I have never had an Xbox or any sort of video game controller things in my house. Nor have I had any online games/Pacman allowed in my house. So this assignment was a little challenging because I had no definition of what would a average game need to make it fun. So here is the story: Our CSAI teacher, Mr. Dembo, asked us to create a game using our MicroBits. Not anything like Fortnite but a game where minimum one person can play. “Here’s the scoop” -Mrs. Tuten 2019. The MicroBit is usually used for a reaction game. Quick definition of a reaction game is basically where a player buzzes in and then there is an output. A lot of people in my class did the game where there is a icon and you had to press the correct icon. For me I did whoever buzzes in first is the winner. Now it is a lot of work to code and build that but is that really fun? No. So I worked on my code for 3/4 of the time we were given to build and made a nice twist. There was going to be an evil scientist and the good scientist. If the good scientist wins they prevent the evil one from getting a point. Now if the evil scientist gets 3 points then they win. I added a short animation that said A: CHAMPION! End then it ended there. It also showed the score and BAM! Game over. That was my idea. I tried the game on the simulator and it worked fine. So I was a relieved. The only problem was that I worked on my code so much that I only had two periods to work on my physical part. That caused me to rush on it. I eventually came up with a circuit that was as Mr. Dembo calls it “Alligator clips are magic wands.” He said that was not allowed and unfortunately for me I ended up finding this out the period before CSAI. So as you can see I was planning to use PE as a time to study but… unless I wanted to fail on my CSAI project I had to do this. So in 45 minutes with a small break I finished the circuit. As you probably can predict I had another problem. I was about present and I did not even test my new circuit. I would say I got really lucky with this that it worked and should try to listen for instructions next time.

Link to the code: https://makecode.microbit.org/_dwKFMsfH4eUg

Pictures:

Have you ever seen those shirts that say: If you’re reading this you are too close? Well, I have. Kind of funny but sometimes creepy. What if you could just tape a pesky little square with a few tempting fidget buttons and some red flashing eye blinding lights and that square detected: OI! YOU ARE TOO CLOSE! Well in CSAI our teacher asked us to use the MicroBit to make a social distancing alarmand detect whether you are 6 feet or not. I worked with a partner. We used a send radio number to the other person’s MicroBit. When it reached a certain number it gave a frowny face saying your too close! When you were out of the range it gave you a smiley face. My partner and I when we tested got 6 Feet on the dot and another time we got a few inches closer than 6 feet before it flipped to a frowny. I am suspecting the reason it turned to a frowny a little late is because we covered up the back of the MicroBit. The back is the one that sends the signal so covering up it will take longer to send the signal since there is an obstacle. The reason that I am thinking this is as soon as my partner removed is hand covering the MicroBit it immediately turned to a frowny face. I fact that was a little funny was that my MicroBit was not working at all! I am coming to a conclusion now that the battery did die! Anyway, my partner and I were literally almost freaking out. I rushed over to Mr. Dembo saying my MicorBit is not working! Well… that was a little foolish of me. He asked for my USB and when he plugged it in it started working… Some challenges we faced was the transmit power. Yes, that was causing us with wonky answers. If I was 10 ft away from my partner it would turn to a frowny face! That is why we set the transmit power to one so the signal is not too strong. We thought that if we are closer it will give clearer signals and commands. Some challenges we faced was the signal strength. The signal strength ranges from -42 to -142. -42 is when the MicroBit’s are closer and as you get farther the signal strength will just keep going down. We could not find the exact formula for signal strength to a human detectable measurement so we tested some numbers and eventually came to -90. This project was really hard with the exact measurements but coding was really simple if you use what we have learned so far in CSAI. Stay tuned for the MicroBit games!!!

Listen, I am being honest here. We had no clue on how to convert the radio number into inches or centimeters. We just did many trial and errors and came to -90.

Link to the Code: https://makecode.microbit.org/_fWy51pL34hUA

This week our topic was should cellphones be allowed in school or not. I was on the con side. Mr. Shilhanek did hint us that he would maybe switch us at the last minute so we had to prepare for both sides in 45 minutes which is not easy. You are at first playing a bad cop chasing down good people and now you are a good cop chasing down the robbers. I felt like this debate was probably the one with the least amount of facts and I understand because both teams had to prepare for both sides which is an advantage. The reason being is that now you have the possibility of knowing what the other team is going to say and you can be prepared to counter it. In the end, Mr. Shilhanek did not switch us and the judges decided that Con of using phones in the class won. Well, see you next time.

In CSAI we started learning how to use a Microbit which seems awesome but it is hard! We tried to make these fitbits out of the Microbits. Now, the site has a tutorial but the way it tracks the steps is not very accurate.

Here is the tutorial code:

So there is the code. It is actually and honestly quite simple. If you see it says on shake. Well, I would understand because when you move your hands or feet it technically shakes? The only question is how hard do you need to shake it in order to count a step. So I have done this awesome favor for you. Instead of asking for you to go test it yourself, I am going to tell you how hard it needs to be shaken! I know right BIG favor. Anyway, you need to shake it quite hard for the Microbit to actually recognize it and save it as a step and display one more than the last value. So, our teacher Mr. Dembo gave us this huge challenge to try and make it more accurate. My idea was to make it recognize more movement than just the shake feature. So, I added if logo screen down, up, side, and another side so that it can have more ways to recognize a step. I felt like that was some progress but it was not getting too many steps. If I were to take 100 steps it would track about fifty. Then I added the acceleration feature which basically tracks how much it accelerated. I put it in an if statement meaning if this acceleration is equal to this number change steps by 1. Then it started being very inconsistent where at one point it would get 100 on the dot and another it would get 200 on the dot sometimes even more. No matter how hard I tried to change it just kept being like that.

Here is my code:

This is the end hope you enjoyed it!!! Look out for my next post!!!

-Nishant

Yup! These are the debates in the past four weeks!

Soooo… For the past 4 weeks, I was in this club called Debate hosted on Fridays. The first debate we lost. We were debating on whether the school should start earlier or later. Honestly, I feel like starting at 8:15 is more than enough anytime earlier… Let’s just say it will not turn out well. So, anyway if you do not know the rules of a debate or you do not understand how those politicians debates let me explain. First off if you say the President vs the Vice President I understand you would not understand. If you watched that it explained how two five-year-old brothers fight for a new toy. Anyway… Each team gets three arguments to state. The first argument is supposed to spill everything on the table so you get 1 minute and thirty seconds. The second argument is supposed to build off the main idea and you get 1 minute to do that. Then the third argument is building off a smaller idea and you only get 30 seconds. Now each time after the opposing team says an argument there is one person on your team who states what people call the rebuttal or the counter statement or argument. They need to give reasons to counter the other team’s argument. Example in case your brain is about to explode. Argument: Chocolate gives everyone a fun and sweet time to relish. Rebuttal: Chocolate is proven to give you severe problems. Something like that. You have thirty seconds to state each rebuttal. So now you know the rules. So I was supposed to do the second argument and the person who did the first argument took all my facts! Or all the facts. So, if you were in a debate at that time you could probably tell that I had to make something up on the spot which is a lot harder than you think. So we lost the first one. In the second debate, I got to judge the debate which was really fun. The topic was is social media good or bad for you? So the Social media is bad for you won, mainly because on the pro side the first person took only 15 seconds to spill all the facts. You usually want to have more than enough facts and that person only took fifteen seconds. So that was the main reason they lost. The third debate was by far my favorite. School in person vs virtual. So, I am a hybrid and I have gotten a feel for both. Personally, I feel that I like in person better than online. So, the other team had no rebuttals to counter our arguments when we did counter all their arguments so yay! We won! Last week’s debate was Star Wars vs Star Trek. I was on Star Trek and Star Trek won. We put in 8 ideas that Star Wars had copied and I guess I felt that was the strongest part because other than that and racial and gender equality Star Wars probably had better arguments. Alright you enjoyed this I hope and see you in the next post if you read it!

-Nishant

Hi! We are Project Lit. What is Project Lit? Well Project Lit Community is a group of 1000+ schools that make students LOVE reading! However, in this group we do a little more than that. We want to help our community, future generations, help underprivileged people, and spread the word and love of reading. Why is it important to read? Well words are everywhere! Not to mention how boring life would be if we did not have any books at all! So, Every time we post a video or description of something related share it so that we can spread the word of reading.

Hey Guys! I am back with another post. Hopefully, you enjoyed the Mulan trailer which I thought was inspirational! Anyway, I am writing this to show you my best coding project on Turtle Art. It is basically a drawing game which I coded myself. So, hopefully, you enjoy this, and if you want to access it yourself see here for yourself! If you do not wish fine with you, but here is a screenshot of what my code is. I used action keys and learned about the shells. That is where I got my image of a little boy who I like to name Jack. Before the game starts I added a circle in which I used the forward, right, and left blocks. To make the pen follow wherever you drag your mouse I put set mouse XY which means wherever your mouse clicks on the board the turtle will follow. Please Comment Below…!

When the Emperor directs his troops towards to fight enemies from the North. Mulan enters under her father’s name Hua Jun to become a legendary warrior. Please Comment Below!

Hey guys! My name is Nishant Narayanan! Fun fact about myself is that I love to travel! I have been to 10 different countries (the USA, Canada, Jamaica, London, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Germany, Spain, and India.) 10 different states (Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, Virginia, Maryland, California, Florida, and Indiana). I will be writing here on some days and other days you should really read this because each and every one of them will be meaningful one way and another. Sometimes you may see fundraisers, reflections, and current events. See you guys soon! Subscribe to Project Lit Youtube Channel! Please comment below!

–Nishant N.