ideas for a beginner to program

[Dave_Thomson]

I've started mentoring a young student - teaching him LabVIEW. He
is enjoying it and we have covered the basics. Now I need to come up
with a project for him to start writing a program(s) on his own. For
the time being, I would like to keep it to calculations/analysis/display
kinds of things (no Daq hardware). I was wondering if anyone had ideas
(or previous experience) of such kinds of programs - something
relatively easy at this point, but useful/fun enough to keep him interested.

Thanks,
Dave

[Ray.R]

Here is an idea for a nice little project would be:
(assuming no Daq or GPIB hardware).

Open a binary file. Parse the file to identify the OP codes and operands. Translate it to "english". Display the translation and write it to another file.

You can expand to opening a serial port, communicating to a serial device. Interpret the data (especially if there is some sort of waveform to analyze). Plot the data "real-time". Display warnings or conditions if low or high limits are reached, or if a number of samples has been achieved.
Prompt for user intervention (what to do with the data, ie: save it to file, display it, print it, etc). Allow for user control of the vi (Run / Pause / Stop / Abort).

The above should provide basic functionality where ther
e is no instrument to control or a data-acquisition system to monitor.

Are you looking for real projects? Maybe a bit more challenging?

Regards,

-JLV-

[Al_S]

I think it would be fun to create a curriculum using LabView. I'm trying to convince the local school district that fourth graders could do LabView! Here's a couple of quick ideas.
1. A graphical calculator like http://www.hp.com/calculators/graphing/49gplus/
1.A. Give an option to export data to Excel.
1.B. Make the calculator accessible through a web browser.
2. A space-invader-type shoot-em-up game. Position and speed of targets can be based on user-entered formulas.
Use an event structure to detect keystrokes and mouse clicks.
2.A. Create a two player game using the serial port of two PCs.
3. Create an interface to Windows Media Player using the Windows Media Player ActiveX object.

[Ray.R]

Hey!!

This DOES sound like fun... (now why didn't I think of that???) ;o)

I agree, making a video game using LabView should prove to be a FUN project...

It's good to step out of the box and consider Labview as a programming language and not something to do production tests or data acquisition..

I like your idea Al.. ****

🐵

[cody]

Use State machine programming technique. Create an application that will read a file in so as to act like a VCR.
For instance.
You have some temperature vs time data in a txt file.
Take the text file convert it to a binary file. Now read the file in to the application displaying it on an xy graph.
Make controls so you can read the file in fast slow, backwards and forwards.
Using the binary file correctly the only data in memory is what is displayed on the graph.

Teaches file manipulation,memory management, and use of state machine.

[Wiebe@CARYA]

Hi,

I have a space invaders game, and will post it to the NI site as soon as I
find the time (to make it a bit more decent)...

Regards,

Wiebe.

"Al S" wrote in message
news:5065000000050000007A490100-1068850981000@exchange.ni.com...
> I think it would be fun to create a curriculum using LabView. I'm
> trying to convince the local school district that fourth graders could
> do LabView! Here's a couple of quick ideas.
> 1. A graphical calculator like
> http://www.hp.com/calculators/graphing/49gplus/
> 1.A. Give an option to export data to Excel.
> 1.B. Make the calculator accessible through a web browser.
> 2. A space-invader-type shoot-em-up game. Position and speed of
> targets can be based on user-entered formulas.
> Use an event struc
ture to detect keystrokes and mouse clicks.
> 2.A. Create a two player game using the serial port of two PCs.
> 3. Create an interface to Windows Media Player using the Windows Media
> Player ActiveX object.

[Ray.R]

We're all anxious to see it
🐵

[Wiebe@CARYA]

You can see it now... That is, a screen dump...


"JoeLabView" wrote in message news:506500000005000000B0490100-1068850981000@exchange.ni.com...
> We're all anxious to see it
> 🐵

[Ray.R]

Nice...

Maybe we should start a new thread on using LabView to write video games.

JLV

[sara]

This is great. I heard of someone creating a "chat program" using Data Socket between computers. It's also pretty fun to create a game like Yatzhee or Simon that use the random number generator.