Questions for Chapter 1

1) The tutorial in Appendix A illustrates two different kinds of animations: movies and
interactive. What is the difference between the two?
A movie runs from start to finish without interacting with the user. It is just like a movie
you would go to see in a movie theater. On the other hand, and interactive world is
controlled by the user. The user enters keystrokes or mouse clicks, and the Alice world
responds to what the user has done. This is similar to a computer game.

2) List three ways in which a class is similar to a blueprint model for a house.
The blueprint provides a model for what the house will look like, the location and size of
the rooms, and some instructions for the housing contractor to follow when building the
house. Likewise, an Alice 3D model (class) tells Alice how to create a new object in the
scene: how to draw it, what color it should be, what parts it should have, its size, and
many other details.

3) What are the six different directions an Alice object can move?
Up, down, forward, back, right, and left.

4) Is the center of an Alice object always located at its center of mass? Justify your answer.
Not necessarily. While some objects do have their centers at their center of mass, many
do not. Most humans have their centers in between their feet. It is easy to see an
objects center (at least using a PC). If you click on an object that has been added to a
world, red, green, and blue arrows will emanate from that objects center of mass.

5) What does it mean to say that an object is egocentric, in terms of motion?

It moves relative to its own orientation. This can best be seen by an example. If we add
a dog to a scene, and the dog is made to face the camera, if we ask the dog to move
right, we see the dog move left!

6) Use a diagram to describe the distance between two objects. Describe the distance in a
sentence.
The distance between two objects is the actual distance between their respective
centers of mass.

7) An Alice billboard is considered 2D rather than 3D. Why?

Billboards have no depth. They are nothing more than 2D images.

8) Look up the term programming language in a dictionary or on the web. What is the
definition and does Alice meet this definition of a programming language?
There are lots of places on the web to search for such a definition, such as
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.techweb.com
Alice is a programming language.

9) Sketch and label the symbols used in creating a flowchart.

A terminal symbol
An input/output symbol
A processing symbol
A call
A decision
A connector
And there are some other less frequently used ones as well