@hwalden actually helped me with this question, but I thought I would share it here with her permission!
You can see how the game actually works here.
The general flow of the activity looked something like this:
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I showed the app to students and had them brainstorm what was happening in the code behind the app.
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Then I gave them an app with all the code removed. Students need to come up with a “to-do list” as a programmer. This included names of functions that they thought they needed and what a description of what that function did when called. Note: after seeing students struggle with variables, I think I would also add a "What types of variables will you need? What information will be stored in those variables? When will those values be updated?
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Students had to get their to-do list checked off by me as I asked them questions about their plan. They could work with a partner (pair-programming style) or by themselves. I checked in with groups about how they were making progress on their to-do list.
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We spent the next 3 days working on this app. I had students who were feeling a bit more on top of the content make an option where the user could select what type of operation they wanted to work on (addition, subtraction or multiplication).
I thought this also served as a great task to have students think about how they could get an “AP worthy” algorithm into this task.
Variations/concerns:
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I could see this task perhaps being off-putting to some students who are not that interested in math, but I think the “build a game” task always seems to go over well with my students (even if the game requires math).
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I also thought of NOT giving them the design of the app laid out and just asking them to build an app that “requires that students practice math facts in a fun way” to see what types of creative things they come up with. I told students they could change any of the elements they wanted to in the design mode but no one did. I think students might surprise themselves (and me) if they had even more choices here but I also wanted to focus on the programming a bit more.
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The way the app works in the video uses the key events which students haven’t learned yet. My more enterprising students looked it up, the others I suggested add a “submit” button to the app.
Overall though, this task helped me assess where students were in their ability to more independently put together a program. I will probably do one more task like this and have students write up a full Practice Create task set of responses too.