5.6 Flappy Cat Day1

This is a visual illusion. The Cat stays in place and the backgrounds move!

OBJECTIVES:

OBJECTIVES: By the end of this lesson, students will:

- recognize that all animations are visual illusions
- design pseudeocode for Flappy Cat
- recognize that a sprite's position on stage is located using it's XY coordinates.

Demo

TEACHER RESOURCES:

STUDENT PAGE

WrapAround Slides

Student handout

teacher handout

RUBRIC

Standards

- CSTA 2-AP-10: Use flowcharts and/or pseudocode to address complex problems as algorithms.
- CSTA 2-AP-12: Design and iteratively develop programs that combine control structures, including nested loops and compound conditionals.

CSTA

DO NOW:

Do Now (5 minutes)

Students watch the video Why I Code (1:51) then answer the following discussion questions:

- How did Luna get into Computer science?
- What does Luna say that Computer science is?

Teacher Guidance

Luna got into CS because she is adventurous and curious about how things work.
Luna says that Computer science is problem solving, thinking logically, thinking outside the box and starting things from scratch.

Mini-Lesson (5-10 minutes)

Today students will plan, then code to:

move "building sprite" across the screen repeatedly from right to left. Note: Change the building sprite's costume on each iteration.
move clouds across the screen repeatedly from right to left. Offset cloud speed, making it slower than building speed.

Two points to note with your students:

1. This game is a Visual Illusion: The hero seems to move, but rather the background and clouds are moving from right to left and the hero stays in the same location!

2. Co-ordinate Grid. Place building on the right hand side of screen where X coordinate is 240. Move it to the left side of screen where X coordinate is -240. Repeat.

Project (20-30 minutes)

Students design how to code the building and cloud using page 1 of the student handout

Then open chromebooks, go to student site and get started.

TEACHER GUIDANCE:

Spend time on the coordinate grid. This has been covered before, but is conceptually difficult.
Some students may find these videos helpful, accessible through the student page. videos

Close-Out (5 minutes)

Discuss the following questions:

1. To position a sprite at the left hand of the stage, what would be the X axis Coordinate?
2. To position at sprite at the right hand of the stage, what would be X axis Coordinate?
3. Do you think that visual Illusions are used in movies and games?

Potential Responses

-240
240
Yes,
1. - Hollywood special effects teams use the term "Smoke and Mirrors". If it takes less time and money to use a visual illusion, then use it!
  - In this game, it is easier to code the hero in one place than moving forward, so we create the illusion of movement, by moving the background backwards.

TEACHER GUIDANCE:

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