Alice Intermediate Tutorial

Below are intermediate programming concepts using Alice 3.

Create and Interactive Alien Game

Follow the instructions and videos 1-8 below to create a game to rescue Aliens.

Video 1: Set up Camera

Watch video below to learn about:

Properties are facts and details about the objects such as position. After completing the video save a camera marker.

Video 2: Add UFO

Watch video below to learn about:

• • Objects are things such as a person, camera, UFO. Objects are 3-dimensional and can be moved in 6 directions: up or down, right or left and forward or backward.

  • Procedures or methods do actions. Objects have built in procedures to do actions like move or turn.

Video 3: Moving the UFO with the Arrow Keys

Watch video below to learn about

• • Creating a class property (variable) to hold the speed value as a decimal number to set how far the UFO moves when pressing up or down arrow keys.

  • Adding event listener to set the up the arrow keys to move the UFO

  • Use an if/else conditional statement to check for the condition when the up or down arrow key is pressed to move the UFO forward or backward

Note: You will set the up and down arrow key movements different from the video. You will also add comments to explain what code you added. See the comments in the image below.

Video 4: Turning the UFO with Arrow Keys

Watch video below to learn about

• • Creating a class property (variable) as a decimal number called turnSpeed to set how far the UFO turns when pressing left or right arrow keys. There are different types of variables such as decimal numbers. Why is the value for the turnSpeed set to .014?

Note: Add comments to your code like the one added in step 3 so you understand your code and can show someone else.

Video 5: Adding the UFO Light Beam

Watch video below to learn about

• • Using the properties to change the size, color and opacity of the cone. Changing Opacity allows you to see through the color. For example you can see through the yellow to read the text.

  • Set the vehicle property so the cone light beam will move when the UFO moves.

Video 6: Adding People and Aliens to the Scene

Watch video below to learn about

• • Add people and Aliens to the scene

  • Customize your own human.

Video 7: Program the Beam to Pick up Aliens

Watch video below to learn about

• • Create a new procedure with parameters for the UFO and Cone to pick-up the Aliens.

    • To get cone and UFO type of parameter go to gallery class

• • Add a collision function to see if the Alien is colliding with the cone.

  • Add another event listener use the space bar to pick up aliens.

  • Use an if/else conditional statement to check for the condition when the space bar is pressed. When the space bar is pressed call pickUp procedure to check if the beam is colliding with an Alien.

Note: Don't forget to add Comments to explain your code

Why doesn't the UFO pick up people or other objects that are not Aliens? Will the beam pick two aliens up at the same time if they are next to each other?

Video 8: Check if all Aliens Rescued

Watch video below to learn about

• • Create a new boolean variable (true/false) called rescued to store whether all the aliens are rescued or not.

  • Use an compound conditional statement to see if both alien0 and both alien1 and alien 2 are colliding with the UFO. This means all three aliens are in the UFO.

Note: Don't forget to add Comments to explain your code

What next? Try improving your Alien game by adding any of the following:

• Create a new procedure and add instructions for playing the game

  • See intermediate tutorial below to ask for the player's name or to add timer or score.

• Add sound effects to the game - See Download mp3 sounds from Free Sound. Login with user: technocats pwd: technocats. Sound should be 20 seconds or less.

  • Make the characters move around the scene randomly with a new procedure so it's harder to catch them

Create a Question to Ask for Player's Name

Learn how to use a procedure, variable and function to ask the user for their name so the name can be used in the game.

Created by 6th grade student, Link R. (2017-18).

Use Event Listeners to Create Collisions

Created by 6th grade student, Austin (2016-17)

Create Timer

Created by 7th grade student.

Keep Score

Created by 7th grade student Anessa (2016-17)

Code Library

In computer science, a library is a collection of resources used by computer programmers to develop software. These may include configuration data, documentation, help data, and pre-written code. The app inventor Duke University Alice 3 Version Tutorials for computer programmers allows you to use the resources with Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

To contribute code complete the code library template then share the document and the Alice code with Deb to be uploaded.

Ask a math question

Example of asking a math questions to add decimals and to multiply integers