Introduction

This Web site supports one Lesson, found within an AP CS A Curriculum Module, that considers how recursion can be used to simulate a game of racquetball or volleyball.

Due to severe space limitations, the Lesson focuses on these elements:

• Reading 1:
  • The basic rules of volleys and scoring in racquetball and volleyball.
  • Two distinct descriptions of the natural flow of activities within a game.
• Reading 2:
  • Translation of the general flow of a serve-by-serve game into Java code.

The Natural Flow of a Racquetball or Volleyball Game

The Lesson observes that a game simulation would naturally follow the flow of a racquetball or volleyball game. There are at least two basic approaches:

• Game Flow 1: Proceed serve by serve until someone wins

         Serve
            if server wins volley
                score a point
                if server wins game
                     report winner
                else
                     same server serves again
            else
                other team  serves
  

• Game Flow 2: Game proceeds with the sequence A serves, then B serves

         Continue until someone wins
            A.  A serves until A wins game or loses serve
            B.  If A has not won
                    B serves until B winds game or loses serve
  

  Java Code

  Three Java programs provide support for this Lesson:

  • A Java program that provides a basic testing framework for a method playUntilWin that simulates a game: Game1TestStub.java with playUntilWin as a stub and Game1TestFull.java with details of playUntilWin included from Reading 1.
  • A Java program Game2TestFull.java with a method based on the flow of the game invlving A servers then B serves (to be developed by students in Act II of the Lesson).

  Annotated Bibliography

  • This Lesson extends one part of the author's article, "A Racquetball or Volleyball Simulation", published as a Classroom Issues column in the SIGCSE Bulletin inroads, Volume 29, Number 4, December 1997, pp. 22-23. Access to the archival version of this article is available by clicking through the article title at this page maintained by the author.

  • http://www.walker.cs.grinnell.edu/racquetball/ provides an extensive discussion, separate from the Lesson in the AP CS A Curriculum Module, that considers a wide range of issues related to a full simulation of racquetball or volleyball.

     http://www.walker.cs.grinnell.edu/apcsa/racquetball/