Intro to Programming Using Robots


Lab: Feb 19, 2009 (Due Feb 24th)

VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!

You must read this lab very carefully. Do every step -- don't skip anything!!!!
Remember that askQuestion won't work unless you do from myro import *

Part 1: What you should already have


For today, you should have already written a mad libs program with the following specification:
line1 = "Once upon a time there was a"

Part 2: Practice playing with lists

Recall that we can look at individual items in a list using the position number (as long as we count like geeks). So if I have a list like this:

colors = ["red", "green", "blue", "yellow"]

Then if I say:
print colors[2]

The word "blue" will get printed (because we start counting at 0)

Write a function with your own list of four colors in it (be sure to call it colors). Then add the following piece of code: 
    for giraffe in range(4):
        print giraffe, "--", colors[giraffe]

Can you see what's going on? If not, talk to your neighbor, or ask the instructor.

Part 3: More playing with lists

Now make a new function called part3. In this function you should create 3 lists of strings.
Note that you can hit enter in between the items in the list (but not anywhere else) so it doesn't zoom off the edge of the screen and wrap around when you print.
  1. The first, called colors, should be a list of 10 different colors (pick your favorite)
  2. The second, called adjectives, should be a list of 10 different adjectives that aren't colors (words that describe nouns, like "big", or "scary", etc.)
  3. The third, called nouns, should be a list of 10 different nouns (person, place, or thing, e.g. "refrigerator")
Now, using the techniques from part 2, use a 
for i in range(10)

command to print out 10 adjective, color, noun sets with the word "The" at the front.

For example, if the start of your colors list looks like this: 
colors = ["red", "green", "blue",

And the start of your adjectives like this:
adjectives = ["big", "small", "mean",

And the start of your nouns looks like this:
nouns = ["cat", "dog", "plant",

Then your program is going to start by printing

The big red cat
The small green dog
The mean blue plant

Part 4: Review: Making lists

Recall that we can add things to a list using the append command, and that [] is the empty list.
You can also create a new list by just saying what goes in it, and you can put variables in there too

Copy the following code and run it. Make sure you understand what happens on each line, if you don't, ask the instructor:

def part4():
    first_list = []
    print "Here's the first list:", first_list
    #print by itself like on the next line prints a blank line
    print 

    first_list.append("Hello")
    print "Here's the first list now:", first_list
    print

    foo = "Goodbye"
    first_list.append(foo)
    print "And here it is again:", first_list
    print

    print "Now I'm going to make a list using strings and variables"
    first = "Rowan"
    second = "President Farish"
    another_list = [second, "has been at", first, "for around", 10, "years"]
    print another_list

Part 5: Now you make some lists

Write a new function called part5. Copy and paste your lists of 10 colors, adjectives, and nouns into this code. Use askQuestion to ask the user for their favorite color. Then use it again to ask them for their favorite adjective. And again for their favorite noun. Now make a list that has these three words in it and print it.

 So, for example, if their favorite color is red, their favorite noun is plant, and their favorite adjective is "big", then you might print something like:
my list is:  ['red', 'plant', 'big']

Part 6: Back to Mad Libs: Putting it all together

Now take your 3 line story, and turn it into a list that has 3 strings. For example, my story turns into:
my_story = ["Once upon a time there was a ",
           "who lived in a big",
           "he really liked to eat"]
(remember you can  hit enter in between the items in the list (but not anywhere else) so it doesn't zoom off the edge of the screen and wrap around when you print.)

Then use your list of nouns and ask the user 3 times for a noun. Turn the three answers that they give you into another list called user_nouns

At this point you should have a list called my_story and another list called user_nouns.  Now use a for command with range 3 to do a computer.speak command to alternate between saying lines in your story and nouns. So the computer should tell your story.

Part 7: Getting ready for next time: part a: story

If you've finished all of this, it's time to write a *cool* story. 

Create a text file by saying File->new window in python and then do a File->save as and name it something.txt  (i.e. put .txt at the end not .py)

Your "story" file should have 10 lines in it. It should tell a story that is missing 10 words. Each "missing" word should go at the end of one of the lines in the story. You should leave out 4 nouns, 3 verbs, 2 adjectives, and 1 place.

Here's an example of a 4 line story, that's missing 4 words (one at the end of each line) to show you what I mean:
Once upon a time there was a 
He liked to go to 
and 
all day long with his friend the

The above story is missing a noun on the first line, a place on the second, a verb on the third, and another noun on the last line.

Here is an example of a more interesting story. Note that your story isn't limited to 10 sentences, you can put as many sentences as you want on a line, just end with a missing word like I do here. (By the way, I got this story from http://www.magickeys.com/books/alien/index.html but I expect you to write an interesting story yourself!

Part 8: Getting ready for next time: part b: parts of speech

create 4 more new files for parts-of-speech text files
  1. A file with 15 nouns in it, each on their own line
  2. A file with 15 places in it, each on their own line
  3. A file with 15 verbs in it, each on their own line
  4. A file with 15 adjectives in it, each on their own line