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Creating A Timetable
About
the Project | Designing
the Project | Programming
Improving the Project | Assignments | Download the Project
Task
- to create a timetable sheet for your class with subject cards.
You need to know
- how to change a turtle's shape and events
You will learn
- to copy a turtle by using the command clone,
to define the events assigned to a turtle by setEvent,
to modify and delete unnecessary events, to work with LogoMotion
and set the Hot spot of an .LGF image
At the beginning of each term pupils receive a new timetable of
lessons. In Imagine Logo a simple schedule can be created.
The timetable is a grid, and each lesson is a 'card' that can be
dragged from a selection 'bank' to the grid.
Lesson cards can be moved around freely and the timetable updated
if lesson times change.
- You will draw a grid that will be your basic timetable. This
can be done in Logomotion or Imagine Logo. The first
column of the grid will list the days of the school week from
Monday to Friday.
- Lesson cards will be created in Logomotion. A 'bank'
of them will appear at the top of the screen, from which they
can be individually dragged into the grid. In this way a customized
timetable can be created by the user.
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Each lesson card will be a turtle
- that is freely draggable around the screen.
- that will create a clone of itself every time it is clicked
upon. This will create the illusion that, for every lesson,
there is a stack of cards. NB: This is necessary (and useful)
because the same subject is often taught several times a week,
such as Maths or English Language.
You must first create all the graphics that you will need in this
project: this means the timetable grid and all your subject cards.
The timetable grid can be drawn directly in Imagine Logo
and saved as a background.
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The Imagine Logo painting tools are
displayed when you click on the Show/Hide Paint Bar
icon on the Main Toolbar. You will see that there is an array
of pencils, a spray can, eraser, colour palette, and a
Select Area option. These will allow you to draw directly
onto the background of your Imagine Logo project.
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| The grid needs to have five rows
(one for each day of the week) but the number of columns will
vary according to how many lessons you have each day. You may
find that the Rectangle tool is most useful for drawing
the grid. |
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To ensure that the newly drawn background is saved correctly
with the project, a few settings in Imagine Logo have
to be checked.
On the Main toolbar go to File and choose Save
Project As.... In the dialog window click on the Options...
button in the bottom right-hand corner. Make sure that
the following two options are ticked:
Save Pages With Background Pictures
Save Panes With Background Pictures
Click on OK to exit.
Now give your project a name, such schedule.IMP and
save it.
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Alternatively, if you want to, you can draw
the grid in Logomotion, and import the graphic to the
background.
To do this, select Page from the
Main toolbar, and then click on Load Background.
In the dialog window you will then have
to browse to the graphic you want to use. The Preview
window of the dialog will help you check the image before
importing it into your project.
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A series of options is also available for you to choose how your
image should appear as the background. For example, you could Stretch
the graphic so that is exactly fits the screen size, or even Tile
the image so that it repeats across the screen. These are options
that you can play around with in your own time. For this project,
however, the option needs to be set to SetBGPicture. To finish,
click on Open.
Creating the images for the subject cards
is a two-stage process, beginning in Imagine Logo, and then
moving into Logomotion.
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You will have to know
how big the cards need to be, and so you are going to take a
'measurement' of a grid cell. Go to the Main toolbar and choose
the Select Area tool. |
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Click and drag out an area around one of
the cells of your grid.
NB: This area needs to be just outside
of the cell's black border so that you have an outline to
work with in Logomotion.
Go to Edit on the Main toolbar and
click on Copy. This will put a copy of your selected
background area onto the Clipboard.
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Right click on the turtle. From the dropdown menu choose
Paste Shape. This will change your turtle's appearance
by giving it the image that you copied onto the Clipboard.
You will now want to edit this shape, giving it a background
colour and a subject name such as 'Math'.
Right click on the turtle again - make sure you click on
the black outline of the rectangle as the rest of the image
is transparent. Select Change t1.
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Clicking on the image of the rectangle in the dialog window
will launch Logomotion and let you edit this shape
as you want.
 To
return to Imagine Logo at any time, click on the Save and
Exit button in the top right hand corner of the Logomotion
screen.
 Before
you do this, however, you will need to check the Hot Spot
of your subject card. Make sure that it is central to your
graphic. You do this by clicking on the Hot Spot button
on the Main toolbar, or by using the keyboard shortcut F11.
Clicking on the cross in the middle of your graphic will let
you move the Hot Spot anywhere inside, or outside,
of the image.
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NB: A Hot Spot is
a point [x y] set. This point is recognized by each Imagine Logo
image command and behaves as a reference point. When you click and
drag your turtle, your cursor will fix onto the Hot Spot.
Therefore, making your Hot Spot central will allow for easier
movement and positioning of your subject card.
Once you have returned to Imagine Logo, there are a few
properties of your turtle that you must check.
- In the Basics tab view, make sure that the Pen down
option is not selected - you do not want your turtle to behave
as a pen and draw lines as it is dragged across the screen.
- Also, to allow the turtle to be dragged on the screen, go to
the Shape tab and select the Auto Drag option.
Close your dialog by clicking on OK.
By
copying this turtle, you can create the other subject
cards quickly and easily.
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Right click on your turtle and choose Copy
to Clipboard from the dropdown menu. Then right click
anywhere on the screen and choose Paste from Clipboard.
A 'clone' of your first turtle should appear. It will have,
not only the same appearance, but also the same properties
that will allow it to be dragged without Pen down.
Altering the clone's appearance is done
through Logomotion. Right click on it and select the
option Edit Shape. The art package will automatically
launch with your graphic.
You can create as many cards as you like.
If you want to delete one, then right click on it and choose
the Erase option from the dropdown menu.
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Improving the Project
The cloning process of a turtle can be made far easier so that
you don't have to make lots and lots of subject cards. You could,
instead, set an Event for your turtle so that, when it is
left clicked on by a mouse, it produces a clone of itself. For this
to happen, all you need is a short piece of code in Logo.
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Right click on your first turtle, and choose
Change t1 from the dropdown menu. Go to the Events
tab and click on the Add button.
From the listed Events choose onLeftDown
and click the OK button to exit the list.
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Where your cursor is flashing, next to the
onLeftDown
prompt, type the following command:
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clone myName [] toFront
setEvent "onLeftUp [eraseEvent "onLeftDown eraseEvent "onLeftUp]
Click on OK to finish. You can now try your project out
to see if the cloning works.
Below you will find a breakdown of this
command:
- clone myName
inputs the name of the turtle that you want to clone.
- []
contains the settings for the new turtle. In this case, the brackets
are empty, because the clone will have identical settings to the
original i.e. Pen Up and Auto Drag.
- the command toFront
makes the clone appear in front, or on top, of the original. This
also ensures that the clone, when dragged, will be in front of
all other turtles, text boxes etc. that are on the screen.
- setEvent
creates a new event called onLeftUp
for the turtle. The commands that follow this will happen when
the subject card is clicked down on a new screen position. The
left mouse button (which has been held down all this time) will
then be released - hence onLeftUp.
- When the left mouse button is released, the original turtle
is told to eraseEvent
"onLeftDown.
In this way, it knows not to create any more clones. Canceling
the first event, in this way, then naturally leads to the second
one having to be cancelled as well i.e.eraseEvent
"onLeftUp.
NB: To read what the Imagine Logo help file has to say
on each commands, double click on a command to highlight it, then
hold down the keys <Ctrl> and F1.
Assignments
Think of other ways in which a timetable could be used. Do you
belong to a Youth Group that could use a schedule like this? Or
maybe your family has a cleaning, or washing-up rota that could
be made into an Imagine Logo project.
You can download an example of the finished project by clicking
here.
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