Having a hard time determining the starting point of my design
<p>For my CS course I have to program a hotel checkin/checkout system. The program must be able to check people in and out. The programm assigns the first available room to a guest upon checkin. If no room is free, it will say so as well. The Hotel has four rooms. </p>

<p>In the assignment it says there need to be 4 classes: Assignment5, Hotel, Room, &amp; Guest.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Assignment5 class is for the interaction with the user.</p></li>
<li><p>Hotel class has four rooms and all methods for operating the rooms.</p></li>
<li><p>Room class has 1 guest. If the rooms is empty a guest can check in. If the guest is leaving the room needs to be emptied.</p></li>
<li><p>Guest class: the guest has a firstname and a last name.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>In the menu there need to be 4 options:
1 show status of rooms available and occupation.
2 check in option
3 check out option
4 end program option.</p>

<p>OK, so I know I should make my assignment for myself. However, I don't know what it is, but starting with assignments I have great problems cutting the thing up in smaller pieces. Also this assignment is to learn working with different classes and I don't really understand which sequence of steps i should take in this case.</p>

<p>Can someone help me getting started by giving some tips? Have been staring at my screen for hours now and just thought I could use some little insights to get me started. Any help is greatly apprecieted!</p>

<p>OK thnks for the help so far. </p>

<p>*<strong>*First of all, MANY thanks for all your help, you guys are great! Have been at it for 7 hours straight now and still stuck. My problem now is that it doesn't compile. It says:</strong> </p>

<pre><code>Java:28: checkIn(Gast) in Hotel cannot be applied to (java.lang.String)
                hotel.checkIn("Guido");
                                     ^
1 error
</code></pre>

<p>And maybe, can someone look if this way i put it now is a little bit on the right path? I do thank JavaGeek for his program, but i want to learn it by doing myself.</p>

<p>up until now I have the following:</p>

<pre><code>   import java.util.Scanner;

public class bopgave5 {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        boolean opnieuw = false;

        do {
            int invoer = menu();

            if (invoer == 2){

                Hotel hotel = new Hotel();
                hotel.checkIn("Guido");

                opnieuw = true;
            }

            else if (invoer == 4)
                opnieuw = false;

            else
            opnieuw = true;
        }
        while (opnieuw == true);

    }

    public static int menu (){
        Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);


        System.out.println("MENU:   [1] Statusoverzicht");
        System.out.println("    [2] Check-in");
        System.out.println("    [3] Check-out");
        System.out.println("    [4] Einde");
        System.out.print("Uw invoer: ");
        int invoer = sc.nextInt();  

        return invoer;

    }


}

class Hotel {

    Kamer kamer1, kamer2, kamer3, kamer4;

    Hotel (){
        kamer1 = new Kamer();
        kamer2 = new Kamer();
        kamer3 = new Kamer();
        kamer4 = new Kamer();
    }




    void checkIn(Gast nieuweGast) {


        if (kamer1.gast == null) {      
        kamer1.gast = nieuweGast;
        System.out.println("Gast " + nieuweGast.naam + " krijgt kamer 1");
        return;
        }

        else if (kamer2.gast == null) {     
        kamer2.gast = nieuweGast;
        System.out.println("Gast " + nieuweGast.naam + " krijgt kamer 2");
        return;
        }

        else if (kamer3.gast == null) {     
        kamer3.gast = nieuweGast;
        System.out.println("Gast " + nieuweGast.naam + " krijgt kamer 3");
        return;
        }

        else if (kamer4.gast == null) {     
        kamer4.gast = nieuweGast;
        System.out.println("Gast " + nieuweGast.naam + " krijgt kamer 5");
        return;
        }

        else {
        System.out.println("hotel is vol");
        return;
        }


    }                        

}

class Kamer {

    Gast gast;

    Kamer() {
        gast = null;
    }


}

class Gast {
    String naam;

    Gast(String nieuweNaam) {
        naam = nieuweNaam;
    }
}
</code></pre>
