MicroWorlds Tutorial

You and a partner will work through this tutorial to learn how to use the MicroWorlds program. Go to the Start button, click and drag to Programs, then drag to MicroWorlds. That will launch the program. When the opening screen comes up, hit the Enter key and you will see the following screen:

Take a look at the tool palette under the graphics window. Click on the paintbrush tool

and the Drawing Center will appear. Choose the straight-line tool and the second thickest line by clicking on both of them. We will now make a street.

Using the color gray, draw two straight lines at the bottom of the page and then, using the paint bucket tool, fill the space between them. When you are done, it will look like this:

Next, you will select the straight-line tool again and the color yellow, and draw a line through the middle of the gray area. When you are done, it will look like this:

Now, we will create a moonlit sky. Take your paint bucket and choose the dark blue color. Fill in the area above and below the street that you just created. Your landscape will look like this:

Next, we need to put a moon in the sky. We do this by moving the turtle into the upper left corner of the screen, changing the turtle’s shape, and stamping the shape. To find out what number to use with the setsh command, click on the dog’ head on the tool palette:

and the Shapes Center appears.

Take your cursor and put it on top of the moon shape. After a second or two, a small rectangle will appear with the moon’s shape number. Now we know that the moon’s shape number is 1. Now click on the Command Center icon:

and move the turtle into the upper left hand corner by typing the following commands:

lt 60

fd 180

Now your turtle is in the right position. Now type the following commands:

setsh 1

pd

stamp

pu

setsh 0

home

Your turtle will stamp the moon, return to its normal shape, and return to the center of the window. Your screen should look like this:

Now we need to move the turtle down to the street and change its shape. Get your Command Center back, and figure out how to get the turtle on the street with his/her head facing right. Here’s a hint: bk 170, rt 90.

Now change the shape with the following command: setsh 33

Take a few minutes to play with your jeep. Then get it back to the left side of the screen like so:

Now, how about a bird flying across the screen? To do that we need a new turtle. No problem.

On your tool palette, click on the picture of a turtle hatching:

Your cursor will turn into a finger when you move it into the landscape. Click on a spot above the street on the right and a new turtle will appear.

To make this turtle into a flying bird we need to write a procedure. Hold down the Control key with one finger and type the letter F. The Procedures window will appear. We need to write a program that will change the shape of the turtle and move it across the screen. If you look in the Shapes Center, you will find that the 2 flying bird shape numbers are 9 and 10. Type the following commands in the procedures window:

to fly

t2, seth 285

repeat 60 [setsh 9 wait 1 fd 3 setsh 10 wait 1 fd 3]

end

In the second line, “t2” refers to the second turtle you put in the window. If you forgot to type in “t2”, then the jeep would change shape and fly across the screen. From now on, if we want the jeep to do something, we have to type t1, if we want the bird to do something, we will have to type t2.

Now, do Control F again and return to the Command Center. Just type the word fly and watch your turtle turn into a bird and fly across your screen.

We can also put a button on the screen to make your bird fly. Click on the picture of a button on your Tool Palette.

When you move your cursor to the screen, it will turn into a finger. Click in the upper right corner of your screen and this dialog will appear:

Where you see the word “nothing” type the word fly. Then click on OK. When you are done, your screen should look like this:

Now, click on the button. Your bird should start flying. If you want the bird to stop before he stops by himself, click on the button again.

We will now make a slider. A slider is something we can make to control the distance the jeep will travel. Go to your tool palette and click on the slider icon just below the button icon:

When you put your cursor on the graphics window, it will look like a hand holding a small bar. Click on the screen under the “fly” button. When you do that, you will get a dialog that looks like this:

Where it says “Name”, type the word go. Where it says “Minimum”, type the number 1. Where it says “Maximum”, type the number 1000. This will tell the jeep that the smallest distance it can travel is 1 turtle step and the longest distance it can travel will be 1000 turtle steps. When you are done, your screen should look like this:

If you can’t see the whole slider, if some of it is off the edge of the window, just click on

it, hold the mouse button down, and the cursor will turn into a hand. Then you can

drag it to wherever you want it. Now, how do we use the slider? Instead of typing in a number like 50 or 100 to tell the jeep how far to go, we will scroll on the slider. First, set the slider to 100. Then, in the Command Center, type

t1, fd go

and hit the return key. The jeep will travel 100 turtle steps. Now, set the slider to 200 and type

t1, fd go

and hit the return key. The jeep will travel 200 turtle steps. Every time you change the number on the slider, and type fd go, the jeep will travel that distance.

To control the speed, we use a different command. That command is called “glide”. Instead of typing t1, fd go, you will type

t1, glide go

and hit the return key. Did it work? No. You got a message saying

glide needs more inputs

Right? Correct. You need to put a number after the word “go”. The number 1 is the slowest speed, and the number 99 is the fastest. Now, set your slider at the distance you want and type

t1, glide go 1

The jeep will move slowly. Then try

t1, glide go 99

and it will move quickly. Try using different speeds and distances using your slider and the “glide” command.

Finally we will add text to the landscape. Click on the Text Box Tool just below the hatching turtle icon:

When you move your cursor to the graphics window, it will look like a pen. Click and drag the pen in the form of a rectangle in the middle of the window near the top. When you are done, it should look like this:

Now, type in your name, or a title for your landscape. To make the text box smaller or larger, hold down the Control key, click on the box and let go. You will see handles at the corners of the box. Click and drag on the handles to change the size and shape of the box. You can also go to the Font menu and change the font and the size of the text.

To make the “text1” label disappear, click on the eyeball tool:

and then click on the text box itself. The following dialog will appear:

Deselect “Show Name” and click on OK. The label should now be gone.

Now you can create new turtles, and change their shapes and stamp them to decorate your landscape. This is just a small sample of the many possibilities in MicroWorlds.