CS 1150 PEEE   Logo_II: Initials

Overview

We have used Scratch to do turtle-graphics Now we are going to similar activity in NetLogo. Each programming partnership is to produce a NetLogo program that uses turtle graphics to draw letters as we did in the initials project in Scratch. The specific goals of the assignment that your program should:

Specifications, Submission, & Grading

The requirements/specifications are similar to those for the Scratch initials assignment, i.e.,

• Draw "UNI"—The "I" should be narrower than the "U" and "N"
• Draw some other sets of initials—one set for each member of the partnership.
• Have each letter's width be related to its height (for most letters, the width might be about six tenths of the height, for M & W, width would be about the same as the height)
• Have at least one set of initials differ in height (& width) from the others
• Make a connection between height and width of letters—avoid using literals for distances (forward height * .6 is okay, forward 18 is not)
• Vary widths of letters appropriately

You are to submit your programs via an e-mail message, one per pair. The due date is Wednesday, March 28 at midnight. The report should be sent as text in a message with the following characteristics.

• addressed to east@cs.uni.edu
• CCd (or also sent) to each submitter
• a message body containing
  • name(s) or submitter(s) and the amount of time each spent on the activity
  • any comments about about the program that you wish to make
• the program should be attached to the message

A program that meets the indicated requirements and is submitted as requested on time will receive at least a B-. Better grades will awarded for programs that go beyond the minimal expectations with respect to the tasks accomplished, have code that is formatted with care and are documented if/when appropriate, does not use duplicate code unnecessarily, use understandable variable names, are impressive with their creativity or artistry, etc.

Remember to do the programming activity commenting (PAC) assignment.

NetLogo Information

You have seen the NetLogo environment and read the overview of the system (Nicholas Bennett's Core Concepts of NetLogo, a PDF). You also produced some NetLogo programs by following step by step instructions. We will also discuss an example in class. Some additional information is provided below.

• Additional help

  See the NetLogo documentation (http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/docs/) for additional information. I tend to focus my use on the NetLogo Dictionary and the Programming Guide in the links on the left side of the page.

• Remember many instructions are "turtle" commands and, thus, can not be used in the setup procedure except as part of the turtle creation instructions (or an ask turtles block).
• Patches have color (pcolor) and turtles have color (color). The pen uses the same color as the turtle, i.e., to set the pen color, set the turtles's color.
• Most instructions require operands (the instruction is an operator and needs things to operate on, the operands). See the code below for examples.
• You may want to change the "settings" for the world (click the "Settings..." button in the "Interface". I used 50 as the maximum x and y coordinates and set the patch size to 5.
• You can choose a non-standard (something beside the little triangle) for you turtle shape(s) if you want. While in the Code part of the system, click on the Tools menu and select "Turtle Shapes Editor" to see what is available. You might want to import something else from the library.

If you have questions or difficulties

If you have questions about the assignment send me an e-mail or drop by my office. If you have a question while working on the assignment do the same. Keep in mind that when you encounter something you can't figure out you can/should think, explore, seek answers on google, etc. but, do not spend more than 15-30 minutes trying to overcome a particular error or problem.