New Opportunities! 2/11/15

        Yesterday I went over to RPI in order to begin a project on making a game! I went from 1:15-4:00. It was really exciting! When I got there I talked to Ron and Audrey about what the project would consist of. I found out that I had to learn to code a game that was entertaining for kids, but also educational about antibiotics and how they lose their effect on bacteria. I had to think of all the possibilities and how in order to teach the kids, we need to keep their attention. We can't have too many words explaining what happens or else they won't read anything, therefore making the learning part invalid. Also the same is if we have not enough words, then they won't know enough in order to learn. Around 2:45 I went over to Danielle and learned her side of things and read a couple of articles to get a deeper understanding of the material I am basing my game off of. A lot of research has to go into it before I even begin coding!
They tried to make a simple simulation to show what happens when bacteria multiplies and here is what the code looks like:

The problem with this code is that the cloning is in a constant loop so it wont stop. This will cause the simulation to crash. We are trying to find alternative ways to show that the bacteria are growing at an exponential rate. One alternative was using the show and hide button so when the cell moved and touched one of the hidden cells, the hidden cell would show in order to give the appearance of it multiplying. All the ideas to put together to fix these problems are exiting and fun to figure out, I love a good challenge.