[Ideas please] New track trophies

Exercism
4

Ok. I know this is about existing exercises, but I’ve been trying to add more date and time focused exercises, so…

[Time Lord/Timey-Wimey/Time-Turner/Quantum Leaper/Russian Doll /Back to the Future/I'll be back/Groundhog Day ] (all depending on your favorite pop culture ref) – for completing all the calendar/date/time focused exercises on a track or cross-tracks. (so maybe Timey-Wimey for one track and Time Lord for multiple).

And a couple others:

[Mathamagician ] - for completing x # of “math focused” exercises on a track.

[article of interest/article pract/whatchamacallit/widget wrangler/doodad dabbler/Member of the Gang of 4/Turtle Tamer ](have to think about this one more) – for doing OOP focused exercises on a track.

Edited to add some extra cheesy ones:

Python Wrangler or Pythonista – Completing Python track.
Rubyist/Ruby Miner Corundum Completer – Completing Ruby track.
Barista/Coffee Connoisseur – Completing Java track
Vamooser/Delightfully Departed – Completing Go track

5

I’m not a big fan of gamification, I think it makes people do things for the wrong reasons (to get points or badges).
But here are some ideas for badges:

  • “strong foundation” or “theoretician”: for a set of exercises that deal with classic data structures and algorithms (linked list, set, binary search, binary-tree, custom-set, knapsack, satellite, …)
  • “good with words”: for a set of string-related exercises (bob, raindrops, isogram, wordy, say, …)
  • “math-ster”: for a set of math-sy exercises (complex, hexadecimal, triangle, square-root, diffie-hellman, …)
  • “gamer”: for a set of exercises with a gaming background (yacht, poker, darts, dnd-character, tournament)
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6

Badges are cool, thophies sounds like a good idea; talking about gamifying what about some ‘ranks’ like in a private E-2 is bellow in rank and responsibilities as a corporal E-4, so depending on your trophies/badges and or something else, you could get a higher rank in a language or in Excercism in general and the higher your rank the more complex problems you tackle and also mentorings are more complex so that could help gamifying it a bit more and also for future things.

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7

Chrononaut was right there for the taking.

Pyret is going to lend itself to some very cheesy badges, and I’m 100% there for it.

X Marks the Spot for completing a mentoring session.
Raising the Jolly Roger for completing the track-specific exercises
Ahoy, Algorithms for completing 10 exercises
The Jolly Juggernaut for completing 20 exercises
Code Corsair for completing 30 exercises
High-Seas Hero for completing the track

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8

It WAS :woman_facepalming: I just cannot believe I missed it!! I bow down to your superior time-foo! :laughing:

I am also of the personal opinion that Pyret needs to lean into the whole theme. I’d like to add:

Talk like a Pyret – for completing the first three concept exercises.
Sea Shanty Singer – for completing the learning exercises (or could be for song-themed ones)
Scrimshaw Specialist – for completing string-related exercises.
`The Hurdy-Gurdy – for completing “scale generator” (and other song-themed exercises). For reference: Theme from Black Sails – features a Hurdy-Gurdy.

2 Likes
9

Or based on percent of exercises solved on a specific track:

Here for C:

  • 1%: The world heard you say Hello.
  • 10%: C might be more than a letter.
  • 20%: int, double, char, oh my…
  • 30%: You’re getting used to variables and functions.
  • 40%: You’ve already heard of “pointers”.
  • 50%: You’re composing data structure like a pro.
  • 60%: You’re juggling pointers like a circus artist.
  • 70%: A struct here, a union there, it’s like magic.
  • 80%: Is writing C really that simple?
  • 90%: You’re writing compilers for fun.
  • 99%: Dennis Ritchie would be proud.

And here for Python:

  • 1%: You wrote some Python code and it even worked.
  • 10%: You’re not yet a big fan of snakes.
  • 20%: Duck-typing? Is this a a serious programming language?
  • 30% You’re getting familar with variables and functions.
  • 40% list and dict are your new best friends.
  • 50% A function here, a class there, you’re a Python programmer.
  • 60% You’re discovering the power of the standard library.
  • 70% Is writing Python really that simple?
  • 80% List comprehensions and generator expressions feel natural to you.
  • 90% Tim Peters calls you when he needs help.
  • 99% You’re a Snake Charmer!
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10

Resistance is Futile – for completing all the “Resistor Color” exercises (Resistor Color, Resistor Color Duo, Resistor Color Trio, Resistor Color Expert)

Cryptologist or Encipherer – for completing all the “Cipher” exercises (Atbash, Affine, Rail Fence, Rotational, Simple, and Crypto Square)

Arborist – for completing all the “tree” exercises (Binary Search Tree, Tree Building, Satellite, POV)

Logologist – for completing pangram, isogram, anagram, and acronym

Geometer – for completing triangle, pascals triangle, diamond, and rectangles

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11

The A, B, C++s of Success for finishing the C++ syllabus.

C the World for finishing the C track.

Slithering Syntax for 10 Python exercises done.

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12

That is just plain brilliance

13

Can we get a list of the existing badges?

14

Existing badges are here: The official list of Exercism badges

Just to be clear, these aren’t more badges and I’m not sure to what extent they have names and playful icons in the same way that normal badges too. At the risk of being a spoil-sport, my question is really “what do we want to gamify to improve a student’s experience?” rather than looking too in depth at the particular sets of exercises or groupings etc. But I do appreciate the creativity :grin:

15
  • definitely having a mentoring session (ended by the student)
  • is there a way to track if they have viewed community solutions or approaches or track docs? I’d want to encourage those things.
  • finishing the learning exercises
  • finishing the practice exercises
  • with various tracks having various number of exercises, getting to 50% (or some limit) complete may not be a huge accomplishment.
  • similarly, finding an interesting set of exercises common to all tracks will be a challenge
  • perhaps a track could have a “secret trophy” linked to some exercise. Random rewards are always fun.
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16

Personally I really like that badge when you solve “Bob” in 5 different languages, I would love to see that expand to some other exercises. Preferable those that are not too simple/similar but actually have different ways to implemented depend on the language to highlight the differences between them.

I also think it would be really nice to have exercises that “linked” together to slowly introduce new concepts and culminate into a small project / game, and if you did them all you get a badge. I think there are already some templates for those like the RPG character class exercise, the robot factory exercise, card game like poker hand

As for gamify user experience, generally I think people like to see their progress going up (which we got with the reputation) but also has something to mark their achievement. I think you can set up some sort of “level up” system depend on how much reputation a person has, and depend on the level they could get a different border around their profile pic (this one is often used in gaming for seasonal ranking)

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17

Completed all the ‘easy’, ‘medium’, and ‘hard’ exercises could be nice.

18

Hey, what about medals?

  • complete all the easy exercises => bronze medal
  • medium => silver
  • hard => gold
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19

That would only work for tracks that have their difficulties figured out.

20

Levels per percentage of track completed:

  • Apprentice Explorer: Solve 10% of exercises
  • Code Adventurer: Solve 25% of exercises
  • Syntax Sorcerer: Solve 50% of exercises
  • Algorithm Conqueror: Solve 75% of exercises
  • Programming Magician: Solve 90% of exercises
  • Coding Maestro: Solve 100% of exercises

New badge:

  • Code cruncher: Solved 10 exercises in a day
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21

My main concern is that it doesn’t add to spinney time.

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22

Right, I’ve done some thinking (and build half the thing out). We’re going to have ~6 standard trophies that are the same on every track. We’ll then support up to 6 custom trophies per track. However, as these are work to make for me/erik (20mins per trophy), I’d rather we didn’t introduce 408 extra trophies (6 * 68 languages), so if we can get some generic groups together as people have been suggesting, that’d be great. And I want these to be things that enhance the student’s learning experience rather than just being playful.

That said, a lot of the fun, playful ideas in this thread should probably become badges! (e.g. “Geometer” probably isn’t language/learning-specific enough to count as a trophy, but it sounds like a great badge (I could be persuaded otherwise btw - but as an instinct)).

Bob’s already eyeing up getting so many trophies that it breaks the system :joy:

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23

What about a bug hunter badge?

Some exercises changes in one way or another after they are submitted, this could be seen as a requirement change in the real world, or a bug, as you tests might not run green anymore.

So if someone revisit an exercise and make it tests green again, after x-times, they could get rewarded with this badge.

People doing this will help keeping community solutions up to date, and help others solve their problems.

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