Just like Connect Four Bingo, this is another reboot of an application I wrote years ago for my class of 10th-12th grade computer programming students. As the title of this article suggests, this was about Jeopardy. I wrote Jeopardy back in 2020 as another mechanism for gamifying concepts and vocabulary in the classroom. I made it to load from a google sheet for dynamic games, added an answer window to display answers on a second screen and, for the most part, it worked pretty well. The game is made to be played by casting a screen onto a TV that all students can see, and then hosted by me (or another student). “Buzzing in”, was done by hand raising and calling on students (who were usually divided up into teams). It served as a great tool that students enjoyed, and I could have students create games about content, which has always lead to great fun/discussions when the creator was not 100% perfect in the game they provided…but it was always a bit of a prototype in the way that it was made with one bit of functionality just patched on top of existing code. There has always been at least a few things I wanted changed, like a bit of the styling, and especially the look of the admin form, but never felt it was worth the time to clean up.
Here’s what the starting point was:
Because one of my current favorite hobbies is playing with OpenAI’s Codex and pondering what the life of a developer is anymore, I figured I’d throw this at it with a list of the things I never felt like doing and seeing what it would come up with…well, I’d say I’m pretty happy with where we got.
For starters, I just had it redo the form/appearance. It was important to keep/improve the classic Jeopardy board look and loading of questions/answers, but I needed it all packaged a little nicer. I also figured this was a good time to drop the cumbersome excel upload experience and add support for basic csv and manual input (google sheets was always supported). Given the new layout (2 columns – admin panel and game board), I also took the 8 seconds to have it make it so the game board could be displayed full screen. All of that was completed from a prompt or two with Codex while I was preparing breakfast for the family.
Later in the day, I returned to the laptop to prompt for the next feature I always wanted. I added the ability to create a room (using sockets again), so that a share link could be provided and students (contestants), could join with their phone and then “buzz in” to answer a question. So, we added a feature to where a share link could be given, the players join on their phone (or other device), enter their name, and then a specified number of seconds after a question is revealed, they can buzz in. Then, on the question screen, you can see who buzzed in first, second, third….
Here’s the admin panel:
Here’s what the player sees:
And here is what it looks like on the hosts machine:
And with that, it was done…all the things I had thought about doing over the last several years but never felt like diving into; done in an afternoon while I was preparing meals and spring cleaning the garage.
Here’s a view of the final application:
I am very happy with this application, but left to wonder if there’s any real pride to be had with it as well. After all, it was just a few prompts with Codex. Is it any better than something anyone could do because of the knowledge I have from years of experience and my ability to guide what I wanted, or could just any person who has never coded in their life create the same thing with Codex?…honestly, I don’t know. It’s really just another entry into the story of my existential crisis in wondering how AI and actual programmers can truly co-exist. Sometimes I think I’m just playing the music on the Titanic as the ship goes down. I mean, I love playing with AI, but am I really just having fun with the very thing that will make me and the craft I care about obsolete?…and even if that were true, what else could I do anyhow?
Who knows….here’s a link to the Jeopardy v2: https://jeopardy.jklinscreations.com/
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