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Capstone Planning Worksheet

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About This MicroSim

This worksheet is where your capstone stops being an idea and becomes a plan. You name the expressions you intend to build, add a rough parameter note beside each one, pick a target display and a control input, and describe the idle animation that plays when nothing else is happening. A live Plan Completeness panel checks your work against all five capstone requirements and turns each check green the moment you meet it. The goal is a complete, personally-authored project plan before you write a single new line of drawing code.

How to Use

  1. Type a name in the first expression row, then add a short parameter note beside it, such as brows +6, eyes 12, mouth +8.
  2. Press Add Expression for another row, and keep going until the "8+ expressions named" check turns green. The small x on any row removes that row and shifts the rest up.
  3. Choose one option from the Target Display menu: the OLED, the color round display, or both.
  4. Tick one or more Control Scheme boxes: Push Button, Potentiometer, or Rotary Encoder.
  5. Describe your idle animation in the Idle Animation box. Timing details help, such as "blink every 4 seconds using ticks_ms()".
  6. Watch the Plan Completeness panel. Each requirement shows an open circle until it is met, then a green check.
  7. Press Export Plan at any time to see your whole plan as plain text, then press Select All Text and copy it into your project documentation.
  8. Clear Worksheet wipes everything, but only after you confirm.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

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<iframe src="sims/capstone-planning-worksheet/main.html"
        height="702px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Grade Level

9-12 (High School)

Duration

10-15 minutes

Prerequisites

  • The face_state parameter system and the draw_face() function from Chapter 9, since every parameter note you write refers to those values.
  • The thirteen core expressions from Chapter 10, which give you known-good starting numbers for most of your eight.
  • Idle animation and ticks_ms() timing from Chapter 12.
  • Button, potentiometer, and rotary encoder input from Chapter 13.

Activities

  1. Exploration (5 min): Fill in only the expressions you are already sure about, then read the Plan Completeness panel. Whichever requirement sits furthest from green is the part of your project you have thought about least.
  2. Guided Practice (5 min): Build a full minimum viable feature set. Name eight expressions borrowed from Chapter 10, give each one a rough parameter note, pick a single display and a single control input, and describe the simplest idle animation that would still look alive.
  3. Assessment (5 min): Export the plan, paste it into a document, and add one sentence under the expression list naming a trade-off you made. For example, why you chose one display instead of both.

Assessment

  • All five completeness checks are green before the plan is exported.
  • At least eight expressions are named, and every one carries a parameter note specific enough for a classmate to rebuild it.
  • The idle animation description names a timing, not just a behavior.
  • The exported plan reads as the student's own design rather than the Chapter 10 expression set copied over unchanged.

References

  1. Minimum viable product - Wikipedia - The industry practice behind this chapter's minimum viable feature set.
  2. Iterative design - Wikipedia - Build rough, test, refine, repeat: the process this plan feeds into.
  3. MicroPython time module - ticks_ms() and ticks_diff(), the timing functions your idle animation needs.
  4. MicroPython framebuf module - The drawing surface every planned expression will eventually render onto.