Solar System

Let's make a planetary system!

Learning Goals

Wave 1

• Create a custom class
• Create and use an initialize method in your class
• Create and use instance variables in your class

Wave 2

• Use an array to store a list of objects
• Create and use a method

Baseline

• Create a Planet class with a name attribute.
• You should be able to instantiate a new Planet object with an associated name.

Wave 1

Primary Requirements

• Get creative! Give each instance of Planet at least five attributes. These could be diameters, mass, moons... whatever!
• Allow these attributes to be set using parameters in initialize.
• You should be able to create many different planets with different properties, like Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, etc.

Optional Enhancements

• Give each planet a rate of solar rotation
• Give each planet a @distance_from_the_sun attribute
• Write a program that asks for user input to query the planets:
  • First, ask the user to select a planet they'd like to learn about.
  • Present the user with a list of planets from which they can choose. Something like:
    • 1. Mercury, 2. Venus, 3. Earth, 4. Secret Earth, 5. Mars, 6. Jupiter, ... 13. Exit
  • Provide the user with well formatted information about the planet (diameter, mass, number of moons, primary export, etc.)
  • Then ask the user for another planet.

Wave 2

Primary Requirements

• Create a SolarSystem class that has an attribute planets that has zero to many Planet instances. There are a few different options for how to associate the planets with your solar system:
  • Create a method that adds a single planet to a solar system
  • Create a method that adds a list of planets to an existing list of planets

Optional Enhancements

• Ensure that the each planet has a @distance_from_the_sun attribute. Using this data, add a method to determine the distance from any other planet (assuming planets are in a straight line from the sun)
• Give your solar system a formation year (in earth years).
• Define a method that returns the local year of the planet based on it's rotation since the beginning of the solar system