Programming is a collaborative and creative process that brings ideas to life through the development of software. Programs can help solve problems, enable innovations, or express personal interests. In this performance task, you will be developing a program of your choice. Your development process should include iteratively designing, implementing, and testing your program. You are strongly encouraged to work with another student in your class.
These are instructions for the practice task have been added by your teacher. For this practice task you will work individually to document the class program that you have been given.
Please note that once this performance task has been assigned as an assessment (rather than as practice), you are expected to complete the task with minimal assistance from anyone other than your collaborative peer(s). For more clarification see the Guidelines for Completing the Through-Course Performance Tasks section.
You will be provided with a minimum of 12 hours of class time to complete and submit the following:
- A video of your program running
- Individual written responses about your program and development process
- Program code
Scoring guidelines and instructions for submitting your performance tasks are available on the AP Computer Science Principles Course Home Page.
This performance task requires you to develop a program on a topic that interests you or one that solves a problem. During the completion of this performance task, you will iteratively design, implement, and test your program.
For the practice task a program has been given to you. You may use your own program for the practice task. However, you may not use the same program for the practice task and the actual assessment. You will develop an original program for the actual assessment task.
You will provide written responses to prompts about your program and specific program code that are significant to the functionality of your program. It is strongly recommended that a portion of the program involve some form of collaboration with another student in your class, for example, in the planning, designing, or testing (debugging) part of the development process. Your program development must also involve a significant amount of independent work writing your program code, in particular, algorithm(s) and abstraction(s) that you select to use as part of your written response to describe how the program code segments help your program run.
The writing is the part of the task that is scored by AP readers. Spend most of your time developing clear, concise writing that explains your program.
You are required to:
- independently develop an algorithm that integrates two or more algorithms and that is fundamental for your program to achieve its intended purpose;
- develop an abstraction that manages the complexity of your program;
- create a video that displays the running of your program and demonstrates its functionality
- write responses to all the prompts in the performance task; and
- submit your entire program code.
Your program must demonstrate a variety of capabilities and implement several different language features that, when combined, produce a result that cannot be easily accomplished without computing tools and techniques. Your program should draw upon mathematical and logical concepts, such as use of numbers, variables, mathematical expressions with arithmetic operators, logical and Boolean operators and expressions, decision statements, iteration, and/or collections.
Your program must demonstrate:
- use of several effectively integrated mathematical and logical concepts, from the language you are using;
- implementation of an algorithm that integrates two or more algorithms and integrates mathematical and/or logical concepts; and
- development and use of abstractions to manage the complexity of your program (e.g., procedures, abstractions provided by the programming language, APIs).
Submit one video in .mp4, .wmv, .avi, or .mov format that demonstrates the running of at least one significant feature of your program. Your video must not exceed 1 minute in length and must not exceed 30 MB in size.
Submit one PDF file in which you respond directly to each prompt. Clearly label your responses 2a–2d in order. Your response to all prompts combined must not exceed 750 words, exclusive of the Program Code.
2a. Provide a written response or audio narration in your video that:
- identifies the programming language;
- identifies the purpose of your program; and
- explains what the video illustrates. (Must not exceed 150 words)
2b. Describe the incremental and iterative development process of your program, focusing on two distinct points in that process. Describe the difficulties and/ or opportunities you encountered and how they were resolved or incorporated. In your description clearly indicate whether the development described was collaborative or independent. At least one of these points must refer to independent program development. (Must not exceed 200 words)
2c. Capture and paste a program code segment that implements an algorithm (marked with an oval in section 3 below) and that is fundamental for your program to achieve its intended purpose. This code segment must be an algorithm you developed individually on your own, must include two or more algorithms, and must integrate mathematical and/or logical concepts. Describe how each algorithm within your selected algorithm functions independently, as well as in combination with others, to form a new algorithm that helps to achieve the intended purpose of the program. (Must not exceed 200 words)
2d. Capture and paste a program code segment that contains an abstraction you developed individually on your own (marked with a rectangle in section 3 below). This abstraction must integrate mathematical and logical concepts. Explain how your abstraction helped manage the complexity of your program. (Must not exceed 200 words)
Capture and paste your entire program code in this section.
- Mark with an oval the segment of program code that implements the algorithm you created for your program that integrates other algorithms and integrates mathematical and/or logical concepts.
- Mark with a rectangle the segment of program code that represents an abstraction you developed.
- Include comments or acknowledgments for program code that has been written by someone else.