2D Motion with Structs

Here's some additional information about making your game character move in the x direction as well as the y direction.

There's a supplemental lesson in the Bootstrap 1 materials that uses a new concept called "structs" and a new function you can use called "make-posn." Read the supplemental lesson here.

If you would like to see this in action and take a peek at the Racket code, here's a link to Blank Game with just these updates. Look for the definition statement for "update-player."

Have fun with your game, and the rest of your summer!

Launch Party Day

Welcome to your launch party day!

And our final day of the Bootstrap summer program. Notice te blog entry before this one... It's your own virtual poster presentation. Tell people to check it out if you want to show off your posters and game screenshots.

Today there is no blog prompt. Write whatever you would like to say in the comments.

On behalf of the instructors, I would like to say: we will miss you and have a wonderful remainder of your summer!

Virtual Poster Gallery

The Eve of the Game Launch Party!

On Thursday, students and instructors will celebrate the successful creation of each Bootstrap team's game with a launch party that includes brief student presentations accompanied by posters. Here's a sneak peek at the posters and game screenshots that show these students' hard work and accomplishments. Click to enlarge:

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Saving Gotham

Shae D. and Jessica S.

[play/see game]

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 Catch the Moon 

Evy B., Erica M., and Jeany J.
[play/see game]

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 Eternal Knight Saga

Kyle R. and Peter G.
[play/see game]

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Penguin's Defeat: I Told You They Could Fly

Dylan M. and Draven L.
[play/see game]

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Ninja Pigu

Ethan G. (with Kasey D.)
[play/see game]

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Bear's Revenge

Luis R. (with Armand B.)
[play/see game]

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The Call of Sagitta

Gustavo V. and Montayo C.
[play/see game]

Happy Wednesday! 

The blog prompt for Wednesday:

What have you gotten out of the Bootstrap program this summer?

Happy Tuesday!

Today's blog question:

If you had to explain something you learned at Bootstrap, which of these would you be most confident of? Choose from this list:

• Circles of Evaluation (and what they're good for)
• The parts of a Design Recipe
• How to Battle
• How to use the contracts page of your notebook
• Piecewise Functions
• the Pythagorean Theorem 
• Conditional branching with cond
• Collisions

Which of these would you want help explaining?

Welcome to Monday, WEEK 4 of Bootstrap

Today's prompt:

If you could choose the blog question, what would you ask? Make sure your question is about what you've been learning. So, it should have to do with:

• game programming
• programming in general
• math
• or any of the tools we've worked with

Remember, you're thinking of a blog question. Think of a question you would like to answer.

SCRATCH ONLINE!

If you'd like to explore and build with the Scratch programming language on your computer at home, go to the Scratch website, set up an account, and jump right in writing scratch programs by creating sprites and dragging blocks together.

• Scratch Website at MIT.

One fun thing about Scratch is that you can look at (and inside) other people's projects in order to learn how they work, but also to remix and customize them for yourself.

• Visit here to explore other people's animations, games, and projects.
• Or, check out this studio of three baby goat-themed games created by Mr. Burke and his daughter. These games are:
• a space invader game, 
• a dress-up game, 
• and a dodge game

After you've tried the games, open them up to see what makes the sprites tick. Change things to suit your own ideas. Remix them into your own accounts!

It's Thursday - Are you ready to battle?

Today's question:

Is there any part of circles of evaluation, the design recipe, or battling that you wish you could get another explanation of? What do you need more practice with? Let us know in your comments.

In addition (after answering the above question): what is the best pizza topping?

Welcome to Wednesday at beautiful BCC!

Today's prompt is a question about a design recipe. And battle!

Another student has created this design recipe:

If you were to battle this student, what would you say? Why?

Also, is the contract correct?

Happy Tuesday!

Today's blog prompt:

Tell us about a time math came in useful outside of school. Or, think of a situation you'll use math outside of school in the future!

Good Monday Morning, Bootstrap Game Programmers, and Welcome to Bristol Community College!

Blog prompt for today:

What has surprised you about the Bootstrap Summer Program? Is there something that you learned, saw, or did that you never expected? Tell us about it!

It's Thursday!

It was great to see you begin to battle it out with design recipes yesterday--and survive!

Here is your prompt for today.

What mistake did you make this week? If you were to see someone else make that same mistake, what would you tell them?

Hello on this rainy Wednesday!

Your prompt for today:

You were asked on Thursday to search the Internet for an open source product that is related to something you want to learn about. Please tell us what you found! What is it that you want to learn? What tool(s) did you find?

IT'S TUESDAY - GAME PROGRAMMERS!

Here's your prompt for the blog comments:

What’s been your favorite thing so far in the Bootstrap summer program? Why is it your favorite? What would you like to see more time spent on?

Image Animation - These images will be used for our Photoshop segments.

All the Images

Ready-to-go Monday!

It's Monday, Bootstrap Academy programmers. Welcome!

Your blog discussion item for today is: 

Think of two questions you would like to ask Rui, our guest speaker, today. Rui has studied computer science and art, and is currently a level designer for a game company that makes some of your favorite video games. He knows a thing or two about what it takes to work in a creative environment using STEM skills and knowledge.

Share your two questions with us in the blog comments!

Say hello to Roddy the Robot, who is going to help us refresh our knowledge of defining variables!

Fun with math: kids use skills to create video games

Above is a link to a story about this program in the New Bedford Standard Times.

Feel free to comment here on this story!

Good Morning, Bootstrap Coders!

Today we'd like you to write a blog comment about what you created in your explorations. Describe what you did. Did you try something that didn't work out? Great! Let us know.

Happy Wednesday, Game Programmers!

Today's blog question is:

If you could solve some problem or figure something out about the world that nobody else has ever figured out before, what would that be? Why?

Please add your thoughts in the comments, and don't forget to use your first name and last initial!

Good morning, Bootstrap programmers! Tuesday’s Question of the Day is: What did you take away from Day 1 of Bootstrap Academy? Reflect on what you learned yesterday.

Welcome, Game Designers!

Welcome, game designers, to your New Bedford Bootstrap 2014 Summer Program Blog!

You and your fellow game designers will be the authors of this blog. This is a place to capture your thoughts and ideas so we can all share what we want, what we think, what we're planning and what we've learned. Get to it!