Teaching Logo Something New

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just type SQUARE instead of REPEAT 4 [FD 100 RT 90]? Go ahead and try it but expect an error message because Logo doesn’t know what SQUARE means. Yet. With your help as the teacher, Logo can learn new commands! Then, you can use them just like the built-in commands to save time, typing, and typos. To teach Logo how to square, type TO SQUARE and you’ll see the workspace editor — think of it as your chalkboard where you’ll write today’s lesson. May I have your attention, please? Read carefully.

Between the lines TO SQUARE and END, type the instructions to make a square, just like you did in the Listener panel. Go ahead and type REPEAT 4 [FD 100 RT 90] and then press Enter. Oops! You entered an empty line.

Instructions you type in between TO and END are remembered for later; they are not run immediately, as they are in the Input panel.

Before we proceed, let’s have a quick look at the buttons at the bottom of the Editor panel.

1. The red Erase button lets you erase the contents of the Editor panel. Confirm this action by clicking Yes in the dialog that pops up.
2. The gray Save button lets you save the contents of the Editor panel. In the Web version of Logo, the file is saved to the Downloads folder on your computer. In the Desktop version of Logo, you can navigate to a folder to save the contents of the Editor. The asterisk after the word Editor at the top of the panel indicates that the file has not been changed or has changed since the the last time it was saved.
3. The blue Run button defines the contents of the Editor panel.

Note that there are shortcut keystrokes for Save and Run.

Click the Run button. This loads the editor contents into the Logo workspace, and you’ve just taught your first lesson! You deserve a raise!

Now, type SQUARE.

More Teaching Fun

A square is four lines and four turns. But, what is four SQUARE commands and four turns? Type REPEAT 10 [SQUARE RT 36] and see what a star of squares looks like. Change the numbers for REPEAT and RIGHT to see what other interesting things you get. How about a pinwheel? How many squares are in that?

Of course, all of your squares are 100 turtle steps on a side because that’s how you defined it. How can you change it? If you type TO SQUARE again, you will see the procedure on the chalkboard just as you left it. You could change the FD 100 to FD 50, but then, what if you wanted bigger squares again later? You’d have to change it back to 100 again. This would get old in a hurry. Just remember, you’re a teacher!

Why not teach Logo how to make a smaller square? Call it BOX. Just type TO BOX, press Enter, type REPEAT 4 [FD 50 RT 90], click on the Run button and there you have it! Now you can draw a big square with SQUARE and a small square with BOX.

Try defining a procedure to draw a triangle — it’s just three lines and three turns. What about a star? Once you have your new commands defined, see what you can make. Here are some suggestions.

Your Input Matters

If you want to draw squares of a zillion different sizes, do you need to define a zillion different procedures with a zillion different names? That would be silly. The only difference between SQUARE and BOX is the number after the FD command. But how can you replace that number with any number you want, any time you want, without changing it over and over again in the “Define a Procedure” window? The answer is simple – use an input to your SQUARE procedure so you can just type SQUARE 100 or SQUARE 50 or use any number as the actual input.

What’s an actual input?

An actual input is the input you give to a command or procedure when you actually run it, like the number 100 in FD 100. An actual input is also called an actual parameter or actual argument. What other input is there?

A formal input is used in the definition of a procedure. It is a special container with a name chosen by you. A formal input is also called a formal parameter or formal argument. It is also called a variable because its contents can change or vary.

You will find that just the word input is often used for both types of input. Don’t let that confuse you. It’s just easier to say input.

Type TO SQUARE to bring up the workspace editor again. Click right behind the word “SQUARE”, and enter the name of the input. Since we are going to draw squares of any size we want, let’s use the name SIZE for our input to SQUARE. Type :SIZE and then click into line 2. Replace the 100 input to FD with :SIZE. When you run SQUARE later on, :SIZE will be automatically replaced with the actual input you give to SQUARE. Click the Run button to save your new SQUARE.

Now, you can draw squares of any size you want with just the SQUARE command in the same way you draw lines of any length with the FD command. Just give SQUARE an input. An actual input, that is. Add an input to other procedures in the same way. It’s simple, now.

SQUARE 70, SQUARE 120, SQUARE 4. Try it out!

Need More Input?

Your procedures can have more than one input, just like the REPEAT command. Suppose you want to draw a stack of boxes. How would you do that? Of course, you would use the SQUARE procedure to draw the box. But then what? How about moving the turtle to the top of the box it just drew? Then, it would be ready to draw the next box. Now how many boxes do you want in your stack? How about a short stack of 3 big boxes? Try REPEAT 3 [SQUARE 40 FD 40].

If you change the 3 to 7, you get a tall stack. If you change the 40s to 12s, you get smaller boxes. You can make stacks of boxes with one procedure called STACK and give it two inputs: one for how many boxes and another for how big to make them. Let’s name them HOWMANY and HOWBIG.

Type TO STACK to bring up the chalkboard and add the names of the two inputs after the word “STACK”. Then type in the instruction to draw a stack of any number of boxes of any size.

• Where will you put HOWMANY?
• Where will you put HOWBIG?
• How about a star made from stacks?

REPEAT 5 [STACK 15 7 RT 144]