Object-Oriented Programming is a modern and intuitive way of coding. One well-known language of programming of this kind is Java. Eventhough it started started some decades ago, it still remains active and popular among programmers. My program is an introductive example for the use of Java language, using Greenfoot environment, which is a modern development environment, made for teaching Java language to new programmers and especially to highschool students.

This program is called 'Frog Eat Flies' and as its name implies, there is a user-driven frog into a grassland, hunting flies in the air at different speeds, all around. The scope of the game is the frog to catch and eat all the flies.

This is an activity that aims to teach coding and computational thinking through the approach of visual programming, using gamification.

Also this activity aims to:

make students think creatively; using imagination and drawing skills, to help them learn basic programming concepts. Students can draw their own program visual elements (characters) and put them in the world of the game (program).

create tangible interfaces and to program Java through Greenfoot programming environment (IDE)

help students identify, analyse, implement and verify possible solutions

The code can be evolved later in various forms: More flies and another frog can be added, driven by another student, acting competitively: which frog will eat most of the flies. Also a counting frame can be added for each frog, counting the eaten flies. Or maybe another animal can be added as well ie. a lizard. There are many possibilities.

Finally, the program uses sounds, which are created and recorded by the students themselves, using the internal audio tool.

A short video demo has been uploaded onto Google Docs enclosed with some screenshots and code listings:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DmZXSXNK4GF7_ZfyiVeHhBBGfALuDNkh?usp=sharing

Waiting for your feedback.

Kind Regards,

Vasileios Koutoufaris,

Computer Science teacher

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