Small Basic Challenges of the Month - June 2014

[Ed Price]

First published on MSDN on Jun 04, 2014

Authored by Ed Price

These monthly challenges come from our Small Basic Community Council member, litdev .

These challenges are intended for people who are learning to program for the first time or for those returning to programming who want to start using Small Basic.  Some will be easy, some will be hard - but they will all make you think, and more importantly be GREAT FUN!

Please post your solutions / partial solutions / questions / feedback etc. into this Small Basic Forum thread that will remain 'sticky' for the month.  The only rule is that your solution must use standard Small Basic methods (no extensions).

It would be good if people could post their problems with these challenges so that a discussion can start so that everyone can learn from each other.

Also post feedback on the kind of challenges that you want to see more of in the future.

Small Challenges

1. Write a program to input 5 numbers and then output them in ascending and descending order (sorted small to big and big to small).


2. Write a program to replace all occurrences of vowels in a sentence with '*'.


3. Write a program to draw a picture of a soccer stadium (think world cup in Brasil).  Then have a go at Game Challenge 2.


4. Write a GraphicsWindow program with buttons to change the background colour of the window.  Perhaps add some texboxes to enter a colour by name or even values for red, green and blue.

Math Challenges

1. Write a program to draw a pie chart


2. Write a program to calculate the first 1000 prime numbers

We have had some great game challenge entries recently, so here are 3 more...

Game Challenge 1

Write a 'frustration' board game .

Game Challenge 2

Write a soccer penalty shootout game for 2 players , the striker and the goalkeeper.  The graphics can be quite simple - the challenge is all about gameplay.

Game Challenge 3

Write a FPS (First Person Shooter).  A 3D version is unrealistic, but a simple 2D one is quite possible.

I am thinking of enemies that come and go and may shoot at you.  The player has to react and aim with the mouse and fire with a button click to kill the enemies.

Hint : Start with basics of game play (mouse events - variable arrays for enemies and game loop) before adding fancy sound or visual effects.

Community Suggestions (by ProfessionalOfSmallBasic)

1. Make a Escape Game and it have 3 rooms.


2. Make a Adjustable Hourglass.


3. Make a Screen keyboard.

Community Suggestions (by Nonki)

1. Create your program database.


2. Create a ticker tape animation.


3. Create a piano recorder using piano sound of Sound.PlayMusic().

Community Suggestions (by Jibba Jabba)

1. Write some code that works out how to center a Window between the top and bottom of the screen.


2. Make a "flash screen" with or without using an extension.  Center it in the screen. (You can search the forum for how to do this).

Community Suggestions (by Athasak)

1. Click and drag an image.  A little sample here: Import ID: JXW401 .

Do you have an idea for a future challenge? Please post it in this Small Basic forum thread!

Thanks to litdev for providing us with these fun challenges!

- Ninja Ed