🔭 Space Message Translator 

Learning Objective:

Use Python string manipulation techniques, including input, slicing, indexing, case changes, and removing characters.

⭐ Task: Space Message Translator

An alien species has sent a strange coded message to Earth.
Your job is to write a Python program that translates the message using string-manipulation techniques.

Step 1 – Ask the user to enter a message

Use the input() function.
If stuck:
👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/ref_func_input.asp

Step 2 – Display useful information about the message

Your program must print:

1. The first character of the message
   
   

   • (Use indexing)
     👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_strings.asp
     
     

2. The last character of the message
   
   

   • (Negative indexing)
     👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_strings_slicing.asp
     
     

3. The whole message in UPPERCASE
   👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/ref_string_upper.asp
   
   

4. The whole message in lowercase
   👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/ref_string_lower.asp
   
   

5. The number of characters in the message
   
   

   • (Use len())
     👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/ref_func_len.asp

Step 3 – Decode the alien message

Create a decoded message using the rules below:

• Take every 3rd character from the original message
  👉 slicing help: message[::3]
  https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_strings_slicing.asp
  
  

• Remove all spaces from the extracted result
  👉 .replace(" ", "")
  https://www.w3schools.com/python/ref_string_replace.asp
  
  

• Convert it to lowercase
  👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/ref_string_lower.asp
  
  

Store your result in a variable called decoded.

Step 4 – Print the final decoded message

Example:

Original message: WE COME IN PEACE

Decoded message: wcipe

Extension Challenges (Optional)

Try one or more:

🔧 Extension 1

Check whether the message contains the substring "EARTH" (in any case).
👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/ref_string_find.asp

🔧 Extension 2

Reverse the entire message using slicing ([::-1]).
👉 https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_strings_slicing.asp

🔧 Extension 3

Count how many vowels (a e i o u) appear in the message.
👉 loop help: https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_for_loops.asp