Reference no: EM132756124

ITECH1101 IT Problem Solving Hackathon - Federation University 

Overview - This is an individual assignment that requires you to devise and attempt to implement a game using block- based coding. You will design algorithms for your game, attempt to implement the algorithms and then present an aspect of your work to your peers. There are three separate parts to this assignment, coinciding with the stages of developing your solution:

Part 1: Design Documentation and Peer Review

Part 2: Hackathon Report

Part 3: Hackathon Presentation

Learning Outcomes Assessed - The following course learning outcomes are assessed by completing this assessment:

Relate goal - setting and plan formulation to problem solving.

Compare and contrast commonly used problem solving strategies.

Describe tools and techniques that can be used to model and describe problems.

Describe the value of reflection, attitude and self- efficacy toward s success in problem solving.

Decompose a problem and create goals and plans to solve that problem.

Devise and implement problem solving strategies which can be applied to a range of IT problems.

Develop and verify algorithms based on conceptual m odels used in programming.

Construct documentation describing how to solve a problem.

Apply problem solving strategies, tools and techniques to solve problems in a variety of domains.

Assessment Details -

Assignment Scenario - Your local council would lik e to release some resources to assist the community during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Your task is to design and develop an original computer game using Scratch v3 that in some way relates to the pandemic situation. Some ideas for this could include:

A supermarket frenzy game in which the player attempts to obtain as much toilet paper as possible, or, alternatively, races madly around the screen trying to obtain a single pack of toilet paper before it disappears.

A "virus attacks" game where the player tries to avoid being infected with the virus being spread around by computer players that infect each other whenever they touch or stay within close proximity for a predetermined time.

A maze game where the player attempts to move through an increasingly crowded space without touching anything.

The idea for the game is entirel y your choice within this scope, provided it can be implemented in Scratch v3.

Part 1: Design Documentation and Peer Review

This stage requires you to create som e initial draft documentation for your game.

You will create and document rules for your game, and develop algorithms for its implementation. These rules and algorithms may continue to evolve throughout the course of the hackathon, so they do not need to be perfect, but you do need to try to make these as complete as possible to get the best value out of the peer reviews and simplify the coding stage of the hackathon. Your documentation will continue to be updated as needed throughout the hackathon.

You will also peer review the designs of two other students in the course.

Peer reviews will be completed individually.

Game Idea

You can select any game within the scope outlined in the Assignment Scenario section on page 2. Your game must:

Be challenging for you, so that you are able to demonstrate your problem solving skills.

Require you to use a variety of problem solving strategies / techniques to complete.

Be creative. Fun is a huge element of a hackathon, so you want to select something that you will enjoy.

Require you to code the behaviour using Scratch v3, and be within the capabilities of Scratch v3. You may not use any other programming environment for this assignment.

Your game must also not be something that you can solve by following previously created instructions (even with minor modifications) or downloading existing programs. For example, you cannot find a similar game on Scratch and copy it as your own, or use a Scratch tutorial to provide your code. Looking at other examples and completing tutorials to help you learn is fine, but copying other work is not counted as using problem solving skills. You need to think through what your code requires for yourself.

Design Documentation

Once you have chosen your game, you must create documentation that outlines the rules and breaks down the logic of the gameplay into algorithms you can use to implement your game. You may need to break your gameplay down into smaller sub- tasks to achieve this, and should include statements that make the purpose of each task or subtask clear. Your documentation must clearly describe an overview of your game, the game rules and include algorithms and a UML model to represent the full functionality of the game you intend to implement during the hackathon. Your documentation must be saved in .pdf format.

Peer Reviews

As soon as the submission deadline has passed, you will have access to conduct a peer review on two other students' design documentation. These reviews will be allocated to you automatically. You will also review your own design. Your task is to review the documentation allocated to you and to evaluate it against a set of criteria provided in a marking rubric. You should consider how well the documentation defines the game under review, how clearly algorithms represent and address the game tasks and how effectively the UML diagrams describes the gameplay. You will also have the opportunity to provide your own comments, and should take care to provide specific comments that highlight both positive aspects and any potential issues with the proposed game and documentation.

Part 2: Hackathon Report

This part of the hackathon assignment requires you to discuss, analyse and reflect upon the problem solving techniques you use during the hackathon. You will document your work in Microsoft Word , or another suitable text editor of your choosing that enables you to include images in your work alongside text. This document will act as your Work Journal. You will update and maintain your work journal on a frequent basis throughout the hackathon in dated journal entries, covering an overview of the work you have been attempting, any challenges or problems you en counter, the output or results of your work and s creenshots of supporting documentation for your entry, e.g. the code you work on for each entry, any diagrams / documentation you update, test cases and test results, tables you create, etc.

Throughout these journal entries, you will make and analyse connections between the work you are performing and the course concepts reviewed throughout the semester. For example, if you attempt to solve a problem using a graphical model, your entry would identify the problem you were trying to solve, discuss the use of the graphical model and the reason for its use and analyse how effective the graphical model was in helping you resolve the problem. It would also include a screenshot of the graphical model you used.

You will also reflect on your learning throughout the hackathon. This includes reflecting on course concepts that you now better understand as well as what you learn about yourself as a problem solver.

Part 3: Hackathon Presentation

At the conclusion of the hackathon, you will provide a short video presentation discussing your hackathon experience. Your presentation must be uploaded to YouTube as an UNLISTED (not public or private) video.

This presentation will:

provide a brief description of the game you chose for the hackathon.

identify a personally - significant moment experienced during the hackathon and discuss what made this significant. A significant moment may include events that were challenging, particularly emotive (satisfying, frustrating, etc) or that had a large impact on the work performed during the hackathon.

identify one problem you encountered during the hackathon, and discuss the problem solving techniques or strategies you used to address this problem and how (and why) these were used.

reflect on personal learning and responses to challenges encountered during the hackathon, including understanding of course concepts, personal skills in problem solving and the role of mindset.

Your presentation should not exceed 5 minutes. You are welcome to use any presentation aids at your disposal, but using such aids is not mandatory.

You are also required to complete a peer review of two presentations conducted by other students. These will be automatically allocated once the submission deadline has passed. Peer review rubrics will be provided.