My Family

Yesterday and today we were given work periods for our Flash family assignment. The main goal of this assignment is to create a Flash program that has a short introduction which then continues onto the main screen. On the main screen there are going to be buttons which directs the page onto the certain topic such as: my parents, my brothers and me! Each scene must have a picture of the family member and some information.

For me the most exciting part of the assignment was yesterday as I designed the main page and the introduction. The next thing that I will be looking forward to is adding in all the pictures. I managed to find some pictures at home but tonight I'm going to try and look for some more. I also have to figure out what kind of information I want to put on the slide for each family member. I believe that I am the only person in this class that has a family of six not including five fish and a turtle.

My Gumball Creation!

I forgot to save my updated gumball machine on my USB drive and so I was unable to post it on this blog. But you will be as happy as I am right now that I received a 50/50 on the assignment! Looking at first class I saw that only three people received a perfect mark and two of them were girls. I am surprised to see that the girls are excelling in this course because I was expecting the boys have a quicker and better grasp on the technology field, but I guess not.

Today we were introduced to our large and final assignment I believe for this unit. Our task is to create something that resembles a web page about our family. Our class time was spent looking at some student examples and we got another small review on some new concepts and also learned some brand new ones. One of these new concepts was how to copy a scene without having to copy and paste each and every object on that page.

Before we even started as the teacher was explaining the task my brain was working overtime. It was already planning out the layouts of the scenes, the buttons and other artistic aspects of the page. This is only thing that I really enjoy about this course and program is that I am able to combine my knowledge of the program with my passion and talent in the visual art field.

After the short lesson and some quick example we were given the rest of the period to start our family web pages. I kept making the same mistake over and over again: copying the scenes without programming the buttons and objects that I wanted to appear on other scenes. I quickly fixed the problem and started an introduction. The introduction on this assignment as well as the overall assignment must be better than my previous task because it is worth more and it is out of 100 possible marks.

Keep posted because on my next post I will try and include and example of my gumball machine and as usually more information about my exciting experiences and new discoveries in computer science class.

Gumballs!

Over the weekend I spent most of my time indoors away from the cold perfecting my gumball creation. It was supposed to be due today at the end of class but we were given until tomorrow at the end of class. Since I am very close to being done tomorrow I will just add some little extra details and some sound clips.

I had some trouble again over the weekend with the buttons and scene changes but I managed to resolve the problems at school. I have really enjoyed making this machine, even though it was tedious and long work, it all paid off in the end.

Some things that I added to my machine over the weekend were: I drew the candy store background completely by hand (or may I say paintbrush), I added an ending scene and a final ending scene, and I discovered with much surprise how to make the gumballs and the machine look shiny or like they are reflecting light.

I was very happy and excited about my final results and tomorrow with more time I will be able to add some sound clips. The sounds are already playing in my head and I can't wait to put them in. Tomorrow I will try and post my final copy of the gumball machine. I hope that all of my hard work is reflected in my mark. That's all folks!

Gumball Machine

Yesterday night I successfully downloaded a free thirty day trial of Flash at home. I was eager to show off to my parents and my jealous brothers what I had learned so far in Flash. They were amazed at the things that I used to think were amazing until I learned more about the program. My parents are encouraging me to explore this area more since they see that it interests me.

Today after a mini lesson/review we recieved the whole entire period to work on our gumball machines. I had a bit of trouble with my introduction and the buttons I had placed on it but I decided not to spend to much time on it and so I moved on. They next thing that I did was start on my gumball machine. I used all the techniques that I had been taught up to this point and started to plan my machine.

The hardest thing about this assignment is the fact that all of the gumballs, buttons and other parts have to be on their own seperated layer. This makes thing complicated for a while but labelling the layers made it much easier.

One new thing that we learned partly today and yesterday is how to make different scenes and then how to program a button to when clicked it goes directly to that scene. I am planning to have about three or four different scenes in this assignement. Well that's all for now, keep a look out for my next post.

Gummy Bicycle

This morning I viewed the mark I had recieved for my three bicycle race, it was a 12/15. Later on, in class I saw that the peope who had added some extra effects (such as the flames,wheelies, Nos etc.) had gotten higher marks. I had been spending too much time on making sure my bikes were doing the right thing and it didn't clue in to me that I could have added some other effects. I will keep this in mind for next time.

Today we were also introduced to our second Flash assignment. This one will be worth more and out of more than the bicycle race. This time we have been asked to create a gumball machine with a minimum of three gumballs coming out. We didn't have a lot of time to start the assignment since we were taught some more new aspects on Flash. Such as motion paths and putting objects on different layer. We were also shown some programming commands. This assignment will be the first one in which programming will be involved.

After this quick glance at programming I'm sure that I will grasp it but it may take me a while. Since this will be a major assignment I am going to try and see if I can download the Flash program for free onto my computer. Keep posted, there's more a'coming.

Bicycle, Bicycle

We had our first Flash assignment today. We had to make a simple bicycle race with three bikes. This involved a new Flash aspect that we had just learned: movie inside of a movie. To create it first I had to make the bike wheels a movie clip and then I had to make them a movie clip again. Through motion tween I made them turn clockwise and then ta-da the wheels turned. Next I drew a simple bike that fit the wheels and made the bike move across the screen. After creating two more bikes in the background I had completed the assignment.

What I found interesting about this is that it's not as hard as it looks and it's fun to see your creation after you're done. The bicycles really do look as if they are riding across the screen racing each other. Some other people in class had managed to add some other effects such as flames on one bike or another had their bike acclerate in the middle of the race. I went and asked them how they did it so that I could try it out the next assignment.

Overall what interested me the most about this lesson is how to put together all of the small effects in Flash that we have done so far to create a simple animation movie. Keep in touch for the next blogger blog!

More Fun with Flash

Today I got some more basic information about Flash. I learned how to make a object move across the screen in one smooth transaction and what tweening is. At first I was having trouble with a stick figure that we were supposed to make it move it's arms and legs. But then later on I got the hang of it and found out what I was doing wrong.

The coolest thing that I learned today what how to take and object such as a snowboard and then make it turn into the letter X. This whole process seemed difficult at first but then when I saw it done step by step I realized that it wasn't as hard as I thought that it would be. With a lot of patience and careful listening I was able to complete all of the steps and make my snowboard turn into a letter!

Our networking test results were posted on First Class today and I did so much better than I thought I did: 35/40. So far my mark in this course is a 91% and I want to raise my mark with the next two topics we are going to study.

I can't wait for another day of Flash, i'm really enjoying this unit so far.

Network Test

Today was a very exciting and eventful day. The first thing I had was a network test. I had thought that I was well prepared for it but there was one question worth 16 marks that I had forgotton to review. Since the hardware component of the computer is not my strong point I did not have a clue to what I should put down. So I went to the other questions and then came back to that same one and wrote down what I had remembered. If I had had a couple minutes more I believe that I would have been able to remember the answer. Therefore I do not think that I did as well as I could have but I will make sure to bring up my mark on the next test or assignment.

Also today we were introduced to a new topic that we would be spending most of the rest of the year on. This topic is a program called Flash and from today I understand that it can be used to create games. The first thing we did today was get a small taste of what this program can do. We were shown step by step how to create a shape and then manipulate it to whatever you want. We have not learned how to make a short movie since we are still playing around with the shapes and the different options.

Yesterday we were allowed to view a site that had many examples of Flash games. During this period I had had the pleasure of disecting a frog, squid and putting together the remains of a vole all on a Flash website. I had also played many simple but fun Flash games. My teacher also showed us some of his own Flash examples. By the end of this course I want to be able to create a simple game using Flash. I will surely amaze my friends and family because like me they had never thought that a program like this would be available at a high school level.

I believe that flash will be a new and exciting thing to do since we will be able to do more hands on stuff. I am very artistic and I especially like playing around with photos and drawing programs on the computer. Yesterday when I had looked at some of the examples of Flash I had thought that I would never be able to do that in a thousand years but after today I now belive that with a lot of hard work and patience I too can create a game like that ones I saw. I am very excited about the next couple of days since we will be discovering more things that Flash can do.

Another Day. . .

Today I learned about many different networks such as the LAN and WAN. LAN stands for local area network and it is the type of network I have at school. But our school can also be said to be a WAN because of its ability to connect to any computer system in the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board. I also learned about the different ways of connecting computers to the main server. Some ways are more effective than others but may not be as inexpensive.

So far I am enjoying this class and I am anxious to see some more examples of what we will be doing in the future. My interest in computers has grown tremendously over the past week and I am know looking for any career oppurtunities that may interest me. Hopefully I will discover one that will spark my interest and help me make my decision to what courses to choose for grade eleven.

First Blog EVER!

This is the first blog I every had and it's pretty exciting. This computer class is much different than I thought it would be but I believe that it will challenge me to do something that I have never tried before. Something different that I didn't expect from this class is the fact that there are only three girls in about a class of over 25. I guess that many girls do not find this program interesting. I believe that many more should try something different and try to stand out because they might uncover something about themselves they never knew before like a talent for computer programming. So far I am enjoying this class excluding the fact that there are not many girls.

I believe that this class will teach me many things that I had never known I would be able to do. Today we review all of the main parts of the computer. I am amazed that they manage to put so many things into a little tiny box that makes it do so many things. It makes you realize how much you truly do not know about the inside of a computer. I am going to try my hardest to do well in this course and see if a career in computers will appeal to me.

Well that's all for now, stay tuned for the next one.