Assignment 11/2- Scratch Experience + Connections to art classroom

When I saw the squirrel face in scratch, I felt like I needed to use it. It looks so odd, and pixelated that it made sense for a game. This is a built up of what I started exploring in class, to later looking more like an actual game with levels, sounds and movements. The process of the game was harder than I believed, and I was only experimenting with the array of preexistent objects from scratch.

Some of the coding I made was looked upon other persons. I had to do my research to understand how to make the wand appear and disappear and re-appear in another place, I had no idea the complexity of what this idea was. And of course, once I understood how to do that (randomizing the x and the y parallels) then I wanted to change the background in a way. In the beginning the idea of adding a score seemed not to make sense, it made more sense for the little wand to change color, and once you got to black, change background. Nope.... the results were unsatisfactory and I could not even do it. Adding the score made it easier to connect to another background and finally I learned the magic of moving to new places, it was a happy moment to me.

For some reason when coding the game, I could not think of drawing in Scratch. I want to try doing that next time and do an element that has to do with using my own characters (or backdrops). The pixelated essence that Scratch has, in contrast with the use of images is so appealing, it mixed past and present into one domain.



Connections to the classroom

Kid pix format. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Pix

Scratch has so much potential in the art classroom, because of it's malleability to designing your own character, as well to integrating a text and add an extra layer to making a story. One of the connections I to the art classroom is the idea of digital drawing; I am not saying only drawing, but add an capacity to make something with drawing capacity to become interactive. For me, as someone who grew up playing Kid Pix when I was young, scratch has similar qualities when it comes to drawing, it is kind of pixelated, and it looks like a 90's throwback. Using drawing in scratch can create movement, and add and extra thought process to making a drawing. Depending on the age of the students, and the expertise with scratch, there will be more and more depth into the making of this interactive drawings. The ideas can be limitless, it can be either a story about how I get to school, what did I eat for breakfast, imagine and create a new hybrid sport for you, make up a new tv show. Interactive drawings in the art classroom is something I would definitely explore with my students. 

The second connection to the art classroom has to do with the playfulness scratch can offer to the art classroom, as to connecting three dimensional materials to the digital platforms. I would love to engage with students into making a more STEAM related project and do instruments with recycled materials, to then be connected to the computer with the help of the Makey-Makey to scratch as buttons and actually play sound. I envision that students will take this project further and the instruments will really not be instruments we know, not more foundstruments  (name given by Max Freider, in Artolution). The making of an 3D instrument it gives such an open ended vision, and it will be one of those projects that students have to be problem solvers and play with materials all across the physical and the digital spectrum. Instruments and music have a great connection with students that I feel that this lesson will let them understand scratch (and Makey Makey) much easier.