzler is sort of a... game.... at the end of which the student is given a score of 1, 2, 3, or 4. I call it a game but it is also like a quiz/test. The student is given a series of tasks to perform. In general: when they make mistakes they lose a little bit of score... when they complete the tasks they gain score. As they proceed through the activity their points go up. It may take 4 or 5 puzzles to earn a "1" and then another handful to earn a "2"...

This is just PRACTICE for the actual activity, called a "Quizzler," which the students will be taking DURING CLASS TIME while we are in the COMPUTER LAB. The student will do the Quizzler, which is similar to the Puzzler that they practiced on, and they will EARN POINTS on their actual grade.

This weekend I spent time creating the basic, functioning framework for the Puzzler. The Scorebar is a big part of this.

After logging in (the log in is basically the same as before, but the student MUST have ALL THREE parts of the log in to gain access to the Puzzler) there is an introduction scene that describes the Puzzler. It ends with the option of the student simulating a Quizzler, or just staying in "Easy" mode. Easy mode means that the Puzzler will give the student access to the Help screens that will continue to tutor the students during the activity. (During the later Quizzler there will be very limited Help... It will be more like a Quiz)

In the next screen the student is working on the first "puzzle." You can see that this one is very similar to the bowling ball/bowling pin from the actual Unit 3 activity. Some main differences apparent here are: (a) there is no page number in the upper left corner, (b) in place of page number is a score bar in the upper left (it is all white at the moment because the student has earned no points.) and (c) their are some control buttons (upper right) that are missing (the Fast Forward and Jump Back buttons)

In this next picture the student has just completed the first puzzle, earning them some score towards gaining 1 point on this assignment. You can see that the score bar has a little bit of yellow in the far left edge. This is the image for about five seconds while the puzzler is moving on to the next puzzle.

So far I only have ONE SINGLE puzzle to repeatedly complete, but it is good enough to test out the code used to run Puzzler. After completing the puzzle a few more times you can see that the student has enough score to earn 1 point. The score bar shows a "1" in yellow, plus a little bit in orange is shown, working towards earning a "2" on the assignment.

At first it appears that I just cut-and-pasted the code from the Bowling Ball activity. However, I have made SOME MAJOR CHANGES to that original code in order to be able to more easily replicate the "click-n-drag" puzzles for a wide range of questions/topics. The Bowling Ball activity was done one-piece at a time as I learned how to create that code.

Here is an example of the code required to just check 1 arrow placed on 1 dot:

In contrast, the new code uses arrays instead of SINGLE OBJECTS. Here is an example of one of the arrays: _legitMoves. (Just ONE LINE of this array takes the place of all of the lines of code you see above!)

The first element in this array contains the following information:

• 1,1 means that dragger#1 (which happens to be an 4N Up arrow) is allowed to be placed on dot#1 (which is the dot that is on the car).

• "4000N force of ROAD pushing up ON CAR" - is the text that is displayed in yellow when the student correctly places this object in that location.

• -100, -100  tells where to locate the text relative to the mouse pointer position

The result:

The original Bowling Ball level code was 1010 lines long... In comparison, the newer Car Crash code is only 650 lines of code! Also, I can more easily repeat this newer code my (mainly) changing the arrays. I won't have to re-program every single level. This will be VERY IMPORTANT when programming the Puzzlers/Quizzlers, which are likely to have 10, 20 or even more puzzles/scenes per activity!

Time: 10 hours