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Lesson 13: Events in Star Wars

Overview

In this lesson, students will practice using events to build a game that they can share online. Featuring R2-D2 and other Star Wars characters, students will be guided through events, then given space to create their own game.

Purpose

CS Fundamentals is not simply about teaching computer science, it is about making computer science fun and exciting. In this series, students will learn about events using popular characters from Star Wars. These puzzles blur the lines between "learning" and "fun". Also, students will learn to recognize regular programming practices in games so that when they play games at home, they can see common computer science principles being used.

Agenda

Warm Up (15 min)

Bridging Activity - Events (15 min)

Main Activity (30 min)

Wrap Up (15 min)

View on Code Studio

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • Create an animated, interactive game using sequence and events.
  • Identify actions that correlate to input events.

Preparation

Links

Heads Up! Please make a copy of any documents you plan to share with students.

For the Teachers

For the Students

Vocabulary

  • Event - An action that causes something to happen.

Support

Report a Bug

Teaching Guide

Warm Up (15 min)

Introduction

Teacher Tip

If you're not quite sure if a student's response describes an event, try to break down the response. Is there an action and a response?

For example:

  • Crossing the finish line and having on screen characters congratulate you
  • Finding a big pot of treasure (or other item) and watching your inventory grow
  • Buying new items from the game's store and having the item to use
  • Pressing the buttons on a game controller and having your character do something cool

In a class discussion, ask the students what their favorite video game is (you might need to remind the students to only use games that are classroom appropriate). Ask the students what their favorite part of the game is.

Most of the time, students will respond with some kind of event. When you recognize a student response that describes an event, ask the student to describe it further.

Once the student is done describing their fun, take a minute to relate it back to the definition of an event.

  • Event: An action that causes something to happen.

Ask the students to try and relate some of their favorite parts of video games and how they can be described as events. Have them pair share and discuss the differences between their events and their partner's.

Bridging Activity - Events (15 min)

This activity will help bring the unplugged concepts from "The Big Event" into the online world that the students are moving into. Choose one of the following to do with your class:

Unplugged Activity Using Paper Blocks

Using the remote from the The Big Event (Course C) - Event Controller and Unplugged Blocks (Courses C-F) - Manipulatives, gather your class to reprise the activity from the previous lesson. Ask the class "when the teal button is pushed, what do we do?" then fill in one of the when event blocks and one of the blue action blocks accordingly. Make sure that the students understand that the when blocks need to be on top of the blue block and they need to touch in order for the program to run. Play out the rest of the lesson from "The Big Event", referencing the blocks along the way.

Preview of Online Puzzles as a Class

Pull a lesson from the corresponding online stage on CSF Express Course - Website, we recommend a puzzle early on in the progression, such as the second puzzle. Ask the students what should happen when the up arrow key on the keyboard is pressed. Explain that the character in this game should move in the direction of the arrow on the keyboard.

Complete the puzzle with the class and allow time for a quick discussion on what was and wasn't an event. For every event, ask the students what the action corresponding to this event is.

Main Activity (30 min)

Teacher Tip

Remind the students to only share their work with their close friends or family. For more information watch or show the class:

CSF Express Course - Website

Students will likely be very excited to make their own Star Wars game at the end of this set of puzzles. If there's time, ask them to plan out what they want the game to do. The planning and preparation will help the students better recognize the key concepts this lesson is trying to teach. Encourage the students to share and remix each other's games at the end of this lesson.

Wrap Up (15 min)

Journaling

Having students write about what they learned, why it’s useful, and how they feel about it can help solidify any knowledge they obtained today and build a review sheet for them to look to in the future.

Journal Prompts:

  • What was today's lesson about?
  • How do you feel about today's lesson?
  • Give an example of an event you used in your program today?
  • Why is it important not to share private information online? How do you know if information is private?

Standards Alignment

View full course alignment

CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards (2017)

AP - Algorithms & Programming
  • 1B-AP-11 - Decompose (break down) problems into smaller, manageable subproblems to facilitate the program development process.