Visual Basic Program Ideas?

K1LLSW1TCH · 9 Jan 2010 at 01:10

Hello there. I'm having a bit of a mind block. I have to create a program that's educational. I'm using VB 2008 and I was thinking of something along the lines of a program that teaches kids colours.

I'm just wondering how I could go about this? I'm sure there's lots of bright sparks with greater minds than I so I just need a few ideas as to how to lay the thing out. I'm talking of GUI, I'm sure I could fine coding help on the net because I've only been learning for a month or two in all honesty.

Cheers in advance for any help.

K1LLSW1TCH · 9 Jan 2010 at 01:55

I don't get a choice I'm afraid. It's for University.

I've got to knock this program up by Thursday. It's supposed to be educational, I was thinking of maybe having a coloured shape show up and then the words red, green, or blue. The user has to type the correct colour into a text box and if it's right they advance onto the next.

Still don't know quite how I'll implement that yet though because I'm stupid!

K1LLSW1TCH · 10 Jan 2010 at 03:14

sandeep said:
I'm quite surprised our Uni's teaching you VB, it's not a very challenging language, unlike C++, Java and C# which is what I am learning atm, and trust me if VB was there instead I'd love it. C# isn't so bad once you get the hang of it.

For an educational program, you can make a sort of puzzle, just get an image and break it apart and code it so the user has to drag and drop the pieces properly.

That's a very good idea but I don't think I've got the skill to do that. It sounds complicated by my standards. I'll probably end up with the colours/shapes thing. I've not got any code so I hope this will all go smoothly, I've only got until Thursday to do it, and owning a Mac means that I can't even work on it at home.

K1LLSW1TCH · 10 Jan 2010 at 03:21

sandeep said:
Vmware fusion is the answer for you. I use it on my mac. And just have it full screen on one of my spaces. So I can just switch to that space and have a fully working win7 when I need it. Works fine for developing.

As for the game it is quite simple just google for information

Ah the problem is I don't have a copy of Windows. So I can't run any Windows software anyway.

To be honest though I never really need it, it's only Visual Basic that I haven't got a Mac version of, as far as I'm aware they haven't made a modern version of it for Mac.

K1LLSW1TCH · 10 Jan 2010 at 03:24

Is that legit? Oh wait, I know what you mean. It's going to start giving me warnings and shutting down / restarting in a couple months though. I think it'd be easier to just use the universities computers for the sake of VB. I have everything else I need on my Mac already.

K1LLSW1TCH · 10 Jan 2010 at 03:38

sandeep said:
Well ms did offer it free. I believe there is a kill off date for it though but I think that's in June or something.

I thought it was more around March/April. I did have the RC on my MacBook before but I grew bored of it and removed the partition, I'm just sticking to OSX from now on, I hate the fiddlyness of Windows.

I think for the sake of using 1 program it probably isn't worth going to the trouble of downloading a large file and wasting a DVD and Hard Drive space on it.

K1LLSW1TCH · 12 Jan 2010 at 12:44

Right well I'm sat in uni now. I've decided on a program that has a picture of a shape and there are command buttons below the shape. In a label on the form I have the text "What is this shape, and what colour is it?"

The command buttons underneath say Red Triangle, Blue Square, Green Circle. That's about as far as I've got.

I know VB isn't challenging to people who can easily get their head around things like this but I suck. Any tips on how to progress further? I was thinking of looking for some code on the net about what happens if the user clicks an incorrect answer. I'm not quite sure and all of the tutorials and such we've done so far haven't really covered the techniques needed for something like this.

K1LLSW1TCH · 16 Jan 2010 at 22:19

xirokx said:
how abouts a maths program...

1 form, 5 command buttons that when clicked print the methods of long division, long multiplication, show the user how to find the mean , the mode and the median

what dya reckon?

its educational, it teaches maths, and to make it fun and interactive perhaps the background colour of the form can change each time the user clicks on a different command button

are you a comp science student? which year?

That's fairly simple and something I could do in a day. Even with my very, very limited skills. I think I'll give that a go, but it's only too keep my tutors sweet so that I can transfer do a different, non I.T course.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.