COSC 123 - Computer Creativity
Alice Project

Overview

The goal of the project is to give you an opportunity to spend time being creative with Alice programming. Time spent on the project is the best way to understand programming concepts and prepare for the exam. The project is worth a total of 50 marks and counts towards the lab component of the course. Most of the marks are rewarded based on programming effort/difficulty, so make sure to focus your time in that area and avoid spending too much time to get your world to look "just right" (which is very hard to do in Alice and does take a lot of time). It is expected that you should spend at least 10 hours each (20 hours total for both group members). This time can either be spent together or individually.

Goals and Timeline

These goals are given as recommendation to help schedule your time. You may work on the project during the labs after the regular lab is completed, but it is expected that most of the time spent will be outside of regular lab and lecture time.

• Friday, January 18th - World Planning - decide on basic story and associated objects, plan meeting/working times with your partner
• Friday, January 25th - Basic World Creation - most objects should be in the world ; some methods created ; decisions/loops should be added
• Friday, February 1st - Add Events/Arrays - introduce events to the world and model groups of similar objects using arrays
• Friday, February 8th - Polishing - finish the world ; add required features missing ; make sure code has good style and documentation
• Friday, February 15th at 5 p.m. - Project due

Submission Instructions and Marking (50 marks total)

For the group project, only one person in the group should submit the assignment.

The marks are divided into four categories: basic requirements (10 marks), presentation (10 marks), code organization/style (10 marks), and difficulty/effort (20 marks). There is also an opportunity of up to 10 bonus marks for the best projects. The focus of your time should be making good code that demonstrates your understanding of the concepts. Make sure to organize your code intelligently and use methods, iteration, and decisions where appropriate. You get marks for presentation, but the majority of the marks is related to the coding effort so do not spend too much time worrying about getting the appearance exactly right (which will take more time than it is worth).

Basic Requirements (10 marks)

At minimum your world must have:

1. +1 - three objects
2. +1 - one object where you add your own object property and use it
3. +1 - three methods you create (at least one must accept a useful parameter)
4. +1 - use Do Together at least once
5. +1 - use Do InOrder at least once
6. +1 - one random number generation
7. +1 - one decision (if/else)
8. +1 - one While or Loop statement
9. +1 - have at least two events (world, keyboard, mouse, or condition events)
10. +1 - use a list or an array

Presentation (10 marks)

Presentation rating scale is:

• 2 - substandard - incomplete world ; animation is missing key objects/behaviors
• 4 - poor - basic world with objects ; interaction is poor
• 6 - average - world has objects that interact in reasonable ways
• 8 - very good - world tells story in a compelling way with few noticeable rough edges
• 10 - excellent - world is highly polished and all movements look natural

Code Organization/Style (10 marks)

Code organization/style rating scale is:

• 2 - substandard - incomplete or unworking code
• 4 - poor - limited use of methods, comments, or loops
• 6 - average - methods are used where appropriate ; some comments ; code duplication is minimized
• 8 - very good - methods accept parameters when required ; comments on all key code ; code is easy to read
• 10 - excellent - methods are optimized and apply to many situations ; comments for all methods and major code actions ; code and comments read very well

Difficulty/Effort (20 marks)

Difficulty/effort will be rated based on the perceived amount of time that the marker believes was spent on the project and the challenges encountered. This may under or over-estimate the amount of time actually spent. It is beneficial to try write harder/more complicated programs than spending a lot of time on presentation details. The rating scale is:

• 4 - substandard - world is incomplete with minimal effort (< 4 hours)
• 8 - poor - world has basic features and mostly works ; evidence that some programming concepts have been attempted (< 6 hours)
• 12 - average - world has good features, story is reasonable, some harder programming concepts attempted ; evidence of basic programming understanding (<10 hours)
• 16 - very good - world tells a good story ; evidence of use of loops/decisions/arrays/events (harder programming concepts) ; good evidence of programming basic concept mastery and harder programming concepts understanding (<15 hours)
• 20 - excellent - exceptional story ; numerous objects with user-written methods/variables ; loops/decisions/arrays/events seemlessly used to tell story ; undisputable evidence of mastery of all programming concepts (15+ hours)

Bonus Marks (10 marks)

Any project that receives at least 35/50 will be considered for bonus marks. Bonus marks will be awarded to the top 5 projects with the best receiving +10, second best +8, ..., and the fifth +2.