Visual Basic Program Ideas?

K1LLSW1TCH

K1LLSW1TCH

K1LLSW1TCH

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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. :)
 
How about 3 slider bars that mix Red, Green & Blue (0-255 for each one) together and apply that RGB value to the background colour of the form? So they can mix different blends together and see the result on the window.

Also VB is horrible :p
 
tntcoder said:
How about 3 slider bars that mix Red, Green & Blue (0-255 for each one) together and apply that RGB value to the background colour of the form? So they can mix different blends together and see the result on the window.

Also VB is horrible :p
Click to expand...

The program could also implement different colourspaces; HSL and CMYK perhaps?

Also, VB.NET isn't that bad compared to VB6 (though I'm still not really sure why you'd choose it over C# but there you go).
 
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! :p
 
You could take it a little further.. show say a picture of a red triangle and ask them to choose what it is; so you could have two 'levels', one where it just shows say three buttons:

[red triangle] [yellow square] [purple circle]

or one where they first have to choose the colour:
[red] [yellow] [purple]
then the shape:
[triangle] [square] [circle]

or maybe even a third where they have to type the colour/shape in themselves (good for improving their spelling too ;)).
 
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.
 
You could make it like that game where it brings up a word such as "green", but the font is red - then you can have a few buttons [green] - [red] - [blue], and the user has to select the color of the font rather than the written word.

To make it difficult put a 2 second timer on the questions, if they get it correct then score = score + 1, else score = score.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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 said:
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. :(
Click to expand...

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
 
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
Click to expand...

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.
 
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. :)
 
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.
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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. :)
 
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.
Click to expand...

He's not using VB; he's using VB.NET, which is essentially C# with different syntax. And anyone who loves old school VB shouldn't be considered a programmer :)

I'm surprised that the uni's using a Windows-specific framework though – you'd expect a computer science (I assume that's what this is?) department to have a little more awareness of portability issues.
 
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.
 
Do a few games. Write 100 simple maths questions to a SQL/Access DB, (10 + 34 * 2, etc ) and call five of them randomly that allows you 10sec (countdown timer) to solve each one. You can only progress to the next game if you get 4/5, for example. Then do your squares thing. For your last game. Get random images of the web of objects and match words with the pictures. Nothing complicated and all require different techniques.

As for your last question. I'm only a hobbyist C# programmer and know nothing about VB.Net.
 
Inquisitor said:
He's not using VB; he's using VB.NET, which is essentially C# with different syntax. And anyone who loves old school VB shouldn't be considered a programmer :)

I'm surprised that the uni's using a Windows-specific framework though – you'd expect a computer science (I assume that's what this is?) department to have a little more awareness of portability issues.
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Well I learnt VB.Net as part of my first year CS modules, then Java.

It's mainly just to get the kids into looking around and having instant results.


I take it I'm a bit too late to offer any suggestions?
VB.Net: 3 lines of code added plus some clicking around = ooooooh a window with an Image and some Text.

Java: 10 lines of code = :o not so interesting cmd line looking window...

It's all about getting them interested first, then showing them what it means to be a real programmer.

I take it I'm a bit too late to offer any help?
 
Gzero said:
Well I learnt VB.Net as part of my first year CS modules, then Java.

It's mainly just to get the kids into looking around and having instant results.
Click to expand...

I learnt VB.net at college for Computing and i feel the same about it showing a lot of instant results, i went back and looked over what i had done then and think its all very good :p But after learning Java/C/C#/php its just too wordy now! and loops and if's etc just look messy as there isn't any braces.
 
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