Tegan S. - Save the Turtles

Final Project Wrap-Up

For my final project, I decided to create a fun game that focuses on saving the sea turtles by collecting trash that is floating around the ocean. I was heavily influenced by the ongoing movements to ban plastic bags and plastic straws, as the materials used to create them are very harmful to the environment. These items sadly often wind up in the ocean, and sea creatures get very confused, mistaking them for food. Ever since I can remember, I have always loved all types of animals, especially marine life. I believe that it is really important to protect our planet and I think using reusable utensils and materials is an easy and simple way to help stop harming the environment. 

Throughout my many years of education and taking STEM classes, I have learned that every organism plays a crucial role in the environment. When I first started learning about this topic, I discovered that sea turtles act as all “prey, consumer, competitor, and host” (Olive Ridley Project). One interesting role that I learned is that they have a mutual relationship with sea grass, as they “ prevent the grass from growing too long and suffocating on itself” (Olive Ridley Project) just from eating it. I’ve also always been a firm believer in the Butterfly Effect, so if the turtles don’t keep the grass healthy, then the grass cannot keep other organisms healthy. After hearing about the movement to save the turtles a few years ago, I looked into how straws could ever be affecting these animals. It was upsetting to learn that these creatures would “ingest plastic by mistaking it for their natural food” (SWOT). I used plastic bags because turtles would easily mistake them for jellyfish, and I used plastic straws because the turtles would mistake them for crustaceans. Consuming these materials causes many issues to the turtles’ health, such as “physical damage to their intestines, lead to blockages, or trick the turtles into feeling full when they are not” (SWOT), which can cause sickness or death. 

For my initial plan, I sketched out a game that was still centered around the idea of climate change, however I was going to have multiple different screens/levels of the game that focused on certain topics. For example, one of the screens was going to be picking up trash, and another was helping polar bears rebuild their homes. Although this idea would have been cool, I felt that it overcomplicated my project a lot and made it really difficult to do one thing really well, since I had to be focused on many different things. Also, given the amount of time we had to create our project, I found it best just to create one game, but do it really well. So instead, my game featured just one of my levels in my initial plan, and I am really glad that I made the choice just to focus on one area.

In my game, I use concepts such as for loops, classes, mousePressed, embedding sounds and images and a lot of other core concepts from our class. The first two screens are informational, telling the player how to play the game. Afterwards, the player is guided to a screen where they can click on either the swimming turtles or the trash floating around the sea. If the player pressed on the trash, the trash goes away and a happier sound is played. The player’s scores also go up. Also, the player has three lives. If the player clicks on, or “hurts”, one of the turtles instead of the trash, the player loses a life and the turtle also makes an “ouch” sound. If the player uses all three lives, then the game is over and the player must play again. If the player picks up 15 pieces of trash, then the player wins and more information is provided. 

Although my game does not stop the use of plastic materials like these all together, it teaches the player to be mindful of the materials that they use, and most importantly how these items can end up in places where they don’t belong. I hope that my project also encourages people to clean up pollution when they spot it.

When creating my project, I definitely ran into some challenges. One challenging concept to me during this course was classes. During my project, I realized that I needed to use classes in order to create new items and to make the trash and turtles move. Also, combining the classes with loops was pretty difficult, but with the help from you and other classmates I was able to get through it. Another issue that I ran into was figuring the scoring and the lives. What I found to be really helpful, not only for this project but for others as well, was going back to other labs and referencing similar features. By going back to our paddle game from earlier in the semester, I was able to figure out the scoring feature. 

First starting CSCI 187, I was very intimidated by computer science. I had zero experience in it, but I had a lot of friends who took AP Computer Science in high school and definitely did not say it was easy. I’ve also never been a techy or computer person, so that part also scared me. Although there definitely were some very difficult topics, I can definitely say that my computer science skills have improved a lot since starting this course. What really helped me learn a lot this semester was having the freedom to create things that we enjoy, such as the two remixes and the final project. I believed that the labs and class assignments helped us learn a lot of more technical things, and then the remixes were where we could apply those things in a fun way. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and I am grateful for the many things it has taught me!

References

• Olive Ridley Project. “Why are sea turtles important to the environment?”. <https://oliveridleyproject.org/ufaqs/why-are-sea-turtles-important-to-the-environment/> 

• The State of the World’s Sea Turtles. “Sea Turtles and Plastic Pollution”. <https://www.seaturtlestatus.org/sea-turtles-plastic-pollution#:~:text=Ingestion%3A%20Sea%20turtles%20can%20ingest,on%20the%20sea floor%20among%20 crustaceans).>