First Scratch Experience

 




First Scratch Experience

    In the first week of TEC101 at UAGC, we were tasked with creating a small game using Scratch. I believe starting with a simple game and decided to feature my favorite videogame character, Mario from Super Mario Bros. Given that I am fairly new to Scratch and programming in general, I opted to design a simple game similar to the popular Flappy Bird – style genre that were widely played on mobile phones in the 2010s. The objective of the game like Flappy bird is to avoid the obstacle to achieve the highest score. 


       Initially, my experience with creating this program involved familiarizing myself with the different categories and commands available in Scratch. After understanding the limitations of each category, I realized that making my simple game was doable. I think the hardest part as I went through the programming phase was getting started, as I wasn’t sure how I would tackle programming the game. For me, visualizing the game was the easiest part to start with. Once I could picture the game in my mind, it became easier to figure out the different elements that I needed to work on, like Mario’s movement(Jump using spacebar), the obstacles(Shell), and the Score Tracker. To also help me with the layout of the blocks I looked at other games in the featured categories and dove into how they were formatting the code, which reminded me of how I handle VBA script at work.

Overall, I believe Scratch is an excellent tool for beginners to start learning programming. It provides an intuitive, easy-to-understand interface that allows users to start coding without needing to know a specific programming language or complex syntax. Scratch has shown to work on students' self-efficacy by providing immediate feedback and a hands-on, interactive environment that makes learning fun and accessible. As highlighted in the study by Büyükkarcı and Taşlıdere (2021), “the results showed that this training significantly affected students' self-efficacy and Scratch coding achievement.” This is something I personally experienced, as my confidence with Scratch and programming grew with each step of creating this simple and small project.   

 I would say Scratch is comparable to an interpreted language, as described in the textbook: “Instead, an interpreter runs the instructions in the source code whenever you run the application” (CompTIA, CertMaster Learn for Tech+ Exam FC0-U71). Scratch also runs the blocks line by line, allowing the user to detect any errors within the blocks. This is especially useful for troubleshooting, as I could immediately see where things went wrong and adjust the code. Some of the errors I ran into were mainly related to sound cues. For instance, when Mario would jump, the sound would not always sync correctly, and the "game over" music would sometimes play for a few seconds and the program fully stopped, not playing the entire “game over” song. After figuring out that I used the incorrect blocks, I adjusted them, and the game worked as envisioned. I think this becomes incredibly useful once you have 1000s lines of code. I specially run into this issue when running VBA scripts in my company for my own projects. Without this debugging ability, I am allowed to adjust my code and fix any errors without having to scan portions of code. In conclusion, Scratch not only helped me build a fun game, but it also enhanced my understanding of programming logic and concepts. I now feel more confident in my ability to approach coding projects in the future, and I’m excited to continue learning and developing my programming skills.
My Project: 
Please refer to my submission in assignment one as the word document contains the attachment.


References:

CompTIA. (n.d.). CompTIA CertMaster Learn for Tech+ Exam (FC0-U71). CertMaster. Retrieved from https://labsimapp.testout.com/v6_0_671/index.html/productviewer/1215/0.0/91867002-6c8e-400b-b6e9-c870b6dd4e8e/outline?nonce=OHLxiovjLzxq0VfprZUlIULrSYy-yejUuaSLHVhpC6U

Büyükkarcı, A., & Taşlıdere, E. (2021). The effect of coding education on students’ efficiency and Scratch achievements. ProQuest. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2578944301?accountid=32521&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals



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