Interview

I spent some time with Mr. Rakshi and recorded the outcome of an interview:

Question: Describe the club that you run?

Answer: Hi P____, I have been running the club for five years, we host it in my Maths room on a Wednesday after school. There are between 3 and 20 students attended every week, with smaller numbers in the summer. I think this is because a lot of the students play sports in the summer term. Students are mainly from the lower years and we have 3 draughts boards in total. This can cause trouble when we have a lot of students. A few of the pieces are missing and I've tried my best to replace them. At the beginning of the year there can be some arguments about the rules of the game and even after reminding students of the rules, they can forget.

Question: How many computers do you have access to?

Answer: I only have one computer in the room, but I have access to some Windows 7 net book computers, which belong to the department.

Question: What do you want the program to do?

Answer: I would love it to enforce the rules properly so that students can't break them, and there will be no more arguments! I would love the students to be able to play on the screen and it to keep track of the score. It should keep track of whose move it is and the score each player has.

Question: Do you want to save the results from every game? Do you want to save individual games so students can come back to them another day?

Answer: I have just started a league and I would love to keep track of who played who. Each player should play each other player twice, taking it in turns to be black and white pieces. The player with the most wins, wins! I have no need to save individual games as they are generally quite short. Having a timer in the game would be pretty useful.

Question: Are the machines networked?

Answer: Yes they are, on the school network, with internet access.

Question: Are the machines networked?

Answer: Yes they are, on the school network, with internet access.

Question: What about when you have an odd number of players, do you need AI?

Answer: I'd love an AI system, this would keep the students who are left without a partner busy whilst they wait for someone to become free. It would also help the shyer students gain a little more confidence.

Question: How do you want to handle student accounts?

Answer: I'd like students to be able to add themselves and log in with a username and password. As an Admin I'd like to be able to edit the names (if they are inappropriate!) and delete accounts for students who have left.

Question: What sort of security and backup would you want for the system?

Answer: Students should be able to set their own passwords and I should be able to reset them if they forget. I don't mind about the password strength, but they shouldn't be able to see each others. The machines are backed up each night so that shouldn't be a problem.

I also conducted interviews with a few students:

Question: What is the main issue with playing games at Mr Rakshi's club?

Answer1: People are always arguing over the rules and this can lead to falling out.

Answer2: There aren't enough boards, by the second term people get bored of waiting and leave the club because they can never get a game

Question: Do you have a preference for playing games on the internet or the desktop?

Answer1: Desktop definitely, the internet in college is slow and it doesn't always load the pages fast enough.

Answer2: I like the internet so I can play things at school that I have been playing at home and the other way around too!

Question: What sort of look do you want to the draughts set?

Answer1: Could we have something cartoony? I don't mind the normal set, but it would be fun to have a slightly different look

Answer2: Giving a selection of colours would be good, even different types of red would be good.