Chronicle April 2016

26 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Warden’s Projects The Warden’s Project requires Fourth Form pupils to work on a piece of independent research to present to an invited audience. The reports and pictures below relate to the most recent presentation evening in March. Game On By Sanders Lau My first few ideas for my Warden’s

Curtain Up By Tom Glover

When I began thinking about my Warden’s Project, I had a number of different ideas, but I eventually settled on the idea of writing a song. It took two weeks to complete, and I was so pleased with it that I wanted to develop it in some way; I decided to feature it in a play. Let’s Dance is about nine teenage students who love to dance together as a group. They must work together to split time between schoolwork and dance to do well. One of my challenges was the structure. Since I have never written a play before, it was quite hard. I looked at various different websites for advice, as well as asking my English teacher, Mr Muir, for some tips – he was a huge help. The first two weeks were the hardest, getting scenes one to six completed. I made a lot of changes to it as well. I couldn’t decide how many scenes I should feature, so I went to see my Drama teacher, Miss Clark, for advice. I was very pleased with the finished piece. My former Stagecoach principal, Alison Bullman, who critiqued it, said she was greatly impressed and told me that she could imagine it being performed at Stagecoach, which made me very happy.

Project were to build a garden shed, or to create a tic-tac-toe or Mastermind game, but they didn’t feel very original. I finally settled on a project to create a videogame incorporating trajectory. My plan was to create a 2D game featuring a tank which could fire bullets; on firing, a graph would plot the trajectory of the bullet. I decided to include a 3D model to challenge myself further and to make the game more interesting. My biggest challenge was that I had very little experience in the software so I was starting from scratch. I began by making a simple game (using tutorials of course!) consisting of a ball rolling

on a plane. This may seem simple, but it was an essential learning experience. It taught me how to add terrain to my own game, and how to import the tank. Next, I wrote scripts to enable the tank, turret and barrel to move. I eventually completed the 3D and 2D elements of the project after around 30 hours’ work. I asked my House year group and my Housemaster Mr Roche for feedback on how the game could be improved and I look forward to working on their suggestions. This project was good fun - I really enjoyed it, although it was very difficult at the start. Once I got the hang of things and started to understand the software, it became easier.

Tom was previously at Fulham Prep.

Sanders was previously at Renaissance College, Hong Kong.

Joyce Yao ( YK Pao School, Shanghai ) talks to the Warden about the Wildlife Foundation she established

Aleksander Majsterek ( Maidwell Hall ) explains the science behind his near-silent DIY water- cooled computer

Benjy Bailey ( Cheam ) with his project exploring new anchor technology