Assignment writing!

We started off with the Small Basic tutorial. Today's tutorial was to make two numbers times with each other. The goal was to allow the user to add in their own numbers then it automatically works it out. This was a fun task and I managed to do both extensions and it worked so I was pleased with that.

After that we carried on working on assignment one. I was working on task one and I managed to finish it just before lunchtime. I had a few references left to do but I finished off them just after. Next off I moved onto task two (after the mind blowing start after lunch) I managed to get quite far with it and I have nearly finished it all. I will finish off task two tonight at home and I will start task three.

Now onto the mind blowing start after lunch! John showed us how to times two numbers together simple with just some lines and some simple adding. You first write the two numbers you are going to times. For example, 123 x 456. You first draw one line down then you move over a bit then draw two lines down then three lines down. Then with the second number you draw four lines across the bottom, then five and finally six. The next part really confused me and I got lost. You count where the lines cross over and it creates the answer. I failed at this task because I kept counting up all the lines wrong! But it did blow my mind on how you could do it.

Overall I am happy with the progress today and I am on track of getting assignment one in tomorrow. I am also getting more confident with my Small Basic programming and I can't wait to start the practical. Hopefully by then I will have more knowledge and I will even more confident with the coding. 

Friday turtle time!

Today our starter was quite confusing as John was not here. John sent an email to us all with the instructions. We had to make a program that adds up two numbers up to 20. It was quite confusing to do however when John finally got here, he showed us how to do it. I was close to getting however I couldn't get my head around writing the loop. After I saw how to do it, I understood it more. If I had to do a task like this in the future I could do it.

Also we carried on writing assignment one task one. We did this for just over an hour (until lunch) and I have got quite far with it. My goal is to finish the whole of task one over the weekend and I might start task two or three. I am pretty confident with task one and I should be able to finish it on the Saturday.

Another thing we did today was making a turtle alphabet. We were all given one letter each (the three leaders were given the left over letters) and we had to program it to write that letter. The letter I assigned was P. This was quite easy because all I had to do was draw a line down then make a semi circle at the top. This was a fun task because we got to practice our design skills and our programming skills. Here is the P I designed and I am happy with what I did with it.


Overall I have enjoyed this week of programming and I have learnt a lot. I never knew what Small Basic was at the start but now I am understanding it and getting more confident with it. I'm going to continue working on my Small Basic skills over the weekend.

Starting the first assignment!

Today we started the day off with a little quiz. The quiz was for the amazing dual monitors, the almighty lava lamp and a pair of headphones for one week. The quiz was a video what was a TED talk what was quite interesting to watch. There was a total of 14 questions and there were 17 marks up for grabs. I got 11/17 marks and I came 3rd what I was pleased with. Sadly I did not get the lava lamp because that would of been epic.

Next we went onto improving our pseudo code and flow charts. I am pretty confident with flow charts however I am not very good at pseudo code. John put a PDF to look at to help improve our pseudo knowledge. I had a look at that and it has helped me a bit more with my pseudo knowledge. I did 3 different flow charts improving them every time. I made it neater and I also make it clearer to read.

Also we had a look at verification and validation what was quite fun because we got to do some more work on Small Basic. We had to program the random number generator to say a message if someone put in a number over 100. Also we had to make it so they had to write in another answer. I used the goto code to make it easier to work. I enjoyed this task and it helped me improve my Small Basic knowledge.

Finally we had a look at the assignments we will be starting. John got us to make some notes on assignment one what was about what we have been doing the past few days such as paradigms and low and high level languages. We are making a PowerPoint about it so it is easier to layout. I have set up the design of it and I have started to write some of the information.

Day 2 of programming!

We started the day off with a little coding starter activity. The starter was a recap on what we were learning yesterday. I found the start quite helpful and it did help me remember what we did yesterday. The code was quite easy to do and I did remember how to write it.

Also today we did some more Small Basic and work through the tutorials some more. I got up to the turtle tutorial what is enjoyable to play around with and make different shapes. There is quite a lot of different options you can do with Small Basic and I never knew you could do so much in such a basic program. The example for turtle was creating two shapes so I changed the angles it moved at to make some more interesting patterns. Overall I enjoyed tutorial part of today and I am aiming to get further along and learn new things.

Then we moved onto the words what was quite confusing at the start. We were learning about the paradigms what are procedural, event driven and the horrible object orientated. Procedural and event driven were quite easy to understand however object orientated was not at the start. I found out that we have been coding in procedural and event driven. Also we had a quick talk about flow charts and on pseudo code what is still confusing for me.

Overall I am happy with my progress of programming and learning more about Small Basic. Tomorrow I might carry on working through the tutorials and try make some programs and see if they work. Also I might look up some guides online and have a look at them to boost my Small basic knowledge