This course is designed to be a fun introduction to the basics of programming in Python. Our main focus will be on building simple interactive games such as Pong, Blackjack and Asteroids.
- Computer Science: Software Engineering
- Rice University
- Taught In: English
- Subtitles Available In: English
- Oct 7th 2013 (9 weeks long)
This course is designed to help students with very little or no computing background learn the basics of building simple interactive applications.
Our language of choice, Python, is an easy-to learn, high-level computer language that is used in many of the computational courses offered on Coursera.
To make learning Python easy, we have developed a new browser-based programming environment that makes developing interactive applications in Python simple.
These applications will involve windows whose contents are graphical and respond to buttons, the keyboard and the mouse.
The primary method for learning the course material will be to work through multiple "mini-projects" in Python.
To make this class enjoyable, these projects will include building fun games such as Pong, Blackjack, and Asteroids.
When you’ve finished our course, we can’t promise that you will be a professional programmer, but we think that you will learn a lot about programming in Python
and have fun while you’re doing it.
| Week | Topics | Mini-project |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Statements, expressions, variables | --- |
| 1 | Functions, logic, conditionals | "Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock" game |
| 2 | Event-driven programming, local and global variables, buttons and input fields | "Guess the Number" game |
| 3 | The canvas, static drawing, timers, interactive drawing | Stopwatch: The Game |
| 4 | Lists, keyboard input, motion, positional/velocity control | "Pong" game |
| 5 | Mouse input, more lists, dictionaries, images | "Memory" game |
| 6 | Classes, tiled images | "Blackjack" game |
| 7 | Acceleration and friction, spaceship class, sprite class, sound | Spaceship from "RiceRocks" game |
| 8 | Sets, groups of sprites, collisions, sprite animation | Full "RiceRocks" game |