Amazing and Goofy

“Amazing and goofy at the same time (just like 4th graders)” is how I am going to be describing the Code Club Showcase of projects this time around.

The first showcase was this afternoon. I think the students were really nervous about the parents coming and worried about the logistics of the showcase but they filled out their presentation sheets and then had the chance to test out everyone’s projects before parents arrived. When the parents started arriving the students had to forego the computers for our guests and become hosts and hostesses.  They showed their family where to sit and helped them navigate to the projects. They were flexible about the presentation order as we decided to start before some parents to showed up and we switched a few around so that the parents would get to see their students presentation.

I remembered my camera but had to ask a parent to take pictures for me.  He did a nice job.

I thought the presentations went really well.  At the last minute I thought to have them ask a buddy to play the game while they were presenting and that worked out nicely.  Pair presenters decided ahead of time who would say what.

Of course the parents loved the amazing and goofy projects. They seemed to follow along well – laughing and clapping when appropriate.

Tomorrow’s projects are just as amazing and goofy. We have two more Angry Bird type games – one involving flying toilet paper and the other a flying marshmallow.

A good number of projects have strong, continual dance party music soundtrack going in the background.

Some have some pretty awesome custom Sprites or backgrounds.

And then there are the llamas.

A number of projects could have used more time to implement more of the things they had in mind. But, it is what it is.  I’ve been saying that a lot this last week. That is the lesson of the deadline. We tried to plan well, but even so, unforeseen things happen. With programming, things always seem to take longer than you think.

Tomorrow is the showcase and all these amazing and goofy projects will be presented to parents. I’m very proud of all these students. And I’ll think I’ll end there. It is what it is.

 

Inspired By

Next week is the showcase for both Code Clubs.  That means this week all the individual Scratch projects the students have been working on since November have to be finished. Going into today’s Code Club session I was concerned.  I knew of a few projects that were in need of major help.

I started out letting them know that their projects would need to be uploaded to the Scratch website by the end of the Code Club.   We talked about how the showcase would go next week – how they would be presenting their projects and the parents would get a chance to try them out. I put two sign-up lists on the board – one for help, one for finished. Then we had at it.

Fruit Collector

I am really lucky to have a great high school volunteer and he has been bringing his girlfriend to help as well.  While Josh handled the help list, I helped with the upload and sent the students to Raven who helped them fill out the project and credits page.

By the end of Code Club we had eleven projects uploaded, although not shared yet.  Two more need a little more tweaking.  Three students were absent.  Luckily, I can give them some recess time in the lab tomorrow or Friday.

Tomorrow’s Code Club projects will all have to be done.  No exceptions because I don’t see those students during the week. My daughter is coming with me tomorrow to help with the project instructions and credit page.

That’s the nuts and bolts of Code Club for today and tomorrow.  What has me sitting here writing up this blog right now is my excitement for these projects. The creativity and hard work displayed in these projects is quite impressive.

Save Wizard Boy

Save Wizard Boy is a favorite Code Club maze game with green dots for points and a continual hip-hop beat as background music.  The creators had the most difficulty working as a team and agreeing on what they wanted in the game. This is written in their notes: “Making this game was fun. I made it in Code Club with my friend. Making games on computers is fun and if you like to play games on computers you can go to Scratch.”

Mipio1

Mipio1 is another favorite platform 2-d world with gravity.  Quite challenging for most of the students who attempted this type of game.  I love the creativity and hand drawn city-scape. The 4th grader writes in her notes “What inspired me to introduce Mipio1 is the game called Mario and I love the game Mario. The game is sort of similar to that game.”

Patriots

There were a number of sport type games – one called Wizard Soccer and two about football. In the Patriots each standard Scratch football player Sprite was customized.

Each project seems to be the best that student or team could produce.  I truly didn’t think they’d be this impressive.