What to submit

The lab is done in groups of 2 (mostly) or 3. Include the names of all your group members (in comments) at the start of your Racket file(s).

The lab task

Your task is to write a simple animation, something similar to (and building upon) the rocket landing example from Prologue which is also posted here. We also have several examples of animations from class (requires logging in to Canvas). Here is another example of an animation. from a previous semester in case that’s helpful, and you can also look at the animations from last year’s class for inspiration.

Your animation may be constructed out of shapes, pictures, or a combination of those. Use your imagination, and then build your animation step by step, running it after each modification. Focus on good code style (use variables, helper functions, meaningful names, comments to clarify your code). Browse the image.rkt teachpack documentation to see what’s there, and make an effort to combine various elements. You can also include text using strings if you want. Feel free to experiment with randomness.

All animations will be posted anonymously and we’ll have an opportunity for people to see and provide feedback on the work of other groups.

Your animation must satisfy the following requirements:

  1. It has to have a background that stays the same for all or most of the animation (it can be just a rectangular block of color, or it can be more involved).
  2. It must have at least four moving basic shapes. A basic shape is either an image that you insert or a shape given by a pre-defined function such as a circle, a rectangle, a triangle, a line, etc. The shapes can move together (e.g., several shapes that collectively form an airplane) or separately.
  3. The size of the scene must be given as constants and should be adjustable, i.e. if I change the size of the scene your animation should adjust: it doesn’t have to scale every image, but at least the background and the position of the objects (centering, etc.) should be reasonable.
  4. It has to follow good programming style. Make sure to use constants and helper functions to avoid code repetition. Use good names. Make sure all functions have signatures and good descriptions. Indent and format your code properly and use comments. Don’t postpone cleaning up the code until the end: any time you see an opportunity to imporove your code, do it. Code style will be a significant part of your grade.

How to submit

Each group should have one person in the team submit your work via canvas as a file upload (make sure it’s that .rkt file). Only one person needs to submit; Canvas will connect that to everyone else in the team.

Originally written by @elenam, with subsequent modifications by @NicMcPhee