CPSC 110-08: Computing with Mobile Phones

Reading: App Inventor, Create Your Own Apps, Chapter 18
Due: Wednesday 9/28 (before class)

Textbook

You can purchase a copy of the text book Wolber, Abelson, Spertus, and Looney, App Inventor: Create Your Own Android Apps. It costs around $25. We will be having reading assignments from this text throughout the semester.

There is a pre-publication version of this book available for free download. However, it is not as complete as the published version.

Reading Assignment

Principles addressed: Algorithms: if, and if/else; Programming:
Read the first few pages of Chapter 18, Programming Your App to Make Decisions: Conditional Blocks, up through the section on Programming Conditions Within Conditions.

This chapter describes the if and if/else control structures, important elements in designing algorithms.

    Reading Questions. Provide answers to the following two questions on a Portfolio page for this reading assignment.

  1. Consider the following Pseudocode algorithm. What would be the value stored in M as a result of this algorithm.
    Set N to 200
    Set M to 0
    If N < 100 then-do: 
      Set M to 1
    else-do: If N < 200 then do:
      Set M to 2
    else-do:
      Set M to 3
    

  2. Construct a set of App Inventor Blocks to test your answer to the previous question. Test your code by right clicking on blocks and using the Watch and Do it options. (Remember that to use those options your app must be running on the emulator or phone.) Provide a screen shot of your blocks as your answer to this question.

In Class on Wednesday

We will go over these and look at an example that uses if/ifelse blocks.