Scratching the Surface

which Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

​Coding to me is a scary word. I have not coded since the 80's in CS 100. Code.org and Scratch that were introduced to me in ECMP 355 are just a couple of sites catering to coding for children. Mommy Poppins has a listing of many more coding locations. Another coding program, that seems very similar to Scratch, is Snap.

Singapore is very serious about promoting coding in schools. Even though one of it's coding school's closed after only a few months, the commitment to coding continues through the Hackwagon Academy. 

I used Scratch to code this alphabet set, which was much harder than I thought it would be. The hard work of synchronizing sound to the sprites is worth the final result. It appears I am not the only one having trouble synchronizing sound in the coding world. I am pleased with this. Similarly, the birthday card was a lot of manipulation to find what works. 

Note: Press the flag on the top that is beside the stop button. Pressing the flag in the middle, somehow, does not synchronize properly.

Coding for ​Alphabet - click on picture to see complete coding

​Everyone needs a birthday card once a year. 

​Coding for Happy Birthday

This program seems like piecing together lego or an electronics set. Finding out what works is the battle. Of course, I made plenty of mistakes - like creating one sprite without realizing I was deleting the first one. I did this several times for my alphabet sprites. :( It does seem like a lot of trial and error to create the response that is desired.