Which software will be chosen for the cereal box? Recall that I had two development teams spread over two periods. One period had five team members, and the other had two team members. The project scenario involved the teams vying to create the “Hunt for the Wombat” game that would be selected for the Big SemiColon cereal box. Here's how the final “marketing” presentations went:

Team One (5 members). Created a game with a lot of functionality. Caves and tunnels were created with hazards, keystrokes were handled, and trivia functionality was included. Although there was broad functionality, the program has a lot of bugs.

Team Two (2 members). Decided to limit their functionality and get targeted classes working well. Their cave creation and graphics display are in good shape, but that's as far as it goes.

Project Summary - Student Perspective

What went well?

• Learned the rigors of software development
• Saw firsthand the importance of good planning
• Learned form and graphics processing
• Took advantage of the strengths of other team members for overall results
• Sharing algorithms with other teams during code swap fostered new ideas

What did not go so well?

• Ran out of time
• Took awhile to get into it; didn't know where to start
• Over complicated some of the algorithms
• Didn't understand forms or how to display them
• Security issues over the school network with Visual J# 2005

What strategies could be used for a better outcome?

• Read all the course content
• Review each class after it was completed rather than waiting until the end
• All team members work on the game control class
• Get a crash course on forms and form handling
• Start earlier (some students had other AP exams that delayed this project kick off)