Week 7: Ladybug Chase

This week I did not have as much time as I had hoped to complete the Ladybug Chase project.  Usually, I like to skip the reading, look at what the end result requirements are, and try to complete the project on my own with plenty of modifications.  Unfortunately, for this project, I stuck much closer to the example project with little modification.

Something else that was frustrating was the amount of bugs I encountered during the development of my app.  I don't know if it was because of the new Backpack tool, but something was glitchy with the AI2 platform.  Many times I had to go back and reassign processes because AI2 would randomly change the names.  For example, every call of the UpdateLadybug process might randomly change to UpdateAphid.  I would then have to hunt through all the blocks and remember which call belonged where.  It's frustrating enough to deal with my own bugs, let alone have to hunt for bugs that I didn't cause.

The modifications to the Ladybug Chase app are:

• redesign: planes and fuel instead of ladybug/frog and aphid
• difficulty setting makes fuel run out faster and more enemy planes spawn
• added menu button to go back and change difficulty
• propeler animation to reinforce flying simulation

QR for app download:

If I had more time this week, I would have made the planes jump to the other side of the screen when they reached the edge (like in Asteroid, see image below).