🎯 Learning Objectives
Develop the Information Technology learning strand:
- Identify when a problem needs to be broken down
- Implement and customise GUI elements to meet the needs of the user
💬 Key Vocabulary
- Decomposition
- properties
- mobile
- app (application)
📝 Starter Activity – App for that
Watch the video below:
📝 What is your ‘app for that’?
You have five minutes to work in pairs.
Think of an idea for an app that could have a positive impact on the world.
Think about how the user will interact with the app.
Write your ideas in a blank Word document.
📖 The Tappy Tap App
Over the next two and half lessons we will develop a new app called the Tappy Tap App. It will:
- Get users to click a moving blue dot as many times as they can within a time limit
- Give the user a point for each accurate click on the blue dot
- Move the blue dot each time it is clicked
📖 Decompose the problem
Decomposition is breaking a problem down into more manageable chunks.
Programming an app for a mobile device can be a daunting task to undertake.
Decomposing the problem helps us make the task less daunting and more achievable.
Imagine that your job is to make the first level of a new platform game.
You might start by decomposing the problem in the following way:
- Create the layout of the level
- Add a user-controlled character
- Add enemies
- Add score, timer, and power-ups
📖 Continue decomposing
When you arrive at each decomposed step, you can now decompose it further.
How might you decompose the ‘player movement’ step further?
Possible further decomposition
- Add left and right movement
- Add a gravity effect
- Add the ability to jump
📝 Activity 2 – Decompose the Tappy Tap App
Look at the requirements of the Tappy Tap App on the worksheet below.
How would you decompose the problem?
📝 Activity 3 – App Lab
- Log into App Lab using the login details given to you
- Browse to ‘Start a new project’
- Select App Lab
- Rename your project ‘Tappy Tap App’
- Add a button to the screen
📝 Activity 4 – Design the home screen
Your task is to implement the design of the welcome screen (don’t forget to rename ‘screen1’ as ‘welcome screen’).
Use your success criteria to help, as well as the sketched design on the right.
Go to the following location on the Open Drive and use the red and blue dot images for your buttons:
Open Drive:\Computer Science\Y8
Explorer tasks:
- Add a new game screen
- Code the button to open the game screen
- Watch the video below
📝 Plenary – Play your future Tappy Tap App
Click the button below to play the game:
After a couple of goes, look at your success criteria and ask yourself whether or not the game meets all the criteria.
In this lesson, you…
- Learnt why decomposition is important and how to apply it to your project
- Designed the welcome screen for your app and customised the properties
Next lesson, you will…
- Develop your app further by using code to add functionality to the objects the user interacts with on the screen
🏅 Badge it
🥈 Silver Badge
- Complete Activity 2 – Decompose the Tappy Tap App and upload the Word document to www.bournetolearn.com.
🥇 Gold Badge
- Complete Activity 3 – App Lab and upload screenshots of your app so far to www.bournetolearn.com.
🥉 Platinum Badge
- Complete Activity 4 – Design the home screen and upload screenshots of your app now to www.bournetolearn.com.