Computer Science 50: Introduction to Computer Science I Harvard College Fall 2007

Problem Set 0: Scratch

Getting Started. 0. Per the courses syllabus, obtain an FAS (Faculty of Arts and Sciences) Computer Account, if you havent one already, by visiting the URL below and following the on-screen instructions.
https://www.fas.harvard.edu/computing/utilities/activate-pin/

Not only will this account will provide you with access to FASs computer facilities, it will also provide you with an email address of the form username@fas.harvard.edu, where username is your FAS username. Additionally, this account will allow you to access via SFTP and SSH nice.fas.harvard.edu, FASs New Linux Computing Environment, use of which is required by this and future problem sets. SFTP and SSH clients are available for various platforms via the courses website. Usage thereof will be taught in section and office hours. Itching to Program? 1. Surf on over to the URL below and sign up for an account on MITs website.
http://scratch.mit.edu/signup

Take care to remember your choice of username and password. 2. Then head to the URL below and take note of the resources available to you before you dive into Scratch itself.
http://scratch.mit.edu/howto

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Of particular help may be the links to Getting Started, Help Screens, Reference Guide, Scratch Cards, and Videos. You might also want to skim the tutorial below, which presents Scratch in terms a (soon-tobe) programmer should understand.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cs50/resources/scratch/

3.

If not already installed on the computer youre using, download Scratch itself via the URL below.1
http://scratch.mit.edu/download

Once downloaded, install the software by double-clicking its icon and following any on-screen directions. 4. Head to
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cs50/lectures/weeks/0/src/

and download the source code for Raining Men (i.e., Raining Men.sb), written by CS 50s own Andrew Berry, to your desktop. Open the file in Scratch, either by double-clicking its icon or by double-clicking Scratchs (whiskered) icon and navigating your way to Andrews file by way of the Open button toward Scratchs top-left corner. Summon two friends to your computer, click the green flag toward Scratchs top-right corner, sit back, and enjoy. Tell your friends they can play Andrews project on their own computers (without downloading Scratch itself) simply by visiting the URL below.2
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cs50/shortcuts/men

5.

Send your friends away and spend some time looking over Andrews scripts. Dont forget that each sprite has its own set of scripts. Try to get a sense of how the overall program works. Try making some changes, even while the program is running, to see how the program responds. Its perfectly okay if you dont quite follow how everything works. Bear in mind that this project was implemented by someone who has already completed CS 50. But appreciate that the entire program (and its humor) reduces, quite literally, to some basic building blocks.

1 Students running an operating system other than Mac OS or Windows should please find a computer with either of those operating systems to use for this problem set (e.g., in the Science Center, a houses lab, or a friends room). 2 To play programs like Andrews within a browser, theyll need to have a Java Runtime Environment installed on their computers, which they probably do. If not, they (and you) can download Java 6 Update 2 for free via the link to Software on the courses website.

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6.

Go ahead and download the source code (i.e., *.sb files) for a few more projects, either from
http://scratch.mit.edu/

or from
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cs50/lectures/weeks/0/src/

even if you already saw it in lecture. For each program, run it to see how it works and then look over its scripts to understand how it works. Feel free to make changes to scripts and observe the effects. Once you can say to yourself, Okay, I think I get this, youre ready to proceed. 7. (40 points.) Now your own adventure begins. Your task for this problem is, quite simply, to have fun with Scratch and implement a project of your choice (be it an animation, a game, interactive art, or anything else), subject only to the following requirements. i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. Your projects filename must be username.sb, where username is your FAS (not MIT) username. Your project must have at least two sprites, none of which may be a cat. Your project must have at least three scripts total (i.e., not necessarily per sprite). Your project must use at least one condition, one loop, and one variable. Your project must use at least one sound. Your project should be more complex than most of those demonstrated in lecture (many of which, though instructive, were quite short) but it can be less complex than, say, Oscartime or Raining Men. As such, your project should probably use a few dozen puzzle pieces overall.

Feel free to peruse additional projects online or those that come with Scratch for inspiration, but your own project should not be terribly similar to any of them. Try to think of an idea on your own, and then set out to implement it. If, along the way, you find it too difficult to implement some feature, try not to fret; alter your design or work around the problem. If you set out to implement an idea you find fun, you should not find it hard to satisfy this problems requirements. If you suspect your program might fall short of our expectations, feel free to ask us for our opinion prior to submitting. Alright, off you go. Impress us. There shall be awards for The Cutest, The Funniest, and The Most Amazing submissions. Do take advantage of the courses bulletin board as well as office hours (virtual or otherwise), the schedule for which is available on the courses website.

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8.

Once finished with your project, prepare to upload it to your account on MITs server by clicking the Share! button toward the top of Scratchs window. Provide the login name (i.e., username) and password that you chose earlier, along with a name for your project and some notes (e.g., some instructions or a description). Then click the OK button. Assuming youre informed that Your project is now online, head on over to the URL below.3
http://scratch.mit.edu/login

Log in (if you arent still logged in) with your username and password. Once logged in, click my stuff toward the pages top-right corner. You should see your project among My Projects. Then point your browser to the URL below.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cs50/galleries/scratch/

Make sure that youre still logged in. (If you see Welcome followed by your username atop the page, you are.) If not, click Login to log in again. Toward the pages right-hand side, click add my projects. In the window that appears, click your own projects name, wait for a checkmark to appear to the left of it, then click Accept. If you return to the URL above, you should find that your project has been added to CS 50s gallery for others to enjoy. If not, do try again or contact the staff for assistance. If you absolutely do not want others to see your work, you may skip this whole sharing process altogether without penalty. But, even if you think your project The Ugliest, The Unfunniest, or The Least Amazing, you are encouraged to share it anyway! If you thought that was nice... 9. 10. If unfamiliar, peruse the document entitled How to SSH to nice.fas.harvard.edu, available via the link to Resources on the courses website. Configure your FAS account for use in this course by SSHing to nice.fas.harvard.edu and executing the command below. Note that the tilde (~) is likely in your keyboards top-left corner.
~cs50/pub/bin/cs50setup

3 If your project is larger than 10 megabytes (MB), your upload might be rejected by the server. Try to decrease its size (e.g., by compressing any sounds with third-party software). But if shrinking your files size would compromise your works artistic integrity, you may skip this sharing process altogether without penalty.

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You will then need to log out for the changes to take effect. Upon logging back in, you can confirm the changes effect by executing the command below.
cs50check

If said command is not found, you probably failed to follow these directions correctly! For assistance with this process, simply contact the courses staff. Otherwise, proceed to type the command below.4
mkdir ~/cs50/

Youve just created in a directory (i.e., folder) called cs50 in your so-called home directory (the shorthand for which is a tilde). All of your work will ultimately need to reside within this directory this semester for submission. Next, execute the following command.
mkdir ~/cs50/ps0/

Perhaps needless to say, youve just created a directory called ps0 within that cs50 directory. Confirm as much by executing the command below.
find ~/cs50/

You should see output resembling the below, where username is your FAS username and u and s are the first and second characters thereof.
/home/u/s/username/cs50/ /home/u/s/username/cs50/ps0

If you do not, you may want to re-try one or more of these steps or contact the staff for assistance. 11. (15 points.) Change your present working directory to ~/cs50/ps0/ by executing the command below.
cd ~/cs50/ps0/

To check that you are indeed in ~/cs50/ps0/, execute the command below.
pwd

Note the difference between ~/cs50 in this command and ~cs50 in the previous command. 5 of 7

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You should see output resembling the below.5

Needless to say, ~ is actually shorthand for /nfs/home/u/s/username/. Open a new ASCII (i.e., text) file called questions.txt by executing the command below.
nano questions.txt

Proceed to type answers for each of the questions below using Nano. Recall that you can move your cursor around within Nano using your keyboards arrow keys but not your mouse. Useful keystrokes include ctrl-v (which pages down), ctrl-y (which pages up), ctrl-o (which saves), and ctrl-x (which quits).6 i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix. x. xi. Whats your first and last name? Whats your FAS username? Whats your preferred email address? What year are you? Whats your (likely) concentration? Why are you taking CS 50? Any questions or concerns for your (soon-to-be) teaching fellow? In a paragraph, tell us what your Scratch project does (or how to use it). In one or more paragraphs, explain how your Scratch project works, noting the purpose of each sprite and script. In one or more paragraphs, point out any known bugs (i.e., mistakes or quirks) in your Scratch project and explain why theyre still there (i.e., why you didnt or couldnt fix them).7 Floppy disks, as you (now) know, are a form of magnetic storage. CD-Rs, though, are not. In a short paragraph of your own words, how are bits stored on a CD-R?8

Upon quitting Nano, you can confirm that you did, in fact, create questions.txt by executing the command below.
ls

That command should list all files (or, in this case, the only file) in your present working directory.

Sometimes, though, /nfs is excluded from such output. If prompted, upon quitting, to Save modified buffer, you probably want to hit Y, since thats just an arcane way of asking you if you want to save your changes to the file. 7 We will not penalize any bug you disclaim. Only those bugs you dont disclaim (or even notice) will put points at risk! 8 For this question, youre welcome to consult How Computers Work, Google, Wikipedia, a friend, or anyone else, so long as your words are ultimately your own!
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12.

If unfamiliar, peruse the document entitled How to SFTP to nice.fas.harvard.edu, available via the link to Resources on the courses website. SFTP to nice.fas.harvard.edu, navigate your way to ~/cs50/ps0/ (the hierarchy of directories you created earlier at the command line via SSH) by double-clicking the icon for cs50 followed by the icon for ps0, and upload your Scratch project (i.e., username.sb) to the latter directory.

13.

SSH to nice.fas.harvard.edu again (unless you left that window open, in which case you can continue using that session). Navigate your way at the command line to ~/cs50/ps0/. (Remember how?) Check that both questions.txt and username.sb are now in that directory. (Remember how?) Submit those files by executing the command below.
cs50submit ps0

Thereafter, follow any on-screen instructions until you receive visual confirmation of your works successful submission. You will also receive a receipt via email to your FAS account, which you should retain until terms end. You may re-submit as many times as youd like; each resubmission will overwrite any previous submission. But take care not to re-submit after the problem sets deadline, as only your latest submissions timestamp is retained. 14. (4 points.) Section for the course anytime between 10:00 A.M. on Tuesday, 25 September 2007, and 7:00 P.M. on Friday, 28 September 2007 by visiting the URL below and following the on-screen instructions.
http://www.section.fas.harvard.edu/

You will be informed of your assigned section via email by 12:00 P.M. on Sunday, 30 September 2007. 15. (1 point.) Thats it! Can you believe youre taking CS 50? Heres a free point for you.

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