Logo Session, July 1993
Uchcom Home page
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:
- turtle graphics;
- variables;
- procedures;
- lists and different ways to use them.
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:
- colour of the object
- its position on the screen
- the shape of the object
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.