CS 106 Winter 2016

Lab 00: Orientation

Summary

The goal of this lab is mostly just to make sure you're ready to use Processing and the other technologies that will power the labs and assignments in this course. We'll ask you to visit a few websites, read through some information, and make a few very simple changes or additions to sketches.


Question 1 Login

Log in to one of the Macs in your lab room (if you're in LAB 004 or LAB 006, you can go directly to MC 3003). That's it, just make sure you can access your account. Sure, you might be planning to use your own laptop all term, but laptops crash, and we want to make sure you always have access to the lab as a backup. (For that matter, now is a good time to ensure you have a good backup strategy in place. Consider using an automated backup system like Time Machine on Macs, or save your work into a folder that's automatically cloned by Google Drive or Dropbox.)


Question 2 Processing

Launch Processing and make sure it runs smoothly. Please make an effort to run the latest version of Processing (which is currently 3.2.3, but anything starting with 3 is probably OK).


Question 3 Course web page

You must have seen at least part of the course web page if you're reading these lab instructions, but go back to the main page and have a look around, just to familiarize yourself with the layout. We'll be putting a minimal amount of information on LEARN in this course—unless there's a specific reason to keep information private, it will be publicly visible on this page.


Question 4 Piazza

Visit the Piazza page for this course. You should already be enrolled in the course, or have received an invitation to do so. Either way, make sure you're enrolled now. Piazza will be our primary means of answering questions and issuing timely announcements, so be sure to check it frequently.

You'll notice that there's already a post with the subject "Welcome to CS 106!". Please read that post and add your answer to the Student Answer as appropriate.


Question 5 Clickers

As a former CS 105 student, you should already have a clicker. If you don't, you should buy one ASAP. You will then need to register your Clicker ID with this course, as you did last term. To do so, please visit the registration page and follow the instructions there.


Question 6 LEARN

We will use LEARN mainly to collect electronic assignment and lab submissions, and to provide feedback on those submissions. Please make sure that you can see this course (under the name "CS 106 - Winter 2017") in your LEARN account. If not, get help immediately so that you're able to submit your work.


Question 7 Starter code

For many labs and assignments, we'll be providing starter code that you can use as a point of departure for your work. Please download the file L00.zip and unzip it, ideally into a folder set aside for this course. You'll see that it includes subfolders for a few different Processing sketches.


Question 8 Academic integrity

We take Academic Integrity very seriously, and we want to make sure that you're aware of your responsibilities for lab and assignment submissions. Last term, you were asked to read Policy 71 and to complete the online Academic Integrity Tutorial and Quiz. If you are unfamiliar with those documents, or need a refresher, please go over them again now.

We have provided a sketch titled AcademicIntegrity with our own text about requirements for code submission. Open the sketch in Processing. You do not need to read or understand the code in this sketch, which is beyond our expectations for students in this course. You will find that the text about integrity is not in the code itself, but in an accompanying data file lines.txt. Find the file by selecting Sketch → Show Sketch Folder from Processing's menu, then navigating into the data subfolder. Open the text file using your favourite text editor. Indicate that you have read it by changing the second and third lines of the file to your name and Student ID number, as indicated there. Save the modified file. You can now run the sketch to view the result, if you want.


Question 9 Literally one line

In the L00 folder, create a new sketch titled OneLine. This sketch must create a window of size 250×250, colour it white, and then draw a single black line anywhere in the window. The line should have a thickness of 1 pixel (the default). The entire line should be contained in the sketch window, and it should be immediately visible when the sketch opens (so don't run it along the edge of the window). Notwithstanding those constraints, we encourage you to be creative or daring with your choice of line.

Put a comment at the top of your sketch with your name and student ID number. Generally, speaking, you should include a similar comment for all future labs and assignments.


Question 10 Extra! Extra!

Congratulations, you're ready for CS 106! Let's celebrate with a front-page headline. The provided sketch ExtraExtra simulates a spinning newspaper front page, a common special effect in old movies. The implementation of the effect is provided for you as a toy. All you need to do is customize it as follows:

The sketch is somewhat complicated, but you do not need to understand all of it. Look for two comments labeled TODO for the places where you need to modify code. All you have to do is modify one or two variables to complete the sketch. Of course, you're welcome to study the rest of the code or play around with it, if you're interested; but no further changes are required.

Submission

When you're done, please zip up the entire L00 folder into a single file, and submit that file to LEARN. Do not submit multiple individual files! However, feel free to re-submit the complete zip file as many times as you like; we will mark the final pre-deadline submission. Please consult the full How To Submit document for additional information.