Technology lessons for educational technology integration in the classroom. Content for teachers and students.
Enhanced Dice App Lesson 5
In this fifth lesson, we are going to add to our exiting animation. The dice are currently rotating. Dice are often thrown in the real world. I want to simulate what the dice might look like if they are thrown and are flying toward the stage.
Enhanced Dice App Lesson 5 of 5
In this fifth lesson, we are going to add to our exiting animation. The dice are currently rotating. Dice are often thrown in the real world. I want to simulate what the dice might look like if they are thrown and are flying toward the stage. In this animation, the dice will begin as smaller versions. This is intended to simulate that they are being thrown from a distance. The dice will gradually get larger until they come to rest at their original size.
Changing the dice size from small to large creates perspective. It creates a sense of motion. The dice will reduce in size when the button is pressed. The dice will increase in size as they roll and go through each loop. We need some math to help us do this.
The math is easy. The size of the sprites is set to 75 percent. The loop is set to iterate 10 times. We are going to create variables that will render the correct animation regardless of the values. The animation will work even if we change the number of iterations or the size of the dice.
Select the "Die1" sprite. Go to the Looks section and place the "change size by" code on the canvas. Don't attach it to the main code yet. We want to change the size of the image by a percentage. We need to calculate this percentage and place it in a variable. The code will receive the percentage from the variable.
Go to the variables section. Create a variable. Set the variable name to "Dice 1 size".
Place the variable into the "change size by…" parameter.
Place the code at the beginning of the main code string. The code is at the beginning because we want the sprite to resize before other effects are applied.
Select the "Die2" sprite. Place the "change size by" code at the beginning. Create another variable. Set the variable name to "Dice 2 size". Add the variable to the size parameter.
Select the "rollButton" sprite. Place the set code block from the variables section onto the canvas. Don't attach it to the main code yet. Change the set option to "Dice 1 size".
Place the divisor operator into the set parameter.
It is always a good idea to create variables to pass values into parameters. Create two variables. Set one of the variable names to "diceSize" and the other to "diceTurns". Place the "diceSize" variable into the numerator parameter. Place the "diceTurns" into the denominator parameter.
I chose these variable names to make it easier to understand what is going on here. Read the code block like a sentence. Set the dice 1 size to the dice size divided by the dice turns. Place this code at the beginning of the repeat loop.
Place another set code block in the loop. Place the code below the other set code. Change the set to "Dice to size". Add the operator to divide the dice size by the dice turns.
We need to set the values for our variables before running the program. This is called initializing the variables. Place two set variable code blocks before the repeat loop. Set the dice size to 75-percent. Set the dice turns to 10.
The repeat parameter in the loop needs to get its value from the variable we created. Place the "diceTurns" variable in the repeats parameter.
We are getting closer to the finish. The dice will spin and change size each time through the loop. The size depends on the denominator. The denominator needs to get smaller each time. This is so the size of the sprite gets larger each time. An easy way to look at this is to look at a table with the values from each pass in the loop.
In the table below we see that the initial image size is divided by 10. The size becomes 7.5 percent of the original size. The second time through the loop, the size is divided by 9. The size is now 8.3 percent. Each time through the loop the size gets a little larger as the denominator gets smaller. I think this a great way to show the relationship between denominators and numerators.
To change the size we need to change the "diceTurns" value. The loop has an internal counter. We need to create and use a counter of our own. Place a change code block from the variables section before the end of the loop. Change the variable to "diceTurns". The parameter is set to change the variable by 1. This will add one to the current "diceTurns" value. We want to decrease the value. Change the positive one to a negative one.
The code for our button is done. We need to update one code block in our sprites for this to work properly.
Go to sprite "Die1". Pull away the code at "start sound".
Remove the "change size by" code. Replace it with "set size to". Reconnect the code.
Place the "Dice 1 size" variable in the "set size to" parameter.
At the end of the loop, we will have an image of the dice that is the same as when we started. It is still good practice to set the initial size of our object at the beginning. Place a set size code block onto the reset code. Change the parameter to 75 percent. I entered a number into this variable. Is this the proper way to do this?
If you said no, then you are right. We need to use a variable in place of the 75 percent we entered. Replace the value 75 with the variable Dice 1 size.
Repeat the process with the "Die2" sprite. Make sure to use the "Dice 2 size" variable. Click the Roll button to run the app. The sprites will reduce in size at the beginning. They will get larger as they go through the loop. They will return to their original size at the end of the loop. If something doesn't go well then you need to go back and check the code. Review the images in my instructions.
There are information boxes on the stage along with the sprites. The information boxes show the values in the variables. Use this information to help troubleshoot any bugs in the app. Remove the information boxes when the app is working fine. To remove the boxes you need to remove the checkmark from each variable.
The link to my dice app is available below. Make a copy and use it to build on for your app.