PEEE—Scene drawing

Overview

We have seen some "programming" (via the code.org course), discussed what programming is, and created a story telling program and an initials-drawing program in Scratch. There are still things you (or your students) can do with Scratch—more involved animation, trivia/quizzing, etc. Another is drawing a scene using polygons and spirals. This extra credit assignment will allow you to further explore Scratch drawing, additional mathematics available through Scratch programming, and exercising creativity when programming. The task is to draw a scene, e.g., house with yard, etc.; row of houses; a garden; etc.

The program you plan and implement should include as many as possible of the elements identified below. It may be completed individually or with your pair-programming partner. The elements of the scene should (mostly) be made up of polygons and spirals.

Pass the green flag test
Use modularization—the Make a Block feature—with effective use of parameters to blocks as appropriate
Use various/multiple kinds of regular polygons (triangle to pseudo-circle)
Use spirals (true spirals or rotated polygons or both)
Use multiple polygons
Use size and location as parameters to programmer-defined blocks
Use controlled looping
Use various colors and pen sizes, perhaps as parameters to programmer-defined blocks
Perform calculations involving variables or blocks' parameters to accomplish program tasks

There is no PAC commenting on this activity. However, a report on the experience is to be submitted to the instructor. The report should:

be addressed to: east@cs.uni.edu
be CC'd to submitting student(s)
have the subject: PEEE extra
include in the body of the message
- your name(s)
- the name of the program
- how much time was spent developing and debugging the program (be each partner, if applicable
- what was learned about Scratch and programming while doing the work
- any teaching/pedagogical thoughts arising from the work
- other comments or questions

Submitting Your Work

In addition to the submission message above, you are to share it with the class by placing it in our studio. That process involves:

making sure the project is named (include "_extra" as the last part of the name)
making sure it is saved on the Scratch site (you might want to download a copy to your computer also)
"sharing" it on Scratch and in adding it to our "studio"
I think the following approach works
- click the See project page button near the top right corner
- enter any instructions you want people to see when they examine your program
- enter "Notes and credits" ... minimally the user ids of the student(s) submitting the work
- click the Share button (near top right of window)
- scroll down (and left) till you see a bar containing four links: a star, a heart, "Studios", and "Embed"
- click on the Studios link/tab
  It should show our class studio (PEEE_fall17) as a link and a checkmark (also as a link)
- click on the checkmark link
  It should turn green.
- click on the PEEE_fall17 link
  You should be able to see that your project has been added to the studio.

That should be all it takes to "submit" the program. Whichever partner submitted the program should have the other partner sign in to Scratch and double check that the project is available in the studio. Don't forget that both partners need to individually complete the PAC assignment for this activity.

Note that you should always be able to get back to the project page or to the Scratch programming environment from which you can access the project page. If you joined Scratch, your projects should all be available and be saved regularly by the system.

Grading

The maximum amount of credit for a single program is half a letter grade (7 points). Half that will be awarded to programs that meet all the specifications noted for the program that also have reports that are minimally satisfactory. Higher/better scores will depend on the quality and complexity of the program and the report produced.