CS105L Introduction to Game Programming Using Alice (Lab)

Fall 2009

Course Instructor Dr. Jeff Gray (gray@cis.uab.edu)
Lab Instructor David O'Gwynn ( dogwynn@cis.uab.edu)
Office Hours: TBA in CH142
Lab Session Mon 3:30pm-5:20pm CH 145
Lab Materials
  • Course Textbook required for all Labs.
  • Flash drive to save work.
  • CIS account
Links
Course: http://www.cis.uab.edu/cs105/
Lab: http://www.cis.uab.edu/cs105/lab/
WebCT: http://www.uab.edu/academiccourses
Alice:
Website: http://www.alice.org
Good Tutorial: http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm
Lab Policy
  1. The lab class will start meeting on August 24, 2009.
  2. Attendance is mandatory for the lab. Attendance for lectures and labs will count as 5% of your overall grade.
  3. Students must attend the lab during lab exams. There will be NO make-up lab exams.
  4. The laboratory instructor will provide the laboratory policy and procedures.
  5. A separate web page with laboratory syllabus and example programs will be provided on the lab web page.
Lab Conduct
  1. Students are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner.
  2. Laptops will be allowed only for the purpose of the class.
  3. During a lecture, students may not log into a machine and do work that is not directly related to the topic of the current lecture.
  4. Students must turn their cell phones/pagers OFF during the class.
E-mail Every student will be required to use his/her official email address (that is, blazerid@uab.edu). New students must login and configure their email addresses. For more details on obtaining a blazerid and configuring email, please see: http://www.uab.edu/blazerid. All email communications will be made using this address. Additional instructions or announcements will be sent by e-mail, so check your mail often - at least twice a day (once in the morning and once at night). Also, check the course webpage for up-to-date information and announcements. The instructor will check email frequently; e-mail is often the best way to contact the instructor.
Academic Honesty Students who plagiarize a computer program (or parts of a program), get others to write a program (or parts of a program), or are found cheating on an exam, will be reported for academic dishonesty. Anyone who is caught cheating will receive a 0 on a given test or assignment. If a second offense occurs, the student will receive an F in the class. This includes both the provider of the information as well as the receiver of the information. Any student who violates the university's academic honesty policy will be reported for academic discipline. All university and department policies related to students are included here by implication.

Tentative Schedule

DateLab NumberDescription
Aug 24Lab 1
  • Lab Introduction
  • CIS account application
  • Web CT
  • Tutorials
Aug 31Lab 2
  • Introduction to Alice and Objects:
    • Opening and playing a world in Alice
    • Creating a world and adding objects
    • Moving the camera in 3D space
    • Manipulating objects in 3D space
    • Manipulating subparts of objects
    (First 5 tutorials in book.)
Sep 07Labor Day
Sep 14Lab 3
  • Introduction to programming in Alice
  • Moving an object on the screen
  • Primitive method exploration
  • Custom methods of the monkey:
    • turn
    • turn-to-face
    • move-to
    • move-towards
    • do-together
  • Breaking an animation into scenes using world methods
  • Putting it all together exercise.
Sep 21Lab 4
  • Variables, Functions, Math, and Strings
    • Creating Local, Parameter, Class, and World variables
    • Setting values
    • World primitive functions and Class functions
    • Math equations
    • String Concatenation
  • WebCt sample exercise Submit (upload) a file from Lab3
Sep 28Lab 5Decision and Repetition Structures
Oct 05Lab 6Methods, Functions, and More about Variables
Oct 12MidtermLab Mid-Term: Material from Labs 1-6.
Oct 19Lab 8Events
Oct 26Projects
Nov 02Lab 9Lists and Arrays
Nov 09Lab 10BubbleSort
Nov 16Lab 11Project Description
Nov 23Lab 13Project Pseudocode
Nov 30Lab 14Lab Final: (Last normal lab)



Last modified: 8/20/09
By: David O'Gwynn