Day 26 - Creating an Earth Day Game - Maze & Controller

During the next few days we'll go over a few different ways to approach creating a Earth Day themed game using physical computing.

Let's start using Scratch to build our game and a circuit board such a Makey Makey or FunKey to build a fun controller for our  Earth Day themed game.


Let's start with playing a game in Scratch, looking under the hood, and remixing it.

With elementary students I would suggest starting with a simple maze type game  and then adding some interesting twist to your maze.

For our example, I started by LOOKING INSIDE  this simple maze: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/127482239

1.  LOOK INSIDE, REMIX, and RENAME

2.  Replace the ball in the EASY MAZE game  with a TURTLE

      Download a turtle icon or clipart image from a site like The  Noun Project
      You could also draw your own icon inside Scratch

   Select the ball Sprite

   Click on the Costume Tab

   Select UPLOAD Costume to import the turtle icon you have just downloaded
   Use the Zoom button to see all parts of your graphic

   Change the SIZE to a size that will make it easy for the turtle to travel through the maze.
   You may need to DRAG the turtle to a new location or use arrow keys to test the size
    Delete the ball costumes, as you no longer need those.

3. Let's replace the bear with a jelly fish

    Download a jelly fish icon/clip art from a site like The Noun Project

    (you can also draw your own)

   Select the bear Sprite

   Click on the Costume Tab

   Select UPLOAD Costume to import the turtle icon you have just downloaded
   Use the Zoom button to see all parts of your graphic

   Change the SIZE to a size that fits inside the maze
   You may need to DRAG the bear to a new location
    Delete the bear costumes, as you no longer need it.

4.  Let's change the CODE on our turtle so that when it touches the jelly fish it say's something different. 

     Rename both the sprites to turtle and jellyfish

     Change the 'say' block so the saying is 5 seconds and so it says something different. 

5.  Let's add some sound effects to the Jelly Fish

    Select the SOUND Tab

    Pick a sound effect.  I chose Chomp.

    Select the CODE Tab

    Add the START SOUND command to your Code. 

    Change the Sound so it plays the CHOMP sound.

    I decided to add two Chomps. 

If you'd like to add more options to your maze, you can download more icons or graphics and use the upload sprite button to add additional sprites to your game.  I chose to add a fish net, a plastic bag, and some coral.

You can use the same steps listed above to add more sound effects and sayings for each new sprite. 

Here is what my code looks like now! 

You now have a simple Earth Day themed maze game that you can play using the arrow keys on your computer. 

How might you  make your game a little harder or more fun by adding additional features?

Tomorrow's blog  post will show you how to create a theme based  fun GAME controller for your game  made out of an OLD coffee cup holder!

Turn this coffee holder into

This Earth Day Theme  game controller
for your Earth Day game!