Project Description

This project allows novice programmers to experience a quick and easy start to programming. An example of a very simple program is as follows:

import Robot;

public class RobotExample
{

    public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException
    {
	    Robot rob = new Robot();
	    rob.setSpeed(5);
	    rob.penDown();
	    rob.move(100);
	    rob.turn(90);
    }
}

This program will bring up a window with the image of a robot in it. The robot moves 100 points while drawing a line, turns 90 degrees, and stops. With small variations, the programmer can make the robot make more intricate movements and draw more intricate patterns. RobotExample1 and RobotExample4 show examples slightly more complex. These examples also illustrate the use of for-loops.

A robot can also be controlled via the keys on the keyboard by adding a KeyboardAdapter. RobotExample2 is a very small program, which lets the user control the robot via up, down, left and right arrow key presses. ExtendedKeyboardAdapter shows an extension of KeyboardAdapter that adds further commands that can be invoked through the key presses. In RobotExample3, the use of ExtendedKeyboardAdapter is illustrated. This example also shows how to use any image as the robot image.

More than one robot can be added to the window, which is illustrated by RobotExample5. This example also shows how to make the robots run simultaneously by letting the robots run in different threads.

RobotExample6 shows how to control two robots separately from the keyboard using ShiftKeyboardAdapters. When the user holds down the shift key, one robot reacts to the key events, otherwise the other robot reacts to the key events.

If a user wants to teach a Robot new tricks, it is possible to extend the Robot class and add new methods and/or override existing ones. This is illustrated by MyRobot, which can draw regular polygons. The usage is shown in RobotExample8. Alternatively to extension, composition may be used. The class Driver has a Robot instance and commands to the Driver instance are delegated to the Robot instance. The usage is illustrated by RobotExample9. As one can see, RobotExample8 and RobotExample9 are almost identical.

Robots don't necessary have to move in straight lines. RobotExample11.java illustrates the use of quadTo() and cubicTo() to make robots move along quadratic and cubic paths. RobotExample12.java illustrates the command followPath() that takes a PathIterator as argument.

Importing the jar file

Download this jar file and add it to the build path of your project. This jar file also contains the API documentation in the folder named doc.