Progress with 2D game

I've finally made some progress with my Mario/2D game. I've now gotten him to collect coins. Before that was a serious problem for me but I now got Mario to eat the coins. I also add many sound effects that are actually from the original Mario game. I got the jumping noise, the ding for when Mario collects coins and I even made the game over music. What I am trying to do now is make a scoreboard. I am using one of Michael Kolling's videos on YouTube. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE LINK I USED. There is still more I want to do with the game. For example, I want to make text appear when the player beats or loses the game.

What the game looks like so far 

Mid Quarter Report December 2012

Mid Quarter December 2012	Please answer the questions fully in the spaces below.
Name	Jake Zigler
Module	Computer Science
Summarize what you have achieved in the first half of this quarter.	I learned how to make actors in Greenfoot jump, fall and walk on ground. I am now trying to put these skills into a basic 2D game.
Please indicate any days that you know you will be missing between now and the end of the course.	None that I know of.
Describe what you expect to achieve by the end of the module? How much material will you have covered? What projects will you completed?	I should be finished with my 2D game soon and after that I want to work on making the classic Atari game, Pong.
Your teacher will be entering a grade-in-progress in PowerSchool for mid-quarter. He will be considering your performance in terms of the assessment guidelines. At this stage he will be asking about the extent to which the statements below apply to your performance in the course.	Comment below if you feel there has been a change since mid-semester.
His/her written communication (blog, e-mails, and reports) are done according to deadlines and contain enough information for the teacher to understand what he/she is doing, what kinds of problems he/she is facing and how he/she feels about his/her learning experiences. Are you consistently doing your blogs? How does your BLog keeping compare to the first half of the quarter? Are you providing more details of your learning? Do you take care to express yourself clearly and use conventional grammar and spelling? Are you using images, videos, links to illustrate the work that you are doing? Are you satisfied that your blog reflects in a complete way what you are doing?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) My blog post were not as common as I would have liked them to be this quarter. Usually I don’t know what to write.
Typically this student makes effective use of class time by increasing his/her competence and confidence using software that he/she has chosen. Are you using your time effectively? Are you learning each time you come to class? Are you becoming more competent and confident?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I do work hard in class. It may not show on my blog but I rarely get of task in class.
He/she attends all class sessions, coming and leaving on time, making sure to make up missing time by working during free periods or at home. Have you missed class this quarter? How many times? What have you done to make up lost time?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I have made it to all classes so far and have not been late.
His/her oral communication during class is focused on the learning tasks that he/she is engaged in. Are your conversations in class focused on your learning tasks?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I am usually asking the classmates sitting next to me about Greenfoot stuff but we do get off topic every now and then.
During class he/she remains focused on the task at hand and generally respects the integrity of the learning environment for all students. Do you stay on task throughout the block? Do you effectively resist temptations to use the computer for unrelated activities (other homework, e-mail, facebook, youtube, sports results, music etc.)? Do you resist temptations to take unnecessary breaks, arrive late, leave early? Are all your interactions with other students focused on the task at hand?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I work on my own stuff and I believe that I don’t distract any of my other classmates. I also think that I am pretty good at resisting temptation sites.
He/she has positive attitudes towards acquiring technology skills, and makes a conscious effort to acquire new skills and apply them in meaningful ways. Are you acquiring new skills each class? Are you effectively documenting these in your blog? Have you found ways to apply your skills beyond classroom exercises?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) Yes. I am very interested in computer science and coding. I’ve always wanted to do it.
He/she is an independent learner, who tries to solve problems by himself/herself, but finds effective ways to overcome problems using a variety of other resources. Have your become more independent as a learner? What resources are you using to learn effectively?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I am not the best independent learner. When I have problems I am quick to ask a teacher or friend for help. Lately though, I have bee better with fixing my own problems.
He/she is respectful of all members of this learning community and his/her behavior is in compliance with all school policies, in particular the AUP (Appropriate Use Policy) and Academic Honesty Policy. Are you respectful, appropriate, honest? Do you make sure that your behavior does not interfere with the learning of others to by distracting them from their work?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I don’t think that I really distract anyone in the class. I do usually keep to myself.
Your grade will take into account your performance in the above areas and also..  The amount of documented learning time that you have spent in and out of class. The amount and/or depth of material that you have covered
What is your grade-in-progress (see PowerSchool)? Typically if the grade is in the 80s your overall performance has been good. If your grade is in the 70s your performance has been adequate. How would you describe your overall performance at this point? Is your assessment in-line with the assessment of your instructor?	B. I would describe my performance as good. I think I could do better and write more in my blogs though.
Is there any other information that you would like to provide your teacher to help decide on your grade-in-progress?	No.

Mario Game

Lately I have been working on a basic 2D game. In my game I've been using the jumping  and falling I learned. You control Mario from the popular Nintendo game. So far I've gotten Mario to jump but to also come down. When I was learning how to jump at first it wasn't really jumping. It was just going up in the world and falling when I released the space bar. I used to be able to just hold the space bar and I could pretty much my my actor fly but I changed that. I wrote the code so that the actor can only jump when he is on the ground and not in the air.

Jumping

On Greenfoot I learned to make my actor jump. Making him jump is very similar to making an actor fall. What you do is write public void jump(). Then in the parameters you write vspeed = -(whatever number you want);. The negative makes it go up. then you write fall() in the parameters. In my last post I believed I defined fall().  Then in the checkkeys I made the spacebar make the actor jump. Now that I know how to make an actor run,jump and fall I think I have all the things I need to make a very basic 2D game which I think I'm going to try to do.

Running, Jumping and falling

Instead of working on  chapter 6 I have been working on another project where I am learning how to switch images when moving  a picture and make it able to stay on a ground and when it is not on the ground it falls. I will continue watching the tutorial so that I can make it my actor jump. Here are the links for the videos I have been watching Part 1  Part 2. So in my project I have a pig. The pig can move left and right. I found the picture of the pig on google images. When I got the picture I put it in word and flipped it so that it could face to the left. Then when I typed in the code I told it that it would move to the right but also have the picture face the right and when I am moving to the left the pig face the left. This what the code looks like.

 private void checkkeys()

    {

        if (Greenfoot.isKeyDown("A") )

        {

            setImage("Pig Left.png");

            moveLeft();

        }

        if (Greenfoot.isKeyDown("D") )

        {

            setImage("Pig Right.png");

            moveRight();

        }

This is also the first time I used a moveRight(); method. Usually I use move(4) and Move (-4). I have to say the moveRight() method is more complex and I don't see me using it that much. You can't tell it just to move right. You have to say the speed and then write this  public void moveRight()

    {

        setLocation ( getX() + speed, getY() );

    }

    public void moveLeft()

    {

        setLocation ( getX() - speed, getY() );

    }

So ya that was new.  Then I learned how to make the pig fall.  I first needed to make a command called public void fall(). Then I set the vertical speed to 0 and made it accelerate by 2. Here is the code.

public void fall()

    {

        setLocation ( getX(), getY() + vspeed);

        vspeed = vspeed + acceleration;

       

    }

Then I wanted to make the Pig stand onground and not fall. This was pretty complex and hard for me but the video helped a lot.

public boolean onGround()

    {

        Actor under = getOneObjectAtOffset ( 0, getHeight() / 2, Ground.class);

        return under != null;

    }   

I am going to finish watching the videos and learn how to make the pig jump. There are some flaws in the project through. For example, its seems whenever I compile it everything works fine for once but when I set it up manually without compiling it doesn’t work right. I might change into a game once I fix everything. It probably be having to get to a certain point to another while avoiding certain obstacles.

Here's the project so far 

End of Quarter

End of  Quarter October 2012	Please answer the questions fully in the spaces below.
Name	Jake Zigler
Module	Computer Science
Has the atmosphere in the class changed since the first half of the quarter? How has it changed?	Yes I find myself a lot more focused in class. I also feel like I understand what I’m doing a lot more.
How have your experiences been different in the second half of the quarter? Are you more or less satisfied with your progress? Are you doing more of less work out of class?	I am lot more satisfied with my progress and I think I am using my time in class a lot more wisely.
What advice can you give to students who are about to start on the module that you are just finishing? What can you say that would help them have a more effective learning experience?	Computer Science is something that you really need to pay close attention too to make sure you understand.
What will you have achieved by the end of the module? What will you have learned? What projects will you have completed? What have you learned about yourself as a learner.	I think I will have a better understanding on how 2D games work.
Imagine that you want to employ a person with the kind of information technology skills that you have.  Write one paragraph describing the skills that you (as the employer) are looking for. Start the paragraph like this.. Our company is looking for someone who…..	Our company is looking for a person who knows how to code in their sleep. If you want to work here you need to really understand how code work because it is very essential for this job.
Have you contributed in any ways to the other members of this learning community?	No not really. Now I usually keep to myself  in class.
What module would you like to take in the second quarter? Please explain your choice.	Maybe animation. It seems very interesting but very hard and requires a lot of time so I’m still not so sure yet.
Your teacher will be entering a grade-in-progress in PowerSchool for end-of-quarter (mid-semester). He will be considering your performance in terms of the assessment guidelines. At this stage he will be asking about the extent to which the statements below apply to your performance in the course.	Highlight the word(s) that you think describes your performance. Look at the statements in the left column. Comment on your performance in each area. Use the questions as guidelines.
Typically this student makes effective use of class time by increasing his/her competence and confidence using software that he/she has chosen. Are you using your time effectively? Are you learning each time you come to class? Are you becoming more competent and confident?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) At the beginning of the quarter I was very distracted in class now I find myself a lot more focused. I think this maybe because I understand what I’m doing a bit more.
He/she attends all class sessions, coming and leaving on time, making sure to make up missing time by working during free periods or at home. Have you missed class this quarter? How many times? What have you done to make up lost time?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I only missed one class and that was when I went on vacation and I made up my work then. Other then that I am always on time and always there for class.
His/her oral communication during class is focused on the learning tasks that he/she is engaged in. Are your conversations in class focused on your learning tasks?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I actually do not talk that much at all anymore about stuff that is off topic. I am either asking Mr. Daley a question or classmate is giving my ideas to improve the game I made.
His/her written communication (logs, e-mails, and reports) are done according to deadlines and contain enough information for the teacher to understand what he/she is doing, what kinds of problems he/she is facing and how he/she feels about his/her learning experiences. Are you consistently doing your blogs? How does your BLog keeping compare to the first half of the quarter? Are you providing more details of your learning? Do you take care to express yourself clearly and use conventional grammar and spelling?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) The blog is something I struggle with sometimes. Sometimes I don’t know what to write about. But I do make my best effort to get stuff on it.
During class he/she remains focused on the task at hand and generally respects the integrity of the learning environment for all students. Do you stay on task throughout the block? Do you effectively resist temptations to use the computer for unrelated activities (other homework, e-mail, facebook, youtube, sports results, music etc.)? Do you resist temptations to takes unnecessary breaks, arrive late, leave early?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I like to say that now I am always on task. Once I got an idea for my project I was committed to it. Even more when I got it to work. Temptations sites were a problem for me in the first half but that problem has gone away for me.
He/she has positive attitudes towards acquiring technology skills, and makes a conscious effort to acquire new skills and apply them in meaningful ways. Have you found ways to apply your skills beyond classroom exercises?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I am very positive about learning computer science because I know it is going to be such a big thing in the future.
He/she is an independent learner, who tries to solve problems by himself/herself, but finds effective ways to overcome problems using a variety of other resources. Have your become more independent as a learner? What resources are you using to learn effectively?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I am not a very good independent worker I tend to procrastinate a lot and if I do have a problem I will go to a teacher for help.
He/she is respectful of all members of this learning community and his/her behavior is in compliance with all school policies, in particular the AUP (Appropriate Use Policy) and Academic Honesty Policy. Are you respectful, appropriate, honest?	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I find myself very respectful to classmates I don’t really talk that much anymore even my friends.
Your grade will take into account your performance in the above areas and also..  The amount of documented learning time that you have spent in and out of class. The amount and/or depth of material that you have covered
If full attendance, coming on time, being on-task, and leaving on time (not including any work outside class) represents 100%. Estimate what time percentage have you put into this class? (take into account any documented work that you did in school outside class time, or at home)	80%
To what extent will you have completed your module by the end of the quarter? How far did you get? What chapters did you cover? What projects have been completed?	I finished chapters one through four and finished one big projects and I made a bunch of other mini projects where I was kind of screwing around trying to get an idea.
What was your last grade-in-progress (see PowerSchool) To what extent does this grade reflect your overall performance A - (95) - Outstanding B - (85) - Good (the descriptions above apply to me) C -(75) - Adequate D - (65) Inadequte	82% was my last grade I think this time I deserve a bit higher I’m not sure an A but a B+.
This is an appropriate course for this student and the performance of the student is such that it can be said that the student is meeting the standards well. His/her work, on the whole, is good. How would you rate your overall performance during the quarter? Please explain.	inadequate adequate good outstanding (highlight and comment) I think I did good not outstanding because there was times where I did not take the course seriously.
What could you do to improve your performance in the second quarter?	Really work hard on understanding my module and not fall behind.
What module are you interested in doing during the second quarter?	Maybe animation but I’m not sure it seem really hard.
Is there any other information that you would like to provide your teacher to help decide on your grade-in-progress for the quarter?	No not really