Here is what your program should look like. Yours must have at least as much functionality as this one. Yours is not expected to work as an applet.
As described in the assignment, you can click on the game board area to change a cell to a different life form. The type of life form to be added is selected from the LifeForm menu.
The Exit option on the File menu will not do anything in the applet version, but I left it because that is expected in your stand alone version. (Warning: For reasons I don't fully understand, one time, selecting exit actually caused my browser to exit. I didn't think this should happen and it didn't do it the last time I tried it.)
Finally, running this applet requires your browser support Java2. You may be prompted to download plug-in. This download could take a long time over a modem so you should only do this if you have a fast connection. You can also borrow a CD from me with the plug-in on it.