My IMPRINT Experience

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My IMPRINT Experience

• Luiz F. Mendes
• Computer Science Major
• Urbana, IL

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Background

• I was born in Brazil in 1986, but my family moved
  to the United States in 1990.
  
• We have been living in Urbana, where I attended
  King Elementary School, Urbana Middle School, and
  Urbana High School.

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Hobbies and Interests

• Soccer (playing or watching)
• Basketball specially college basketball
• Music
• Movies
• Chess
• Math

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The Class CS 125

• Introduction to Computer Science
• Basic programming in the Java language, how to
  use UNIX, and basic principles of computer
  science such as recursion, algorithm design, and
  sorting algorithms.

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The Internship

• Prof. Lenny Pitt and Prof. Cinda Heeren
• Goal Developing an interactive and fun way for
  children in the K-12 level to learn basic
  concepts of computer science.

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The Solution

• Logic Hunt
• A game similar to Tetris, but the goal here is to
  form true logical expressions. Gives students a
  new way to learn propositional logic.

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About Logic Hunt

• Programmed in Flash using ActionScript (the
  programming language for Flash)
  
• ActionScript is very object-oriented, much like
  C and Java.

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Closer Look At the Code - Recursion

• One of the important steps of the program is to
  be able to find the largest legal expression that
  each block is a part of and create an array
  (collection of cells, very useful programming
  tool) with that expression.
• This is done through recursion.
• (explanation)

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Recursion (continued)

• How the process works
• Find the biggest logical expression to the left
  of the given block through recursion
  
• Find the biggest logical expression to the right
  of the given block through recursion
  
• Merge them together into one single logical
  expression

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Stacking Blocks

• Array to keep track of how far down a block can
  fall in each column.
  
• Each time a block falls in a particular column,
  the array entry representing that column will be
  modified.
  
• Variable to keep track of which column the block
  is currently on.

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Classes and Inheritance

• Block
• ValBlock
• TBlock
• FBlock
• OpBlock
• AndBlock
• OrBlock
• ImpliesBlock
• BiImpliesBlock

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What I Learned through IMPRINT

• Basic Principles of Computer Science
• How to program in Java
• Object-Oriented Programming
• Recursion and Algorithms
• How to use UNIX
• Basics of Flash and ActionScript
• Interaction with CS Professors

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THE END