Highland offers a wide range of electives. Electives can be used to explore studies outside the core curriculum. Electives offered are anything from sports and journalism, to photography and programming. I am here today to talk about one particular elective: computer science with Mr. Peterson.

Back in my Junior year, I took computer programming as an elective. I liked my experience, as I thought the class was fun but simple, and Mr. Peterson was a great guy. The class taught me how to use Scratch and Google Sketchup, and unlike a lot of other classes, he gave us a lot of creative freedom. Most assignments had an end goal requirement, like “have it multiplayer” or “draw a house,” but anything else was up to us. We could decide what kind of multiplayer game it was, and what the details of the houses were.

Perhaps the reason why I did so well in the class, was because I had experience in programming and model design. As a kid I had always been very creative and loved Legos. Eventually, I turned to video games, but my creativity stayed the same. In games like Minecraft and Garry’s Mod I could explore and interact with my own creations; which is a wonderful, godlike experience.

Then I found LittleBigPlanet, a game that gave a limited range of tools that, if you knew your stuff, could create almost anything. The game is primarily a platformer, but I have seen people create shooters, RPGs, mini games, full length movies, anything and everything you can set your mind to, if you know how to make it.

How the programming in LittleBigPlanet works is a lot like Scratch; how you place and hook up modules to activate things. It is as complex as you make it. If I want to make it so that when the player grabs a button it turns on a light, I place an object called a “grab sensor,” and wire it up to a light.

I can make the same concept more complex too. Like if I want it to be that only certain characters can grab the button, and make the light turn on permanently, I can add a tag sensor and hook that and the grab sensor up to an AND gate, and hook that up to a counter set to 1, so when a certain player with a tag grabs the button, both conditions are met so the AND gate sends out a signal, activating the counter so it is at 1/1 and permanently sends out a signal to the light.

I have used this system to create some pretty complex stuff, like a character stealth system, movement speed of characters, etc.

So, if any of this sounds interesting to you, or if you would like to learn more about programming, you should check out Mr. Peterson’s elective class.

This week was iPad handout week where students got their iPads during their Social Studies class. Since the district is controlling the iPads this year, some things were changed.

If a student wanted their iPad, their parents had to go on Parent Portal and fill out the form (iUpdate) online. Last year, students were given printed forms to sign which made things easier for those who had no access to Internet.

There were a few complaints about going on Parent Portal. One thing, is that people say the form was hard to find. At max, it took them about 10 minutes to find the form. Another complaint was that the access to Parent Portal was sent in the mail to the person’s residence during the summer. The complaint was that some people didn’t keep their mailing, or that the parents didn’t know they were supposed to keep it for future use.

For those students who didn’t get their iPads, there was a mailing sent to everyone about the iPad makeup day. Students would get another chance to get their iPad once their parents filled out the iUpdate form.

This year’s iPad handout went by surprisingly fast. Hopefully, everyone uses their iPads appropriately.

Woohoo, we’re getting iPads soon! There are many questions up in the air, and some that are still unanswered. Here are a few questions that might clear things up.
Continue reading iPads at Highland: What you need to know →