Sugar Evaluation

1) Rate each of the following out of 5:
Guest speaker: Rosemary about Timor 3/5
Guest speaker: Joel about the xo 4/5
Physics 5/5
SVG icon and Linux command line 3/5
Turtle Art 2/5
Other activity evaluation 2/5
Etoys 1/5
Scratch 5/5

2) Now write about
Three things that I learnt were how to make an object move and turn on its own in Etoys, I also learnt how to make my own icon using HTML kit and set it as my icon on Sugar, another thing that I learnt was how to draw certain shapes using turtle art
Three things that I enjoyed were making games on physics, using scratch and creating shapes on turtle art
Three things that I didn’t like were Etoys because it kept on freezing and I had to restart my work. I also did not like hacking sugar because it took too long and was confusing, another thing I did not like was
3) State which was the following with reasons:
The best thing was Physics because it is an easy program to understand and to use, it is also fun making up your own games on there
The worst thing was Etoys because the work too long to finish and it also kept freezing on me which meant I had to restart my work all over again
The most interesting thing was scratch because there are so many different things on there that you can do and also a lot of ways to do them
The most difficult thing was Etoys because it is hard to find some things when using it, it is not set out very well

4) XO
Is the xo or olpc a good idea for the children of the developing world? State your opinion and give reasons
I think the xo is a good idea because it does not need that much power and can last long without being plugged in. It is also durable and can survive being dropped, this is good for little kids

Rating: **
The screen shot above is of a game on the operating system Sugar, called 'Super Brain'. When playing the game you can, change the amount of coloured dots, the more there are the harder it will be. Once you choose your prefered amount of dots, you have to guess what combination of coloured dots the computer has chosen, if you choose a colour that is the same to the computers but is not in the right spot a small white dot will appear in the right box, and if you choose the same colour and it is in the right spot a small black dot appears in right box, you have only a limited amount of tries to get the correct combination. When you get the right combination the game restarts.
The positive points i think the game has are:
Quick and easy to understand and to play
Different difficulties to choose from
And the negative points i think the game has are:
The lack of graphic quality
To repetitive
I lost interest in this game very quickly.
This activity helps to train your brain and memory

The Great Race

By using the game Etoys on the operating system sugar I made my own race track with four cars, The cars could move foward and turn on there own, the cars would also stay in there own lanes. In the top right of the screen shot show the cars speed and how long they have been racing for. The buttons on the bottom are to make the cars start, to reset the cars and put them back at the start and to stop them racing. When one car gets right round the track at touches the finish line all the cars stop and the time stops.

The second and third screen shot shows the scripts i used for all the cars and the scripts i used for the 3 buttons. The cars script consist of how fast the cars go, it is set to random from 1 to 11, next in the script it tells, if this car touches the finish line it and the other three cars will stop where they are, and this stops the clock ticking. The bottom two in the script tells the car to stay in its lane, When the front of the car touches the line on either side of its lane it turns towards the centre of there respective lanes.

The button scripts. The top left script of the screen shot is the start button, it tells all the cars to start racing. The top right of screen shot is the stop button, it tells all the cars and the clock to stop where they are. The bottom script in the screen shot is the reset button, it tells all the cars to go back to the start.

Physics Activity

Today Mr Kerr told us to get into a group of up to 3 people and make a game in the physics activity. The group who makes the best game wins a very cool prize (a minty). The goal for our game was to get the ball into the goals which are on the top right hand corner of picture. Our group all drew a ball in the far top right corner and we watched till one off the balls got in, the picture shows that moment, the orange ball almost made it but it rolled backwards and fell out. The other people in my group were Captian Awesome and Twinnybum.

Joel Stanley Is a student at the university of Adelaide and he is studying computer systems engineering. He first decided to study computer systems engineering when he was in year 10 he went on a tour of the University of Adelaide.

He stayed in America for 3 months and whilst he was there he got a pie oven off of eBay in America and they put the Xo’s in there and cooked them at 65 degrees Celsius, because that is how hot it can get in the son in Thailand, he studied this for 10 weeks. M.I.T stands for Massachusetts institute of technology, a lot of smart people come from there, and the guys that invented the game ‘Guitar Hero’ started there.

Joel’s favourite operating system is Linux because windows annoy him and that linux’s programs are free and you can’t get sued if you change them. Joel also studied the Xo and how much power its uses, just to make sure it isn’t wasting power and so the people in the 3rd world countries don’t have to charge it that often.

When they come off the factory line they only test about one in a thousand or one in ten thousand, the test usually breaks the Xo as well. Mary Lou had invented the screen for the Xo, and Richard smith had worked on the low level software, he is also the boss of Joel Stanley. Mary Lou was working on a project that could project images of adverts on the moon, but it never got made.

Joel went to Romania for a weekend and he did a talk about the Xo in front of a class of students and there were some Romanian politicians, who are thinking about getting the Xo for their country Joel Stanley had to teach to 10 year old and an 8 year old how to pull about a Xo and put it back together again, they eventually worked it out and did it. It takes about 30mins for a ten year old and an eight year old to take a part and put a Xo back together, it takes Joel less than 5 mins to do it

My activity

Today just before i was playing the game called 'Physics' on the program sugar and made my own sort of game where you make a ball and try to get it to go right round and back to the start, i used the motor tool to make the triangles move and the pins to keep the 'course' up so i does not fall down, i played it a few times and only got the ball back to the start once, the following picture is that moment.

Guest speakers that visited east timor

Two people visited to East Timor, It is only 1 hour away from Darwin. In 1875 Indonesia took over East Timor then they left in 1999. All stuff coming into East Timor comes into one port. East Timor has only reasently made their language Portuguese, there local language is tetun. Australian troops are in East Timor to keep peace.

The locals call Foreigners malla, this means white person. There are a lot of Lovely beaches in East Timor, there are always packed. The two people stayed there with a family of missionaries from Brazil and they spoke Portuguese. The chief of village controls everything that happens in the village, main project for him is to get water down from the mountain.

A Lady they stayed with was teaching English in the local school. The missionaries are fully supported by the people they were sent by. The education in East Timor is very primitive. Kids don’t have to go to school; they will be at home or on the streets if they do not go. Two kids that they stayed with know 3 languages Portuguese tetun and English.

It is pretty challenging for foreigners in East Timor there are not many family leisure activities and hardly any electricity. The two people were using a scooter to get around. There Scooter only cost $2:50 to fill up. American dollar is the currency in East Timor.

In 2006 there was a terrible civil rights lots of people were massacred. East Timor went to a big mess after Indonesia left. A store was set up there especially for missionaries, you would never see a Timorese in their prices are too high. Router towers are set up over East Timor for broadband internet. People in East Timor generally don’t get to see or have a phone. The universities in East Timor have much less standard then year tens in Australia.

The Xo is used to teach kids and allows them to access the internet. An American missionary taught a local person called sentus how to teach English and sentus now has a job as the interpreter for the Australian troops in East Timor. The missionaries discussed whether the students of East Timor’s schools should be allowed to have the Xo and if they were allowed to take them to their home. Schools don’t have any stationary or paper, teachers just talk and the students only listen.

Churches have only just been introduced to East Timor and are run in their local language. The two people went to visit a town called Bow Pow. On their way there they saw locals planting rice, they also saw an abandoned Red Cross refuge hut which was taken up by the locals. They also went and saw a place called green pc which teaches locals how to fix up old and broken computers so they can sell them and make a business out of it, mosquito nets are everywhere in East Timor because of the fatal disease malaria.

Some places in East Timor only get to have electricity for three hours a day and sometimes they have random blackouts. They have no safety rules or insurance and no occupational health and safety in East Timor. Mobile phones are common in the city areas but they are expensive. They saw a man who loses income because half of his house was fire bombed and he can’t afford to fix it or get it demolished. Children are unable to afford to go to school. A Lady comes to a village to play games with the children and helps them learn, she also provides them with morning tea, and she makes sure that the children eat the food there because it may get taken off them by parents or older siblings if they take it home.

Massive downpours of rain just sinks into the ground because of the lack of cement this prevents flooding. Some of the Locals make homemade stairs to climb up trees, they have no safety harness, and they do sometimes fall and injure themselves. The two people visited someone that flies around the island to give medical aid to people who need it. They then charted a flight to the other side of the island. This flight only took 20 mins and it was comfortable for them. They Visited nuns that help local girls in their village learn about hospitality.