7. Wrap-up: Platform Game

Congratulations on programming your first platform game! You’re no longer just someone who plays video games, but someone who creates them.

The computer science concepts you used to make this program are some of the most important concepts in video game creation: events and If statements. However, these concepts aren’t just important relative to video games, but to nearly everything you can do with computer science. When you take a computer science class in high school or college, you'll see these familiar concepts that you're using every day again and again. Future classes will teach you more about creating with the events, variables, and if statements that you're using in this CS First club. There’s also a good chance you will use some computer science down the road, because the concepts and skills you are learning now are put to use in many different fields--even in ones you may find surprising. Artists, for example, use computer science skills like events and if statements to create art. There is an entire genre of art, called interactive art, that includes art pieces that actively involve the user.

Here is an example of an interactive art installation: a dance floor that reacts to touch events.

When the user steps on the dance floor, it creates a spiral pattern. The artist is responsible for programming how the floor responds to touch events.

Here is the same dance floor, except now, the floor is a different color and behaves differently. The floor looks different because the artist changed its code.

Here is another example of interactive art, the “wooden mirror.” It is made up of more than 800 wood pieces that reflect light in different ways, forming a mirror image of the user.

The wooden mirror works by taking a black-and-white video, then using if statements to control the wood pieces. If an area of the picture is dark, then tilt the wood piece in that area down. If an area of the piece is light, then tilt that wood piece up.

These interactive art pieces would not be possible without computer science. Knowing a little computer science, like you are learning in this club, can empower you to be more creative in whatever field interests you. Next session, we’ll explore randomness using a dodgeball game.

Until next time-- have fun creating and coding. See ya next time!