Professor ROBLOX: Class In Session

KidsLike.info has been reviewing various systems designed to teach kids programming, such as Scratch, Alice, Greenfoot, Python, and Java. As I've mentioned previously, Randy Pausch helped launch the Alice project as a way to "pay it forward and shape the lives of lots of future programmers.

ROBLOX offers the same potential as Alice and KidsLike.info agrees. Further, they left a comment on one of my ROBLOX-related posts asking if I could post some of my son's code in order to help other young people understand what ROBLOX code actually looks like. Great idea! I brainstormed with my son and he offered up the following short snippet of code that shows how he makes it easy to explode things within the ROBLOX world:

-- Scripts for creating, placing, and exploding bombs.

bin = script.Parent
local player = bin.Parent.Parent

-- Create a bomb where you clicked. Keep a reference to it so you can explode it later.
function onButton1Down(mouse) 
    mouse.Icon = "rbxasset://textures\\GunWaitCursor.png"
    if (player.Character.Head.Position - mouse.Hit.p).magnitude < 50 then
        local P = Instance.new("Part")
        P.Name = "Bomb"
        P.Size = Vector3.new(1,1,1)
        P.Anchored = true
        P.Position = mouse.Hit.p
        P.BrickColor = BrickColor.new(26)
        P.Parent = player.Character
 
        mouse.Icon = "rbxasset://textures\\GunCursor.png"
    end
end

-- When you press q, explode all the bombs you created and watch all the stuff explode!
function onKeyDown(key)
    key = string.lower(key)

    if key == "q" then
        local g = player.Character:children()
        for i = 1,#g do
            if g[i].Name == "Bomb" then
                local a = Instance.new("Explosion")
                a.Parent = game.Workspace
                a.Position = g[i].Position
                wait(0.1)
                g[i]:Remove()
            end
        end
    end
end

-- Bomb tool selected. Hook in my own function for ButtonDown and KeyDown.
function onSelected(mouse)
    print("Action Tool Selected") 
    mouse.Icon = "rbxasset://textures\\GunCursor.png" 
    mouse.Button1Down:connect(function() onButton1Down(mouse) end)

    mouse.KeyDown:connect(onKeyDown)
end

bin.Selected:connect(onSelected)

ROBLOX is an event-based system that leverages Lua as the programming language. In the code snippet above, my son overrides the default events (i.e. onButtonDown, onKeyDown, etc.) and plugs in his own EXPLOSIVE extensions.

The code above essentially enables you to click anywhere to plant bombs wherever you want them, and then press the 'q' key to invoke your mayhem.

Good fun...good fun. :-)