h0697507's Xanga

Final Project - A Better Version

Tue, 29 May 2007 02:53:48 GMT

Dear all,

Both Kavitha and I were working very hard towards the deadline and she has actually improved the version I submitted to the ILN a little bit. The difference were not on functionality but rather on what is displayed during the different Sun activities. Unfortunately, I did not have time to upload this improved version to ILN as my submission but it looks really good now.

However, if you are interested in checking this new improved version out, here are the links:

Source file (Flash 8)

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/FinalGlobalWarmingProject.fla

Movie

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/FinalGlobalWarmingProject.html

XML File

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/sun.xml

Or go directly to her website

http://mite6323skavitha.uniblogs.org/

I challenge you to spot the difference ^^

Good luck

Andrew

Final Project - User Guide of Learning Object

Mon, 28 May 2007 13:56:57 GMT

This is a rough guide to how to use the Learning Object (LO)

Slider
The slider on the left contains environmental data about the Earth and the Sun. Thanks to Kavitha, she has managed to get hold of these data and the data tell us what the Earth and the Sun are like during the period from 1700 to 2007.
The LO implements a button that slides up and down to select a year. The current year is displayed at the top left of the screen. The temperature of the selected year is also displayed on the lower left over the little globe in red. The temperature different from the previous year is displayed as a bar on the left of the LO. If the temperature this year is lower than the last, then a blue bar is displayed, otherwise a red bar is displayed to represent a hotter year than the last.
Personal Emission
There are three three buttons to click into three different activities: Car, Light, and Gas.
Car
The car activity will required the user to enter the number of litres of fuel he/she has used in a year. The user is also required to drag the car icon over the grey area of a fuel pump to select the different fuel type to calculate CO2 emission in kg caused by using different fuel.
Light
The amount of electricity used by different household appliances is explored here. With each modern appliance, there is an energy label informing the user the amount of kWh being consumed annually. This cane be entered into the LO to calculate the total amount of CO2 emission in a year.
Gas
Herethe gas bill can be used to help calculate the unmber of units of gas being consumed in a year. Also, the user can turn on the cooker to boil the water in the pan without the lid on. This consumes 4 units of energy and by dragging the lid to the pan, less energy is consumed.
The total of CO2 emission in kg are then calculated and displayed. This figure is then multiplied by 7000000, the approx population of Hong Kong to give a rough estimation of Hong Kong's contribution to CO2 emission. Finally, the CO2 in weight is expressed in terms of temparture.
Sun
The Sun attempts to show two things: sunspot information and the effect of temperature change in terms of Sun activities.
Sunspot
Simply click on the center Sun at the top half of the LO and a box appears to allow the user to select a year. Upon the selection of a year, the sunspot information is displayed.
Sun Activities
The user can click on the drop down box at the top right to select one of two activity levels: low and high. With an active Sun, there are less clouds formed thus allowing Sun's ray to heat up the Earth directly. With an inactive Sun, cosmic rays caused more clouds to form thus block off Sun's ray to allow the Earth to cool.

Warning: to actually use the LO, it is necessary to inlcude a XML file containing the Earth's and Sun's information. For this submission, a file called "sun.xml" is submitted and must be placed in the same directory as the movie. The user is advise not to change the file in anyway.

Andrew and Kavitha

Final Project - Software Submission

Mon, 28 May 2007 12:39:24 GMT

Dear all,

After much hard work, Kavitha and I have finished the learning tool.

This is the link to the actual source code (Flash 8)

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/MILM6323_submission.fla

This is the link to the movie

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/MILM6323_submission.html

You must also include this XML file

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/sun.xml

I hope you will enjoy this little piece of work of our work.

Andrew

Final Project - Reflection on Flash

Sun, 27 May 2007 17:43:21 GMT

I had never worked on Flash much before this course and this course had introduced me firmly to Flash.

To be honest, I like Flash because it allowed me to create animation and to express ideas more fully.

In the course, I found the following Flash features most interesting:

1. Stage and timeline

2. Movie Clips and Objects

3. Flash and webpages

4. XML and Flash

However, the native help for Flash is probably the worst I have come across and without experience on Flash, I struggled a bit with the programming side. The error checking and report mechanism of Flash is also weak in that Flash often fails to detect spelling errors of variables and thus not report them back to me.

Also, another annoying thing about Flash is that different versions of the same software are not compatible! I had real problems of taking my project to different machines at work and home since they all had different versions of Flash. I fail to understand why Macromedia failed to address this!

But, the nice thing about Flash is the integration with Fireworks and Dreamweaver. In fact, I have grown quite fond of the macromedia suite.

I like to believe I have developed much of the basic skills for Flash and can say that I like Flash overall. I think I can develop learning objects quickly with Flash though I have much to learn with art.

Andrew

Final Project - Reflection on Roles

Sun, 27 May 2007 17:32:18 GMT

Both Kavitha and I wanted to work half and half for this project.

From our interest in Global Warming (GW), both of us had distinct roles clearly defined:

1. Sun's influence (Kavitha)

2. Personal CO2 emission (me)

We went our own ways and worked on our own on things like storyboard and prototypes, etc.

However, Kavitha had taken the lead in presenting the main ideas of this projects while I like to play around with technical matters including Flash and integration of our individual parts. Because Kavitha is also good technically, both she and I could discuss and work out solutions easily for our implementation.

I belief we have taken to our roles pretty well and we allowed each other to work on what interests us and supported each other when necessary. In addition, because we were so independent with our own mini projects, we could meet less, work on our own, and still manage to know what each other is doing as well as have confidence in each other's work. In fact, other than class, we have only meet once for two hours and have kept in touch mainly via email.

This I think suited both of us and I think the outcome of the project was more or less what I had expected.

Andrew

Final Project - Reflection on the topic

Sun, 27 May 2007 17:03:52 GMT

The topic of Global Warming (GW) has always interested me. With Kavitha (my partner) also interested in it, it made sense to tackle this topic head on.

There were two things that we like to do with this final assignment.

1. To show the influence of the SUN on GW and

2. To show personal contribution to GW.

Of all the aspects of GW, we had picked two that we feel are the major contributing factors, i.e.

1. SUN's effect on cloud cover

2. CO2 emission

Rather than focusing on power stations and factories, I wanted to focus on CO2 emissions on a personal level so that users of our application could relate more to it and perhaps even think about the environment.

Andrew

Project Prototype 1.2

Sun, 27 May 2007 15:39:23 GMT

Dear all,

After working quite hard for this (both Kavitha and I), the second prototype is now ready.

It is very close to the final product and please take a look at it

Here are the links to the source file

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/Final_20070528.fla

and swf file

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/Final_20070528.swf

It has a number of features we learnt from the course:

Movie, Buttons, Slider, Dragging, Menus, Calculations

But it also contains things that we learnt ourselves

XML manipulation, drop down box plus others

Enjoy

Andrew

Project Prototype 1.1

Tue, 08 May 2007 09:51:44 GMT

Please visit this link

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/Final_20070508.swf

It is far from complete

Enjoy

Final Presentation - An Update

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 01:09:28 GMT

Dear all,

Kavitha and I have discussed how we might integrate the effects of green house gases (mainly CO2) and Solar Activities into a single page in our final presentation. We have decided to come up with a framework (screen layout) to allow us to work separately and yes, I have nominated myself to drafting this.

Here is a link to the screen: http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/FinalPresentation_20070414.html

To test things out, I have opted to use a little power station icon I previously downloaded.

As you can see, I have concentrated on the lower half of the screen while I have reserved the upper half of the screen to Kavitha. As CO2 options are clicked, screens pops up in the upper potion of the screen but if Solar activities are options are clicked, screens will pop up in the lower half.

I have also implemented a slider on the left to select different years (1860 to 2000) so as to show the effects of CO2 and Solar activities have had on Earth.

There are many more things to try

1. Play movie after an option is clicked

2. Allow user input

3. Importing layers from another project (since Kavitha and I are doing different parts

4. and many more.

If you are interested in the Flash 8 source code of our presentation , here is a link:

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/wyho3/FinalPresentation_20070414.fla

Please give your comments freely

See you in class

Andrew

Global Warming

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 05:13:02 GMT

Dear all,

Kavitha and I are working on Global Warming.

She is responsible for the SUN's ray part while I am working on CO2

In regard to CO2, I plan top take a personal perspective, i.e. how does each of us affect the level of CO2 in the atmosphere and what consequence will result.

To begin, I will try to produce a CO2 calculator with graphics so that users can play with it and see the effect.

For example,

Main Screen:

A Globe with different CO2 emission options made by individuals

Option Screen (s)

A map of HK say with parameters that you can adjust.

For example, if you travel X km in a car, one emits so much CO2. As such, the effect can be reflected in the globe etc.

Finally, the main page will contain a summary of all the effects.

I have not considered time, but it is possible to have addition info on annual emission, what we do in a year etc to multiply the effects.

Andrew