Logo Session, July 1993

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GRAPHEMA department

Sofia I. Gorlitskaja

The aim of our work was to widen the variety of problems solved in Logo. We also used the Logo logic to let our students learn actively the basic logic operations. Then our students used these new skills to solve logicl puzzles. We have implemented in Logo some logic algorithms, algorithms of dynamic programming, small problems of linear programming and simple problems of game theory.

Irina N. Kuznetsova

Our students learned and used the method of scanning a part of the screen, which then was modified and displayed in a specified scale according to a given position of the cursor. The students also worked with logic variables and structures. We also taught our students the basics of programming in Logo.

During the Logo session our 21 student implemented the project "Voyage from ICCC to the cities were we live". The demo file's name is GRAPHEMA.ARJ.


LoGa (Logo games)

A. Supikoff

1. There were held Logo classes for beginners. The topics covered included: We've shown also different ways to program motion of the turtle on the screen and how to control the movements from the keyboard. The children have programmed several simple graphic editors and did some programming for the LABYRINTH game.

2. As a result of the discussion of different ways to program movements in Logo one method was chosen and there was created a library of movements of several objects (ObjMove). The library implements several functions and may be used as tools in Logo environment.

3. The library was used to program the game "Rally".

4. There was also done some programming not in Logo, but for Logo. There have been written the first version of program XShape that allows to transfer Logo shapes from shapes file and into another. The program is written in Borland C++. To write the second version of the program is used PCX Toolkit.

5. There was implemented game "Turtle battles". The algorithm of behaviour of different turtles have been programmed in Logo, and then four turtles are placed on the game field. The program is being debugged.


LogoVo Department

Roman Pozlevich

The studying and work with the language LogoExpress has been carried out at the department. Lectures on telecommunication have been given. The description of LogoExpress in the Russian language on the basis of the firm documentation has been done. The examples of the work in LogoExpress environment have been described. The example of realisation of CHAT-communication in the process of connection of computers through communication ports without the modem is now being worked on.
In contrast to the standard TERMINAL function separate reverberation of messages being sent and being received is implemented and there is the possibility of receiving prompts without breaking the connection. An additional regime for file sending will be realised in the nearest future.
The work with the modem can be added from the standard "CHAT" means. The problem of transmitting Russian symbols was resolved. All LogoExpress primitives have been used in the programme  s examples. Besides, a small library of procedures for Logo has been created: work with lists
       firstn - the first N elements of the list
       bfn    - a list without the first N elments of the list
       lastn  - the last N elements of the list       
       bln    - a list without last n elements of the list    
       work with lists of lists
       ll.member - a list containing this element
       ll.all    - a list of lists containing this element
       ll.but    - a list of lists not containing this element
       work with lists as arrays
       index.put    - recording an element by  index 
       index.insert - insertion by index
       index.delete - deletion by index
       nfirst       - a number of the first entering a list
       nlast        - a number of the last entering the list sorting
       by any condition
       sort -  list and the function of list element comparison
       function is transmitted as a parameter, there are 6 ready
       functions:
       max?, min? - for sorting numbers
       alfamax?, alfamin? - for sorting words in the alphabetical order
       listmax?, listmin? - for sorting lists of lists by the 
       length of sublists work with lists as sets
       set.or  - uniting sets
       set.and - interlapping sets
       set.sub - subtracting sets

"Myth" department

Galina V. Guzilova

Different peoples in the ancient times had different understanding of the world and they reflected it in myths.
Ancient Greeks had many gods who represented for them natural forces. They looked like ordinary people but possessed extraordinary power. Sometimes they changed thier appearance.
These changes are called metamorphses. We are making a series of illustrations showing metamorphses. For this we use Logowriter. Among the plots which are practically ready are the following ones: - a story about god Hermes who turned an old man into a rock as he could not keep the promise (Appendix 1)
- a story of god Dionisis who turned dolphines into sea pirates. The pritaes did not recognize Dionisis as a god and wanted to sell him as a slave.(Appendix 2).

Department of Russian Language

Irina Kutuzova, Olga Manakova

We taught Russian to a group of twelve American and one German student and also provided interpreting for other departments. In particular, we've provided interpreting of the lectures on Psychology into German, of the lectures on Biology into English, of the classes at BioLogo and PsychoLogo departments and helped students to communicate in the art studio. We've translated into English the reports of the teachers about their work in the ICCC.

Russian Language Classes.

We had only 7 lessons, one and half an hour each, because our students left ICCC very often for sightseeing tours. We taught them simple phrases that helped them to communicate in the everyday life of ICCC. The vocabulary chosen for reading exercises was based on two principles - we chose the Russian words that are either similar to English words, or are very often used in the activities of the students in the ICCC. The lessons were organized in the form of games, we often used songs and rhymes. Wherever possible we used the opportunities provided by the natural language environment, to provide for our students both practice and motivation for further lessons. The lessons are described in a booklet.

"Psychologo" Department

Larisa L. Travina

The psychological activities closely connected with Logo-like environments has existed in the framework of the International Children Computer School for four years. We taught our students the skills to categorize information and to conduct independent research work. The psycological activities were based on the J. Kelly's theory of personal constructs and on the test of repertoire grids developed by him. The subject of the teachers' and students'research at "Psychologo" department was their understanding of animals and plants, the world of a biological cell, characters of fairy-tales and their own works of literature.
During the Logo-session a new version of the repertoire grid test in the LogoWriter environment has been used to study the impact of the TV ads on the inner world of a person. Different advertisment rolls were chosen as meaningful elements representing the world of advertisment.

The second project consists in making a relaxation room for oneself or for a character in the Logowriter environment with a specially developed toolkit.
The toolkit for the room allows a student to choose the shape and colour of the objects for furnishing the room, to move them on the screen and to put them in a certain place. After the students have completed the work, information about their activities and the room itself is recorded in the form of a list. Each item of the list contains the following information:

The saved list can be used both to get teh picture of the room and to analyze student activity.

XXX Department

Olga Kozodoy , Nikita Sysoev

Our department deals with the development of the programming means for realisation of Quest type games - so called Quest - constructor kit and with creation of a model Quest game as an example. MSW-Logo is the base language. Now the first version of the construction kit is ready and the model game is being worked on. The content of Quest For realisation of the model game a trip in the camp has been chosen. The plot is as follows: a key to the safe where software is kept was missing and the task of the main character was to find it, for the normal life of the School is impossible without it.
First we faced the task to think over the ideology, a way of arrangement and description of games. A game of this kind consists of a lot of rooms where the action goes on. Let us introduce a common object GAME governing moves between the rooms by calling out objects of Room_n. The name of the current room is kept in the global variable Room. Each of the objects carries out events in the corresponding room and, when the action is transferred to the next room, it finishes its work changing the value of the variable Room.
The room is described with the help of a synonymous list of commands available to every user. Besides, for each room a set of procedures for realisation of actions in it is described. Each of these procedures begins to work after entering the corresponding command.

Quest interface.

The language of the games is pseudoEnglish for there are considerable diffculties with using the Russian language in MSWLogo. In the chosen model a player communicates with the programme by entering commands which are close to natural language ones, for example: look, book, go beach, take key etc. The use of some synonyms is also allowed. After a command having been entered its first word is perceived as an action. It is looked for in the list of commands and the first synonymous meaning is taken; the second word is perceived as an object and is looked for in the list of objects and the first synonymous meaning is taken. The name for a procedure is constructed according to the following principle: an action_an object_a room name, each procedure of this kind being defined when describing a room.

Quest graphics

First a model with static graphics which does not display moves of the main character on the screen. Pictures of the background, characters and objects are scanned and then processed or simply drawn in the grapheditor. The background and objects for each room are stored in one file. When it is loaded the background gets into the visible part of the screen and objects into the invisible part. In case some action is displayed, changing objects is performed with the help of special library procedures.
A pseudoconstructor kit for realisation of Quest. Functions and procedures of service nature which are not used for room description are represented in the form of library ones.

1. ENTER (without parameters)
It displays on the screen a window for entering a command. After a command having been entered it goes to the corresponding processing procedure whose name is constructed according the following principle:Command_Object_Room#.
If a procedure of this kind is missing, a message about an error is given.
2. DRAW_ROOM :File_Name
It draws a room (BackGround). An image is taken from the file with the name File name.
3. DRAW_OBJ :Name
It displays an object with the name Name. The procedure requires for work a list OBJ of the following type:
OBJ [[Name X Y File_OBJ File_CUT]...],
where Name - a name of an object, X,Y - its coordinates on the screen,
File_OBJ - a name of a file containing the object,
File_CUT - a name of a file containing what is under the object (for the procedure RES_OBJ).
4. RES_OBJ :Name
It deletes an object with the name Name off the screen.
5. CYCLE (without a parameter)
it realises an infinite cycle for programme work for a time when a player does not enter a command.