Olympic Jet Racing

Olympic Jet Racing was the first computer science program I developd on my own. The objective of the game is for the player to win the race against the other jets which are assigned random speeds. The game was based on my idea of a futuristic hypothetical jet racing event at the Olympics. Using the “A” and “S” keys, the player alternately presses each key to move forward. However, the player cannot simply hold the keys down. They must continue to alternately press each key in order to advance their fighter jet character across the screen. If the player reaches the finish line first, the program announces that they are the winner and awards them the title of “Ace”. If the player does not reach the finish line before the other jets, they lose and the winning jet is announced as the winner.

This game was written in Java using the Eclipse IDE. I developed all the code myself, although I received some gudidance and advice from classmates and teaching assistants. The goal for the project was for students to learn how to use various loops and implement user input to create a simple racing game. It was the first computer science project which I had to create, so it seemed like a daunting task at first. There were a lot of specific rules on how our program had to work in order to get credit for the assignment. It was certainly frustrating at times, since I had pretty much zero prior coding experience. However, I broke it up into different parts and set goals for myself to achieve certain objectives so that my program would be finished on time.

Despite the challenge of this first assignment, I got an A grade on it, so I felt pretty accomplished for a computer science “newbie”. The biggest lesson I learned from this first project is the importance of asking for guidance when you need it and not being afraid to ask questions. Since finishing this assignment, I have put the lessons I learned into practice by working with others and having the confidence to ask questions and find better solutions. You never have all the answers in computer science, so you have to work with others to find solutions and methods which work and which ake you into a better programmer.

You can watch a video of the gameplay at: Olympic Jet Racing.