Phase 1 due Monday, September 27 (11:59pm)
Phase 2 due Sunday, October 10 (11:59pm)
You must design and implement a language for animating shapes (similar to a limited form of Flash animations). Shapes should be able to move around the screen and resize either in fixed numbers of steps or over designated time intervals. Here are three examples of animations in action.
Specifically, the requirements on your animation language are as follows:
For this project, you will provide:
A language for specifying animations as described above, and
A program (interpreter) that will run an animation written in your language, displaying it on the screen.
You will do the project in two stages: a language design stage, followed by an implementation stage. Each stage has a separate due date, as described below.
The goal of the project is to make sure each student can define, design, and implement a domain-specific programming language. This is an individual project -- you may not work with your homework partner, or any other students, on this project (see the collaboration policy for more details).
For this phase, you must propose the data definitions for a language for animations. You must submit both the proposed language and examples showing how to represent the first and third sample animations, plus an animation of your own choosing that includes compound shapes, in your language:
You do not need to be able to run animation programs at the end of this stage. Macros for the language are not needed at this stage either (you can add those in the implementation stage). All you need to submit are the data definitions and examples of data that you need to capture animation programs.
Submit an electronic file design.scm or design.ss (under turnin name project-design) containing your work for this phase.
For this phase, you must provide a function
run-animation that takes an animation in your language
and runs it (displays the animation on the screen). Your animation
should happen in one window over time---you are not trying to produce
a sequence of still frames as shown in the samples.
We will use the (built-in) draw.ss teachpack in DrScheme for the graphics. Use DrScheme version 207, not 208 (or we might not be able to test your project).
You may decide to change or enhance your original language design as you try to implement the language. That's fine. Your project report will describe all changes you decided to make.
Provide a text file with answers to the following questions:
What must the TA do to run your program? Provide concrete instructions (such as "execute (run-animation animation1)"), including a list of the animations you defined as your test cases. The TAs won't grade a program that they can't run.
What is the status of your implementation? Explain which features/aspects work and which don't. If you didn't get the compound shapes to work, for example, say so. This gives the TAs guidelines on how to test your system.
How have you changed your design since the version you submitted for the design deadline? Explain the changes and why you made them (i.e., I found I couldn't do X because of problem Y with my earlier definition). We're interested in seeing what doing the implementation taught you about the language design.
What, if anything, do you think could be cleaner in your design or implementation? If you are satisfied with your design, say so. If you think certain aspects should really be easier to use, easier to write, etc, explain those aspects and what you'd like to see different. No danger of losing points for honesty here (you'll only lose points for problems that we can detect without reading your report) -- we just want to hear your assessment as we determine our own.
A file animations.scm or animations.ss containing your work for this phase.
A file report.txt containing your project report. Please submit these in plain text, rather than in Word format.
Submit these via turnin, under the name project-final.
In general, the design phase counts for 25% of your project grade, the implementation phase (including final language design) for 70%, and your project report for 5%.
We will grade your language designs on a 4-grade scale (check+, check, check-, no credit). At this stage, we're looking to see whether you thought out the design phase well -- did you identify appropriate data, control, etc? Does your design adequately support the given examples?
There's no single right answer for this part, and while we will make suggestions on your designs, we won't give you a single right answer to follow when doing your implementation. Part of the exercise is for you to have to work with, and perhaps revise, your initial language design when it comes time to implement your animation system.
In the implementation phase, we will be looking at your final language design and its implementation. More specifically:
A passing (C) grade on the project requires a reasonable language design and a working run-animation function that support (1) circles and rectangles as shapes (but not necessarily compound shapes), (2) at least one variable in shape definitions, and (3) animations over time with both slides and bounces.
A grade of B requires that your language and interpreter support the full language described above. The final language design also has to be reasonably good.
A grade of A requires that you satisfy the requirements for a B grade, and that you provide a cleaner, macro-based interface to your language for animations. You should also have a very good language design for an A.
You are welcome to add extra kinds of animation to your language, but new features will not make up for missing required elements of your language. Adding features while your program isn't yet robust will cost you points.
We will grade your report for writing (complete sentences, spelling, punctuation, clarity, etc) as well as technical content.
We will look for whether you followed good coding practices, such as uses of helper functions, in your prototypes.
We expect you to follow the Homework Expectations on this assignment, with two exceptions: (1) you may use begin where appropriate, and (2) you may use set! to store the time at which an overall animation started (but not for anything else). Contracts are expected. You do not need to include the test cases for the individual functions (but we hope you are testing as you go along nonetheless).
This is an individual project. Collaboration is not permitted on this assignment (not even with your homework partner). The course staff are the only people you may approach for help with this project (but do come to us if you need help). You may not ask anyone outside of the course staff questions on any aspect of this project. This includes:
Violations of this policy follow the general course collaboration policy, and will likely result in an NR for the course.
Why this policy? Given the fairly open collaboration policy on homeworks, this assignment helps me assess how much each student understands of the course material. Since some students struggle in timed situations such as exams, the project gives you a more open-ended setting in which to demonstrate what you've understood of the course material.