Scratch Programming a mathematics game, with teachers notes by Mark Fairley

This is some visual instructions for Scratch on how to program this maths game, simple sprite and background change can allow this game to become any other based on angles, a slightly complex bit of programming, not for a beginner, but suitable for KS2 who have had some experience of using Scratch before. The teaching behind the game is mathematics angle estimation, getting the children to predict the angle (from the vertical, though this could easily be changed to horizontal). I have put the instructions in a visual form, with some screen shots from the programming process as this is a more natural for to follow than just a list of written instructions, well it seams so to me.

1. Open new product and import the ‘Crab’ and ‘fish3’ sprites

2. Go to each sprite, open costume tab and set the sprite co-ordinates to centre of each one, and then reduce the size of each. Screenshot 2014-01-28 10.23.43

 

3. Now go to background selector and pick a suitable background using the options on bottom left. The scenery symbol to pick one from stock, or the paint brush to create one.

Screenshot 2014-01-28 10.25.20

4. Then input the sprites instructions

4A. The ‘Crab’

Screenshot 2014-01-28 10.25.234B. The ‘Fish3’

Screenshot 2014-01-28 10.25.26Now enjoy the challenge of the game

Teachers Notes

Some of the problems I encountered creating the game

1.The sprite co-ordinates, try to make sure they are centred, as this may cause the crab character to hit the screen edge when it goes to its starting point, and this prematurely terminates the game

2.With the ‘Crab’ sprite instructions some of the more complex elements can be difficult to locate amongst the lists, in particular the ‘green’ ones, as they are small in the list but expand when used in the main body. These also need constructing from the ‘bottom’ up, I.e. the orange, then green, then blue elements

3.With some sprites they maybe too big and contact with the screen edge, these will need either, reducing in size, or their starting co-ordinates moved slightly.

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