MY SCRATCH EXPERIENCE AND A GOODBYE

Dear reader,

We have arrived to the end of this subject's classes, and with that, to the final chapter of this blog. In the past few moths, time has been running out of my hands, and, in a blink of an eye, I am about to finish my first year of collage. I am well aware that it has been only five entries, however, you should know that I have put a lot of effort in each one of the entrances, trying to make the message as understandable as possible.

Returning to the main point, I wanted this last entry to talk about Scratch, a visual programming language that we used in one of our last projects. In it, we had to do a Scratch project using a character created with an AI and a painting of the MNAC, the National Art Museum of Catalonia (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya).

When I first heard about this project, I was, not only delighted, but also nervous. The reason behind these emotions is that when I was younger, I used to work with Scratch in my robotics classes, and if I’m being honest, I missed it, a lot. So when the professor said in class that we had almost the total freedom in its creation, I went a little wild. Let me explain!

My first choice was to create a little game of a labyrinth where the little red riding hood (extracted for a MNAC’s poster) had to run away from the wolf (generated with AI). I already had all my characters, when I realised that I went over my head, and I was overcomplicating the task. That was when, after a day or two of thinking, I came up with my final project. It consisted of a Teddy Bear who was left alone at night at the museum. Using our keyboard’s arrows, we can help him not only to explore the museum, but also to travel over the paintings we found on the way. I lie if I say that it was fast to do it, because, although the programming wasn’t that hard, it took me a lot of time to create the different backgrounds and to put all the things in order. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it was all worth it. Although my intention was to make more rooms, I am very proud of how the project came out. 

In one of our lasts classes, the professor also shown us different technological tools we can use in class, being one of them the Makey Makey. This is an invention kit design to connect everyday objects to computers keys. Before that lesson, I didn’t know its existence, and I have to say that it has been a very curious discovery. We had the opportunity to use and play with Makey Makey a little bit in that class, and I have to admit that it was a very fun-loving experience. With the help of the tool, we did a keyword made of watermelon, water and aluminium, and, after creating, we use it to play, not only Tetris, but also an on-line piano. 

Before wrapping out this last entry, I wanted to say that I really enjoyed this subject. I am very grateful that we had the opportunity to discover new tools and techniques to incorporate technology into our classes. Moreover, the fact that we did this class in English also contributed to the enjoyment of this subject, because I like to practice my English. After its end, I have no bad word for it. I really hope next year I am able to do the mention of ICT, in order to be able to expand my knowledge about technology in the educational field.

It has been a great pleasure to share these experiences with all you readers. Hope you do well!

Best wishes,

Núria Brusi 

PD: Here you have a screenshot of my scratch project

Fig 1: A screenshot of my scratch project "A night at the MNAC".