I’m Starting from “SCRATCH” and Switching to Computer Engineering

June 12, 2021 4 By Gledi Toci

At first, I can not lie I was not very excited to explore scratch. I thought it would be confusing, and not beginner-friendly. I always try to push myself and try to make something different and exciting, and I thought I would frustrate myself using scratch. However, I am really happy with what I was able to make in less than a few hours.

What 42 million Scratch scripts look like
“What 42 million Scratch scripts look like” by andresmh is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

I am a big basketball fan, I love to watch and play the sport. One of my favorite moments was Curry’s shot to win the game in the last seconds with its famous commentary. I wanted to recreate that shot on scratch and I did. I struggled to make a person shoot the ball so I decided to just have the ball. I started by choosing a basketball and a basketball court. I began messing around with the basketball for a long time. I finally was able to make it glide to where I aim my mouse with my space bar. Along with it, I made it say swish.

Step 1

This was fun but it did not work how I wanted. It said swish the moment I pressed space not when it went towards the hoop. Therefore, I realized I had to add something near the hoop and make it say swish when it comes in contact with it. I also wanted to be able to move the ball so I spent time figuring out how to make it move left and right with the press of buttons. To complete it all I added the commentary the moment I pressed space along with fans in the background.

Step 2

In conclusion, I had a lot of fun using scratch and I think many students would as well. Scratch has unlimited possibilities, and that is the beauty of it. It allows students to be unique and create whatever is on their minds. This as talked about by Debbie Liu, will help enhance student’s scientific thinking. Due to scratch being so versatile, it allows students to progress while using the website. This will be a great way to introduce students to the world of coding and something some might find to strive in.

Binary code
“Binary code” by Christiaan Colen is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The image above looks confusing, but it’s something a student could progress to learn with the introduction of coding. Our whole world is becoming technology-based, with more coding jobs than ever. Coding is extremely important and is the basics of creating many things we enjoy. It’s the basics of games, apps, and overall technology. It is extremely important to introduce to youth minds and something I will be doing for many reasons.

Therefore, I think it’s important for us future teachers to use websites like scratch and others, and introduce coding to the youth in schools. Let me know what you think in the comments!