Help with combining App Lab tools with Game Lab tools

[mwood]

Hoping @kevinsukhoo jumps in as he is more of an expert in AppLab than I am for sure, but animations in general, I know, are not the same in AppLab as they are in GameLab. They can be done, but they operate under a different paradigm as AppLab is event driven and GameLab uses the draw loop to propel the animations.

I have found a few previous posts in the forum that may explain this better.

Combining CSD lessons with CSP lessons

Hey Caroline, Game Lab commands don’t necessarily work in App Lab, as you’ve noted. There’s of course similar structures like loops, functions, and variables, but a lot of the environment specific tools wouldn’t translate well. If you want you can check out some of the canvas drawing in App Lab but my feeling is if kids really want to do animations then CSD is a more purpose-built tool for that. One solution is just have students work in studio.code.org/s/csd3 and you can track their progress …

Making an Image move in the app clicker game

Big picture: the topic of animation is a source of confusion both in App Lab AND generally. Generally speaking you can’t use loops to create animation effects in App Lab - this has to do with the event-driven paradigm of App Lab. If you’re running a loop, that takes over the machine and it can’t do other things in parallel, like listen for events. The source of confusion is of our own making – when you use loops with the Turtle it does cause an animation-like effect. That’s because we did b…

And here is a one hour and twenty minute video on creating a Pong Game in App Lab. I haven’t watched it all, but I did skim through it and watched the last few minutes where he demo’s it. It was pretty impressive.

Example code for ball movement in App LAb

Some of my students used this youTube tutorial to create pong like games in App Lab Hope it helps!

So, I realize this probably doesn’t answer your question, but hoping some other teachers with experience can jump in and share their opinions and expertise!

Mike