Lesson 16: Chase Game with Events
Overview
In this online activity, students will have the opportunity to learn how to use events in Play Lab and to apply all the coding skills they've learned to create an animated game. It's time to get creative and make a game in Play Lab!
Purpose
Here, students will further develop their understanding of events using Play Lab. Students will use events to make characters move around the screen, make noises, and change backgrounds based on user input. At the end of the puzzle sequence, students will be presented with the opportunity to share their projects.
Agenda
Warm Up (10 min)
Main Activity (30 min)
Wrap Up (15 min)
Extended Learning
View on Code Studio
Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Create an animated, interactive game using sequence and event-handlers.
- Identify actions that correlate to input events.
Preparation
- Play through the puzzles to find any potential problem areas for your class.
- Make sure every student has a journal.
Links
Heads Up! Please make a copy of any documents you plan to share with students.
For the Students
- Unplugged Blocks (Courses C-F) - Manipulatives
Vocabulary
- Event - An action that causes something to happen.
Support
Report a Bug
Teaching Guide
Warm Up (10 min)
Introduction
Briefly discuss the Flappy Bird game from the last lesson. Ask students to come up with the various events in the game. Events include:
- Flappy hitting the ground
- Flappy hitting an obstacle
- A player clicking the screen
- Flappy passing an obstacle
Now discuss the actions that correspond to these events. Flappy running into something ends the game, but Flappy passing an obstacle wins a point. A player clicking makes Flappy flap his wings.
Ask the students what other events and actions they'd like to see. What other kinds of games could be built around those events and actions?
Main Activity (30 min)
Lesson Tip
Students will have the opportunity to share their final product with a link. This is a great opportunity to show your school community the great things your students are doing. Collect all of the links and keep them on your class website for all to see!
Remind the students to only share their work with their close friends or family. For more information watch or show the class Pause and Think Online - Video.
Online Puzzles and Free Play
This is the most free-form online activity of the course. At the final stage students have the freedom to create a game of their own. You may want to provide structured guidelines around what kind of game to make, particularly for students who are overwhelmed by too many options.
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 did you feel about today's lesson?
- What is an event your program used today?
- Is there an event that would you like to have used in your game that you did not get to use in Play Lab?
Extended Learning
Use these activities to enhance student learning. They can be used as outside of class activities or other enrichment.
Look Under the Hood
When you share a link to your story, you also share all of the code that goes behind it. This is a great way for students to learn from each other.
- Post links to completed stories online.
- Make a story of your own to share as well!
- When students load up a link, have them click the "How it Works" button to see the code behind the story.
- Discuss as a group the different ways your classmates coded their stories.
- What surprised you?
- What would you like to try?
- Choose someone else's story and click
Remixto build on it. (Don't worry, the original story will be safe.)
Student Instructions
Student Instructions
Student Instructions
Student Instructions
Student Instructions
Student Instructions
Let's play a game. Move the penguin to the octopus to score a point. Score 5 points to win.
Student Instructions
Now, write a program to make Waddles the Penguin move around using the up / down / left / right keys to hit all of the targets!
Student Instructions
The repeat forever block allows you to run code over and over forever. Use this block to move Chomp the Dino (actor 2) up and down by 400 pixels forever.
Student Instructions
Can you have Waddles (actor 1) say "Ouch!" and play a "hit" sound if he runs into Chomp?
When you're done, play the game to make that happen.
Student Instructions
Student Instructions
- Free Play
- 12
Teaching Tip
This level is a “free play”. These levels have some characteristics you may want to explore before starting.
- These levels are not checked for correctness to allow for more open-ended creativity. Empower your students to determine for themselves when they have created something they like. There is no one right answer!
- Example solutions are available for this level which can be viewed by opening the teacher panel to the right.
Student Instructions
- Levels
- Extra
Student Instructions
Use a new block to make Waddles automatically move back to the start when he runs into the Dinosaur and when he scores a point. This will make your game more challenging and fun!
Play the game and move Waddles with the arrows until you score 5 or more points. Waddles must be moved to the middle left position of the screen to complete this challenge.
Standards Alignment
View full course alignment
CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards (2017)
AP - Algorithms & Programming
- 1A-AP-09 - Model the way programs store and manipulate data by using numbers or other symbols to represent information.
- 1A-AP-11 - Decompose (break down) the steps needed to solve a problem into a precise sequence of instructions.