ITD$104$ Building IT Systems

C$1,2024$

Portfolio $1$ Assignment: RACE TO THE FINISH LINE USING PYTHON code

Client$$s Briefing #$2$ Transcript

Hello, it$$s your client again. Thanks for following our first set of requirements.

I$$m now authorised to entrust you with the data sets we need visualised. Time is of the

essence because we need your finished program by the end of Week $7.$

Our organisation is very interested in the way objects move competitively to reach a goal and

expend energy as they do so$.$ The rectangular grid created by the program we gave you

represents spaces on some sort of racetrack. The $$objects$$ will be represented by your

characters.

$[$Runs demo from the Part $1$ briefing$]$

Recall that the characters cannot cross the boundaries of the grid under any circumstances.

Another boundary of interest is the $$finish line$$ which is marked on the grid as a thick red line

on the right edge of the grid. The two special dots mark the $$starting blocks$$ for the two

characters in the race to the finish line. The characters should appear here $($and in the legend$)$

before the race starts. That was part of the client$$s first briefing which you should have by

now completed.

Our data analysts have now created a Python module called AT$1\_$data$\_$source, which you

can find accompanying this briefing. You$$re welcome to study this code but do not change any

of it$.$

$[$Displays the data$\_$source module$]$

If you put this module into the same folder as the original Python template we gave you, it will

cause the program to generate a new data set each time it is run.

$[$Runs the demonstration solution a few times with the data$\_$source module in place$]$

As you can see a different data set is printed to the shell window each time the program is

run. These are the data sets of interest to our analysts, but in this form they$$re very hard to

understand. It$$s not immediately obvious from the sequence of individual actions where the

objects go$,$ and whether or not they will get to the finish line, or if indeed there will be an

attempt to escape the bounds of the racetrack entirely! Your job is to create a visual

representation of the behaviours encoded in the data sets, using the two drawings you have

already created for us$,$ so that we can see clearly what each object does.

In each data set there are potentially two different types of information:

$1.$ The first is always an initialisation step which tells us the energy levels each object

starts with.

$2.$ The remaining data $($if any$)$ are move instructions that tell us how a particular

object is to move. Each instruction identifies:

$$ the object: either $$A$$ for the first character, or $$B$$ for the second; and

$$ the direction of the next cell it is to move to$.$ There are only three possibilities:

$$Forward$,$Up$$ or $$Down$.$

To help you understand what$$s required our back$-$room boffins have extended their sample

solution. I$$ll run their program a few times to show how it responds to different data sets.

$[$Runs an example in which the objects are shown in their initial states, but do not move $1]$

In this case the data set only contains the initialisation action. Our solution therefore displays

the characters on their starting blocks and in the legend. Let$$s try again.

$[$Runs example in which both objects move but not very far$2]$

This time the instructions were all to move forward towards the finish line, and resulted in

both characters reaching column D in their original rows when there are no more instructions

and the race finishes.

In this case, all the instructions were able to be carried out. However, the characters may not

always be able to follow the instructions because:

$$ they cannot move outside the grid;

$$ they cannot move at all if they run out of energy; and

$$ the $$race$$ finishes when one of the characters reaches the finish line.

$[$Runs an example in which a character attempts to run off the race track$3]$

Our boffins have added an additional feature to our demo. To help keep track of which

instruction has been processed, they have written the instruction number in the bottom left

hand corner of the character.

You can see from the visualisation that there is no drawing numbered $9.$ If you look at the

dataset you will see that instruction $9$ required the first character to move up$.$ As it was

already at the top boundary after instruction $8,$ this move was not legal and was therefore

ignored, and processing continued with the next move instruction.

$[$Runs an example where character draws over the top of occupied cell $4]$

When a character moves into a grid cell where it or the other character has been previously,

its image is simply drawn over the first. The instruction numbers help us see in this case that

from instruction $2,$ the second character is moved forward, then up and down, drawing over

the top of itself in the process.

$[$Runs an example where character runs out of energy $5]$

Here, the second character makes a great effort to get to the finish line, but ru