COSC2429 Introduction to Programming

Python Turtle Graphics and

Python Modules
Outline
• Hello, little turtles! turtle program

• Our first turtle program • The range() function

o More turtle program • A few more turtle methods

• Instances and observations

• The for loop • Modules

o Flow of execution of o math

the for loop o random

• Iteration simplifies our

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 2

Python modules
• There are many modules in Python that provide very
powerful features that we can use in our own programs.

o Some can send email or fetch web pages.

o Others allow us to perform complex math

calculations.

• A module is a Python file containing definitions and

statements.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 3

Hello, little turtles! 1
• We now introduce a module that allows us to create a
data object called a turtle that can be used to draw
pictures.

o A turtle can follow simple commands such as go

forward and turn right.

o As the turtle moves around, if its tail is down

touching the ground, it will draw a line (leave a trail
behind) as it moves.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 4

Hello, little turtles! 2
o If you tell your turtle to lift up its tail it can still move
around but will not leave a trail.

o You will be able to make some pretty amazing

drawings with these simple capabilities.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 5

Our first turtle program
• Let’s try to create a new turtle and start drawing a
simple figure like a rectangle.
import turtle # allows us to use the turtles module

win = turtle.Screen() # creates a graphics window

tito = turtle.Turtle() # creates a turtle named tito

tito.forward(150) # ask tito to move forward 150 pixels

tito.left(90) # ask tito to turn left 90 degrees
tito.forward(75) # complete the second side of a rectangle
…

• Does the program run too fast? No problem, add the following line after
creating the graphics window:
win.delay(100) # delay each action that tito performs by 100 ms
13-Aug-19 RMIT University 6
 More turtle
• An object can have various methods — things it can do
— and it can also have attributes (sometimes also
called properties). For example:

o Each turtle has a color attribute that can be set to a

specific color.

o It is similar with the turtle pensize or the window’s

bgcolor.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 7

More turtle - program
import turtle

# Setup a window and a turtle object to draw

win = turtle.Screen()
win.bgcolor("lightgreen")
tess = turtle.Turtle()
tess.color("blue")
tess.pensize(3) # tess and tito will be conventional turtle
# instance names in this course
# Draw an angle
tess.forward(80)
tess.left(120)
tess.forward(80)

win.exitonclick() # wait for the user to click on the canvas

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 8

Instances 1
• Just like we can have many different integers in a
program, we can have many turtles. Each of them is an
independent object and we call each one
an instance of the Turtle type (class).

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 9

Instances 2
• Each instance has its own attributes and methods

• So tito might draw with a thin black pen and be at some

position, while tito might be going in her own direction
with a fat pink pen.

• The following program is what happens when tito draws

a square and tess draws a triangle:

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 10

 Instances - program
import turtle
# Setup a window and two turtles to
draw # tess draws an equilateral triangle
win = turtle.Screen() tess.forward(80)
win.bgcolor("lightgreen") tess.left(120)
tito = turtle.Turtle() tess.forward(80)
tess = turtle.Turtle() tess.left(120)
tess.color("hotpink") tess.forward(80)
tess.pensize(5) tess.left(120)
# tito draws a square
tito.forward(150) win.exitonclick()
tito.left(90)
tito.forward(150)
tito.left(90)
tito.forward(150)
tito.left(90)
tito.forward(150)
tito.left(90)
#continues on the right
13-Aug-19 RMIT University 11
 Iteration

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 12

Problem: iterating over and over
• When we drew the square, it was quite tedious.

• We had to move then turn, move then turn, etc. four

times.

• If we were drawing a polygon with 42 sides, it would

have been a nightmare to duplicate all that code.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 13

Solution: the for loop
• It would be nice to be able to repeat some code over
and over again.

• We refer to this repetitive idea as iteration.

• In Python, the for statement allows us to write iteration.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 14

The for loop - example
• As a simple example, let’s say we have some friends,
and we’d like to send each of them an email inviting
them to our party.

o At the moment, we don’t quite know how to send

email yet, so we’ll just print a message for each
friend.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 15

The for loop - example
loop variable list

for name in ["Joe", "Amy", "Brad", "Angelina", "David", "Vivian", "Paris"]:

__print("Hi", name, "Please come to my party on Saturday!")

indentation (4 spaces or 1 tab) loop body

• It goes like this

For each name in the list of names, print out Hi [value of

name] please come to my party on Saturday!

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 16

 The for loop – flow execution
for loop_variable in list:
loop_body_stmts

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 17

Iteration simplifies our turtle program 1
import turtle

# Set up a window and a turtle

win = turtle.Screen()
win.bgcolor("lightgreen")
tito = turtle.Turtle()
tito.pensize(5)

# Draw a side 4 times to make a square

for i in [0, 1, 2, 3]: # i is a common abbreviation for integer
tito.forward(150)
tito.left(90)

win.exitonclick()
13-Aug-19 RMIT University 18
Iteration simplifies our turtle program 2
• Actually, it’s more important that we found a repeated
pattern rather than saving a few lines of code
• We could use another kind of list to do the same thing
import turtle

# Set up a window and a turtle

win = turtle.Screen()
win.bgcolor("lightgreen")
tito = turtle.Turtle()
tito.pensize(5)

# Draw a side 4 times to make a square

for a_color in ["yellow", "red", "purple", "blue"]:
tito.forward(150)
tito.left(90)

win.exitonclick()
13-Aug-19 RMIT University 19
Iteration simplifies our turtle program 3
• Now, let’s add one more line of code to make the
square more beautiful 
import turtle

# Set up a window and a turtle

win = turtle.Screen()
win.bgcolor("lightgreen")
tito = turtle.Turtle()
tito.pensize(5)

# Draw a side 4 times to make a square

for a_color in ["yellow", "red", "purple", "blue"]:
tito.color(a_color)
tito.forward(150)
tito.left(90)

win.exitonclick()
13-Aug-19 RMIT University 20
The range function
• Generating a list of integers is a very common thing to
do, especially when using for loop

• The range() function helps to generate a list of integers

very effectively

• For example, the following code will print 0, 1, 2, 3

for i in range(4): # range(stop)
print(i)

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 21

 The range function - example
• How’s about this?

for i in range(1, 5): # range(start, stop)

print(i)

• And this?

for i in range(1, 20, 2): # range(start, stop, step)

print(i)

• Quick check: what is the command to generate [2, 5, 8]?

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 22

 A few more turtle methods and
observations

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 23

A few more turtle methods and
observations 1
• A turtle’s tail can be picked up or put down. This allows
us to move a turtle to a different place without drawing a
line.

tito.up() # ask tito to pick her tail up, i.e. no draw after that
tito.forward(100) # this moves tito, but no line is drawn
tito.down() # ask tito to put her tail down

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 24

 A few more turtle methods and
observations 2
• Every turtle can have its own shape. The ones
available “out of the box” are arrow, blank,
circle, classic, square, triangle, turtle.

...
tito.shape("turtle")
...

• You can speed up or slow down the turtle’s animation

speed. Speed settings can be set between 1 (slowest)
to 10 (fastest).
tito.speed(10)
13-Aug-19 RMIT University 25
A few more turtle methods and
observations 3

• A turtle can “stamp” its footprint onto the canvas, and

this will remain after the turtle has moved somewhere
else. Stamping works even when the pen is up.

• Let’s do an example that shows off some of these new

features.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 26

A few more turtle methods and
observations - example
import turtle

win = turtle.Screen()
win.bgcolor("lightgreen")
tess = turtle.Turtle()
tess.color("blue")
tess.shape("turtle")

tess.up()
for size in range(5, 60, 2): # start with size = 5 and grow by 2
tess.stamp() # leave an impression on the canvas
tess.forward(size) # move tess along
tess.right(24) # and turn her

win.exitonclick()

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 27

 *** Summary of turtle methods ***
Method Parameters Description All the info are at
https://docs.python.
Turtle None Creates and returns a new turtle object org/3/library/turtle.ht
ml
forward distance Moves the turtle forward
backward distance Moves the turle backward
right angle Turns the turtle clockwise
left angle Turns the turtle counter clockwise
up None Picks up the turtles tail
down None Puts down the turtles tail
color color name Changes the color of the turtle’s tail
fillcolor color name Changes the color of the turtle will use to fill a polygon
heading None Returns the current heading
position None Returns the current position
goto x, y Move the turtle to position x, y
begin_fill None Remember the starting point for a filled polygon
end_fill None Close the polygon and fill with the current fill color
dot None Leave a dot at the current position
stamp None Leaves an impression of a turtle shape at the current location

shape shapename Should be ‘arrow’, ‘classic’, ‘turtle’, or ‘circle’

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 28

Modules 1
• A module is a file containing Python definitions and
statements intended for use in other Python programs.

• There are many Python modules that come with Python

as part of the standard library and you can write your
own modules too if you want.

• We have already used one of these modules

extensively - the turtle module.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 29

 Modules 2
• Once we import a module, we can use things that are
defined inside that module.
import turtle

• The Python Documentation site for Python 3.7 is an

extremely useful reference for all aspects of Python.

• You should browse through the sections in this site to

get familiar with the information that it provides.

• The “Quick search” function in this site is very handy.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 30
 The math module 1
• The math module contains the math functions you
would typically find on your calculator and some math
constants like π and e

import math

print(math.pi)
print(math.e)
print(math.sqrt(2.0))
print(math.sin(math.radians(90))) # sin of 90 degrees

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 31

The math module 2

• Notice another difference between this module and our

use of turtle. In turtle we create objects
(either Turtle or Screen) and call methods on those
objects.

• Math functions do not need to be constructed. They

simply perform a task. They are all housed together in a
module called math.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 32

 The random module

• We often want to use random numbers in programs.

Here are a few typical uses:

o To play a game of chance where the computer needs

to throw some dice, pick a number, or flip a coin

o To shuffle a deck of playing cards randomly

o To randomly allow a new enemy spaceship to appear

and shoot at you

• Python provides a module random that helps with tasks

like this. You can take a look at it in the documentation.
13-Aug-19 RMIT University 33
 The random module - example
• Here is an example of the key things we can do with the
random module.

import random

# get a random floating number in [0.0, 1.0)

prob = random.random()
print(prob)

# return a random integer in [1, 7)

dice_value = random.randrange(1, 7)
print(dice_value)

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 34

 Exercise
Write a program that generates and prints out a random
value of a dice. The program should do this five times and
then exits.

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 35

 Early Feedback Exercises
• Assessment introduction

• Examples

13-Aug-19 RMIT University 36