Virtual Code Club Projects

I’m running another round of my after-school 4th grade Code Club virtually again. We are halfway through our 10-week session and have one more learning project next week before the students start working their final showcase projects. Students from the other side of town have joined us with their Code Club coach, Ms. G, just like last year.

I had 19 students sign up and 4 from the other side of town and we average 16 students online each week. We’ve used breakout rooms to divide the group to be able to help more students while they are working through the learning projects. We’ve offered two different projects one week – Maze and Flappy Parrot to give the students some options. We are using Google Classroom to communicate, post materials, and share Scratch studio links. A few students have dropped out because the virtual environment is too hard or stressful to manage while learning to code. I’ve offered my time in person during recess to support students in person.

Favorite things example

We started with our favorite things projects the first week to get to know each other. It helped to work through some basics of Scratch, signing in, sharing to studios, etc. as well as a refresher on Google Meet protocols – raising hands, chat etiquette and presenting. Then 2 Chatbot, 3 Space Junk, 4 Maze & Flappy Parrot, and finally next week, Create your own world. Many of my favorite projects! Ms. G would create and share a studio. I would create an example or starter project and post the material to our classroom.

Flappy parrot or Mazes week

2020 Winter Carnival Remix

I led two coding sessions at the middle school for their Winter Carnival again this year. I had a new collaborating teacher this time and we were in the computer lab on desktops (instead of Chromebooks).  We had a variety of ability levels and grades in attendance.  Some were brand new to Scratch and others were part of the middle school’s code club.  That’s another new thing at the middle school. Some of my former elementary Code Club members started a code club this year that happens once a week during one of their study halls. (Super proud of them for advocating for themselves)

I wanted to offer different projects than last year but projects that would still be interesting to both beginners and more advanced coders.  We settled on Flappy Parrot and Pong.  I am also really interested in Text-to-Speech and Computer Poetry Generation and my collaborating teacher is excited about Makey-Makey devices.  So we offered both of those as well although none of the middle schoolers decided to work on those types of projects.

I set up a studio in my teacher account and added a few starter projects prior to Winter Carnival. During each session, I collected the students’ Scratch usernames to add them as curators.  This didn’t always work out as some were creating accounts on the spot and then never received an email verification.  I think the issue is on our district’s end and not Scratch’s.  I think some students’ emails are locked down more than others.

Toad Dash example Flappy Parrot/Geometry Dash project

Co-teacher’s Flappy Parrot example – gradually gets harder

For those who couldn’t get their new Scratch accounts to work, we downloaded their completed Scratch 3 project to the desktop and uploaded it through my teacher account.  Once their account is activated, they’ll be able to remix it into their own account, if interested.  This is one of those technical issues that you have to work out on the fly.  I also opened the studio to accept projects from anyone temporarily.  It turns out that unconfirmed Scratch accounts can’t “share” projects.  This is not a bad policy.

I was really nervous about coding with the middle schoolers again. I’m not with them on a day-to-day basis to understand what they like. I know a lot of them but I don’t know what they are learning in their code club.  One name on the roster was a student I’d recently seen write Python code in real-time, and in front of an audience, that simulated a ball bouncing. (I know it was rehearsed performance and she had a partner, but still super impressive… Would flappy parrot or my other intro projects interest her?)

The kids were great.  They brought their creativity, enthusiasm and worked hard.  They were kind.  They helped each other and enjoyed themselves.  I had a good time with them and enjoyed seeing what they were interested in. They created impressive projects and were willing to share them with the group.  I made sure there was time at the end of each session to enjoy (play, comment & like) each other’s projects.  All but one were willing to put their “work in progress” out into the world for others to play.  Very impressive and brave for middle school kids.

During the first session, one new-to-Scratch student was looking for inspiration so I helped him add a picture of a bag of Skittles as a Sprite to his project.  I stayed to help him make the Skittles bounce around the screen.  I came back to see he had a bunch of Skittle bags bouncing around the screen.  I asked if he wanted to make a game where you have to avoid the bags of Skittles and offered him the project instructions for Space Junk. Later I showed him how to have the Skittle bags come in at staggered times to simulate increasing levels of difficulty. The longer you stay alive, the more Skittles bags are zooming around after you. Then he wanted to add a coin to collect for a score, or in this case a “Skittle”.

Skittles Escape became one of the more popular games of the day and it was made by a first-time coder.

This game of his, Skittles Escape, garnered much attention in the first session and was remixed a few times in the second session. Well done, first-time Scratcher!

Remixed Skittles Escape projects:

X Escape with Sharks

Doge escapes his Leashes

Asteroid Avoidance

Some other notable projects:

Gem Miner – cool concept game

Racer

 

And this cool take on flappy parrot:

All of the creative projects are in this studio 2020 LMS Winter Carnival. They represent the individuality of the coders who made them.  I hope I can return next year to facilitate creative coding again.

Play Testing

Last week in Code Club we did the project Space Junk and it was a hit.

Space Junk project with pulse shooting wand

My goals were for them to get the arrow keys working, learn about importing/exporting Sprites and spend some time checking out other people’s games.  If they were able to implement a growing planet or the timer, that was super.

Frogger like game

All the coding elements

Soon they will be starting their own projects, possibly in pairs, so I wanted to introduce the idea of sharing assets – like a Sprite – between two coders. When we discuss pair programming and they have the design review they will need to decide who will do which part and learning about exporting/importing Sprites will help.  I had a space cat Sprite from the Super Scratch Coding project as well as the Angry Bird and Angry Bird Pig from the Angry Bird lesson plans from Simon Haughton’s site.  These files were in the shared Code Club folder and I showed them how to import them.  We had some technical trouble with this.  Some of them were successful, then suddenly the Sprite could not be imported.  I couldn’t figure out if someone “saved” over the file inadvertently or that too many people were accessing the file and that somehow made it unusable by others.  It happened on both days.  I was prepared the second day and also had the files on a USB drive.

Angry Birds Space Adventure?

They did like the Angry Bird assets.  And even customized them.

I made it a point in the last 15 minutes to ask who had a game I could test out. This took me out of troubleshooting mode and let them share with me their cool, silly, challenging, still in progress games. That’s part of being a club.

I also want to say that my volunteers are great and I couldn’t do this without their help!

Space Junk

The last lesson project my Code Club worked through before starting to design their own Scratch game was Space Junk from Code Club World.  This one is similar to the Space Odyssey project in Super Scratch where Scratch Cat has to avoid the obstacles and “survive” for 30 seconds.  I could have gone with either one.  In the end it was just easier to be able to print the pdf from Code Club World.

I spent some time presenting the project to the students.  I also made available a project template with the assets and some of the code provided, but without any of the movements of the objects. The coding for the timer was set and the hero’s arrow key responses. Starting with this stubbed out version of the project was optional. Some students opted to use it and others wanted to start with a blank project (ie from scratch, har har).

Starter project with Sprite & Stage assets and some initial code

In creating a template of the Space Junk project I did use one Super Scratch Space Odyssey Sprite – because, well, it’s the Scratch Cat wearing a spacesuit. The template was helpful to many.  It allowed them to work and test out the movements of the obstacles that the hero was to avoid.  Of course, customization is what it is all about in 4th grade Code Club.

 

 

The template also helped them be successful in a shorter amount of time, which was important this time as I made them stop early so I could go over the Game Design Document and how to develop their own game. I chose to introduce the independent projects at the end of Code Club so the students would leave thinking about the project they were going to design.  They only had one week to come up with a plan before their design review.

Interestingly, some of the independent projects are survivor or obstacle avoidance type games and resemble Space Junk, so I think it was a hit.