Okay, so I’ve been wanting to mess around with this “bingo ball” thing for a while now. I finally got around to it, and let me tell you, it was a bit of a journey.
Getting Started
First, I needed to figure out what I even wanted to do. I mean, “bingo ball” is pretty vague. Was I going to build a physical bingo ball machine? Simulate one on the computer? I decided to go the digital route – seemed less messy. I started to search what I could to do, and found some interesting information.
The Process
I started by grabbing some basic supplies. Actually, it’s more accurate to say I opened up a new file in my coding program. I decided to use processing ’cause it’s simple for making things move on screen.
- Set the stage: Created a window. Gave it a nice, neutral background color. Nothing fancy.
- Make a ball: Drew a circle. Picked a random, bright color for it. Made it a decent size so it’s easy to see.
- Let’s Move: Give it some life, you know. I had to add some motion. I wanted it to bounce around like a real bingo ball, so I gave it a starting position and, importantly, a speed and direction(some x and y )
Bouncing Around
Now, the bouncing. This took a bit of fiddling. I had to make sure the ball changed direction whenever it hit the edge of the window. It was a bit back and forth, the ball was outside the boundaries, too fast, or sometimes even got stuck.
I added some conditional statement,if the ball’s x position is greater than the window width or less than 0, reverse the x speed! Same basic idea for the y position and the window height.
All Done!
Finally, I got something that looked pretty good! A colorful ball happily bouncing around the screen. It’s simple, sure, but it was a fun little experiment. It’s not exactly a full bingo game, but hey, it’s a start! Maybe I’ll add some numbers next time, or even try to simulate multiple balls bouncing around. Who knows!
