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Lesson 3: School Lab Studios

Year 8 – Programming – Mobile app development

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Lesson 3: School Lab Studios

Objectives

In this lesson, you will

  • Update the Tappy Tap App to display the user’s score
  • Start your app project:
    • Establish user needs and apply success criteria to help evaluate the success of your project
    • Start to design the solution to a real-world problem

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Spot the errors

Starter activity

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The Turtle Draw App

The purpose of this app is for the user to click the buttons on the screen to move the arrow on the screen and draw shapes.

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Unfortunately, there are errors in the app and it is not working as the developer intended.

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Spot the errors

Starter activity

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Debug the app

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  • There are three errors in this program
  • Sign into your code.org account
  • Follow this link: ncce.io/AppLabL3S
  • Click View code and Remix
  • See if you can find and fix all the errors

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Did you spot and fix all the errors?

Starter activity

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Error 1

Error 2

Error 3

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User score

Activity 1

We’re now going to apply the final touches to our Tappy Tap App by doing the following:

  • Designing the score screen
  • Adding code to pass the score to the score screen

Instructions

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  • Get into your pairs from the last lesson
  • Open the app that you developed in the previous lesson
  • If you were absent from the last lesson, open and remix this app:

ncce.io/AppLabL3a1

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Score screen design

Activity 1

Enter design mode and select the score screen.

Add a label and place it where you would like the score to appear.

Change the id to userScoreLbl.

Format the font, size, and position (change the text property to an example score, such as 10).

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Passing the score into userScoreLbl

Activity 2

We’re going to add code to our app, to tell our program to:

Set the text of the userscore label to the value being held by our score variable.

Where should we place this code?

Think/pair/share.

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B

A

C

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Passing the score into userScoreLbl

Activity 2

Add the following block of code into the correct position.

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Customise the properties so that it changes the text to the value of the score variable.

Explorer: Add and code a Play again button.

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A

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School Lab Studios

Activity 3

School Lab Studios is a company that specialises in mobile apps.

You and your partner have been hired to develop a prototype for one of the new apps that they would like to build.

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School Lab Studios: App Choices

Activity 3

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KS2 Maths App

Your Weight in Space

Clicky Biscuits

Virtual Pet

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Choose your project

Activity 3

You and your partner can now choose your project.

  • Open the project diaries for each project
  • Spend time reading the options and the requirements of each program
  • Make a copy of the project that you are going to work on
  • Share the project diary with your partner and your teacher so both have full access

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Success criteria

Activity 4

Success criteria are used at the end of a project to help judge its success, for example:

Each round must ask 10 questions.

Success criteria should allow for factual yes/no answers.

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What is wrong with the following criterion?

Must be easy to use.

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Success criteria for your app

Activity 4

Discuss with your partner what you think the app should do.

Write down in your project diary success criteria that reflect what you intend your app to be able to do.

Remember that success criteria should only allow for factual yes/no answers.

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Homework

Homework

Provide designs for any two of the screens that will be part of your app.

The screens must be annotated with:

  • The id name you intend to use
  • Whether each item is a button, label, text input, image, etc.
  • An indication of font and/or colour

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Due: Next lesson

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Next lesson

Summary

In this lesson, you…

Identified and resolved some common errors using App Lab

Passed the value of a variable into a label

Chose a project to create and developed success criteria

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Next lesson, you will…

Learn how to handle user input

Use decomposition to help break down the task of building the app into more manageable steps

Start making your app

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