Final Assignment - Final Project

My three dices are:
creative coding & body & drawing

Here is the final outcome - a scratch biology game!




So my initial idea was to make a puzzle game that can show different parts of human body. When I discussed my idea with Sarah, she said I can add more educational purpose in the game. So I decided to make a biology game to define different part of human skeleton. I chose skeleton is because I barely know the English name of all of them so I though this might be a good idea for me, or any other second-language learner to know more about skeleton terms.

Process:
1) Prepare the bones!
First of all, I found a nice high resolution skeleton body image without any label. Credits to 123RF.

And then found a cute skeleton body with label on it.

After read through the label, I cut each part off in photoshop.

And save them separately.

2) First Part of Game: Disorganize the skeleton!

Every time we play the puzzle game, the puzzles are always disorganized. So in Scratch, the first we need to do is - disorganize the puzzles!

First we need to select all the twelve parts of skeleton as character in Scratch. When I clicked on the flag, the avator would automatically copy themselves and change the costume to next. Code example is as following screenshot.

However, there is not any disorganizing button or function, which means we need to created one. I created place function that would place each part to the pre-setting location.

3) Second Part of the Game: Put it Together!

Now here comes the most difficult part. How to put the skeleton together?

First of all, this game is for beginners, which means it should have instruction to guide players to play. Therefore, I set up the background as the human skeleton itself in order to show clearly the place for which part.

Then, how to reinforce memory through puzzling remains an open issue. I thought about if for a couple of days. And then I came up an idea: what if I place each part a different item? When that part of skeleton touches that item, the "if-do"loop would work and generate sound and wordy signs to show the name of that part.

Therefore, I attached twelve yellow balls on each part and set the code with loop.

I am not sure the reason of this sounding function not working is because my Internet connect is poor (I am connecting my personal hotpot because Spectrum Internet is for some reason not working) or my code has bug.

Now I am working on the debugging and will test it on with better Internet. Hopefully I can fix this function before the class

12/12 15:00 Update!

I fixed the bug! Or it is not a "bug" - the sound and word effect did not come up as I thought it should be only because I set then control function as click it. When the bones are on the correct place, you click it and now it can say the term of who it is with sound.

And that's the finally project. What I learned is not the deep practice of different, complicated scratch function, but how to test out my plan and how to do trouble shooting, as what I learned from the previous works. Those are meaningful process that can and have already given me more confidence, patience and most important, experience to handle bigger, more complicated problem in the future.

Blog Entry to My Digital Stewardship Slides

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JTrXGRfZGIp8C6ziFM_6KUz4K5G-cbBdBKvYskg0YsM/edit?usp=sharing

Feel free to view and comment through Link.

Love y'all!💗

Final Week Assignment- Take a Selfie

5/3 Take a Selfie

As what I set at the beginning of the class, my learning objective was, and is continuing "learning as much as new forms of media and technologies that have already or will be used in those media". Now, at the very end of the semester, I can say I learned a lot from this class and yet those are only the beginning in my life-long journey of learning.

For each week's assignment, (in order to complete the homework) we have great opportunity to practice new media and new tools or technologies that would be used in the media project. Even though sometimes I felt there is too much too learn and what I learned in class was not enough for me to complete the homework - I had to go for Lynda.com or look for youtube tutorials to understand how to use the tool or the technology - I still feel blessed that I have a piece of valuable time to learn new forms of media and see what I can achieve with those forms of media and those new tools. It is also a great chance to learn how to learn by myself when I look back. I practiced video making and Scratch, learned how to use AI and Audacity, and tried my best to learn laser-cutting and circuits. There are lots of moments of "Oh my god I cannot do it" but thankfully I, or our team made it, and I believe those "wow" moments somehow enlighten the curiosity, in my mind, to know more and practice more - not only about know more interesting novel tools and technologies, but also dig deeper to investigate the media that I just learned to see what else I can make through it. It is like an adventure and it just began.

Week Twelve Assignment 2/2

This is the final look:

Our Idea:
After teaming up with Yuke, We thought what kind of outcome we want to have from this circuit and different colors of light...so what about traffic light?

We chose traffic light not because it is a combination of three colors of light, but it is also meaningful in education to teach kids how to cross the road under the guide of traffic light, not only as a passenger, but also as a future driver.

Process:
1) Prepare the materials
What we need are scissors, paper, color markers, paper circuit and led light.

After we setting up what we would make is a traffic light, we decided to make the background more like "road".

First, we print the zebra cross on the piece of paper.

 And then, we prepared the young pedestrians who are waiting to cross the road. Print it on a piece of paper and cut them off.

 And then, we draw a traffic light, cut it off, and draw some color on it.

2) Think how we complete the circuit 

Because traffic light is three colors that light up in sequence. They would never light up all at once or all shut up at once, which means in the circuits, we need to choose parallel circuits and then add a switch to each parallel of the light.

3) Attach the paper circuit!

This is an important part because there are lots of factor involved and any of those factor can make the circuit disconnect.

We found out that we should try the conductivity of the circuit after each attachment, otherwise we can effectively find out if that parallel circuit work or if that part of circuit connect well or not.

 Then carefully mark the place of switch on traffic light and paste the switch.

4) Enjoy your final outcome!

What I learned in this project is trouble shooting because we tried so many times at the Attach the circuit part. At first we forgot to try from every step and started to remember we should do the test out until we almost finish the circuit. We tested the green light and disappointingly found out the green light did not work. Therefore, we went to the very beginning to try if the circuit we paste was not working, and luckily, we found it was the turn of the circuit that did not paste tightly which lead to non-conducting. And after that, we tested out the conductivity of the circuit after every step and finally the traffic light worked well! This project means a lot to us because we are not science person and this is the first time we deal with physics after grade 6. If we can learn a lot from this circuit project, we definitely sure that students can learn a lot more from this hands-on circuit project.

Week Twelve Assignment 2/1

2/1

1. 20 things computer can make in class:
I was shocked that in 1972 there was an article focusing on can program capacity in education and the 20 computer tasks in 1972 are surprisingly still the cutting edge digital tasks in class. Of course, with more and more scientists and researchers put their attention on digital learning tools, what computer can offer to education are not only the 20 tasks mentioned in the paper, but also tons of platforms and countless capacities which all give students enough space to practice what they learn with real-life project and their priceless creativities. And in the future, according to Moore's law (that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years), more and more capable devices can came out and be applied in education with more powerful features and cheaper cost.
2. Why do we need digital fabrication:
In the article Digital Fabrication and ‘Making’ in Education: The Democratization of Invention, there is an interesting question - why do we need digital fabrication lab in school? Instead of the answer given in the following paragraph, I think digital fabrication has potential to fulfill student's creativity. As we grew up, creativity has become more and more rare and valuable because we have already been "programmed" by the current education and social rules that always taught us to think about what can be done in reality instead of something has not done yet. Electronics, or even making can help students realize what they imagine can come true in reality with the help of technology. The "making" is a positive activity that can enhance students' confidence and extend their hand-making ability couple with their creativity. As more and more students become more creative and "hands-on", it is great possible that our world in the future could be a much better place.