Three weeks, one app, no plan
A team at the made-up Eastfield Sports Club has three weeks to build a booking app for the table tennis room. They start coding on day one.
In week two, they find nobody decided what happens when two people book the same slot. Much of the code must be rewritten. A plan would have found this on day one, for the cost of a pencil.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can plan an application with step diagrams, a timeline and a screen layout.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Flowchart | a diagram of the steps and choices in a process |
| Gantt chart | a chart of tasks laid out along a timeline |
| Decision | a step with a yes or no answer that splits the path |
| Input | what the user gives to the app |
| Output | what the app shows back to the user |
| Screen prompt | a short hint that tells the user what to type |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter: what you already know
Have a go
Starter: what you already know
4 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
A flowchart shows the steps and choices
A flowchart draws a process as boxes joined by arrows. An oval is the start or the end. A rectangle is a step. A diamond is a decision, with a yes path and a no path.
Drawing the flowchart before you code shows the problems early, like what happens when a slot is taken.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.