CS Inspired by Literature #WAOTL Challenge 4 - Adding New BackDrops and Sound to Scratch projects

In my recent posts, I introduced a #WAOTL series where you and your students experience computer science by using Scratch to create and code an interactive experience with bioluminescent characters from the children's book "Whose Afraid of the Light" by Anna McGregor.  

Here are the posts in the series so far 

• Welcome post and video introducing the series 
• Workflow for importing students art work into Scratch 

• Challenge 1 - Coding an animation that simulates bioluminescence  

• Challenge 2 - Adding Game Play to our Bioluminescent animation  

• Challenge 3 - Adding  and Control the Movement of a Diver Sprite to our animation

Today's post will introduce Challenge 4 where we will learn to add a new Backdrop and Sound to our interactive experience.

By completing this challenge you will  create confidence with code using the following blocks of code: 

You can start this project by using your own project from the last blog post or you can use this STARTER Project as a starting point.  Just click on SEE INSIDE and Remix. 

Let's get started by exploring the STAGE area in Scratch. The STAGE area allows you to create and code new Backdrops. You can find it in the bottom right hand corner.

When you click on the stage area you see that the top menu includes a place for you to add “backdrops” instead of costumes.  

You might have a plain default backdrop, or you might have a backdrop previously added to your project.   Since we want to add a new backdrop, click on the purple bar that appears in the lower left and select the Search (magnifying glass) from CHOOSE A BACKDROP. 

You'll get so many options for new backdrops already available in Scratch. I typed in "OCEAN" in the search area to narrow down my choices. Click on the backdrop you like best. (Of course you can always paint your own or import an image from outside of Scratch as a backdrop.)

 

Now that you have a new backdrop, let's add some SOUND and CODE it to start playing when you start your project.   I suggest you start by viewing this video from the SCRATCH TEAM  for a great 2 minute summary of the different ways to add Sound to your project. 

Now let's add SOUND to our project.
Click on the Sound Tab -  and then use the purple bar on the bottom left to CHOOSE a SOUND.

I typed in WATER into the search bar to find a Water sound for my project.  You can hover over the sounds to hear them, but don't click on the sounds until you find one that you want to use in your project. 

For this project, I added a deep ocean sound clip to Scratch and coded it so that it would play ONE time when the project started. If you don't find the sound you are looking for, you could search for sounds outside of Scratch and chose the UPLOAD Sound option from the purple Choose a Sound purple bar.

Here are two sites where you might search for sounds that are free to use (However, when using these websites, a teacher will need to log-in and download those sounds for students).  

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/search/sound/

https://freesound.org/

Now that we have added a sound, Click on the CODE tab to create a algorithm that will make this sound play when we click on Green Flag to start the project.  

One of the most frequently asked questions when working with Sound is " What is the difference between PLAY SOUNDS .. UNTIL DONE and the START SOUND block?"

Here a quick video that does a nice job explaining the difference between these two commands. 

Let's learn how to change the volume of the sound during a Scratch project. 

Another fun way to use Sound in Scratch is to RECORD you own sounds.   Select the Diver Sprite and I'll show you how useful this can be. 

Note:  The SHOW command included above  just makes sure the Diver is visible every time you start the project. 
I have had some teachers report that they have experienced  loosing sound files or experiencing unpredictable quality when using the sound recorder in Scratch.  If you experience this, I would suggest having students record using the free audio recording site called Vocaroo,  then Upload the sound file into your Scratch projects. 

Here is a finished project for this challenge.

Along with Google Slides you can use as a Teacher Guide for this Challenge which also includes a Video guiding you through the steps. 

Now that you know how to add Sound and change the Background, stay tuned for Challenge 5 where we will learn more about adding dialogue to our projects.     Challenge 5 will be the last in this short beginning series, but we are working on some BONUS Challenges were we will use Circuits and Circuits Boards such as Makey Makey, Fun Key, and Micro:bits that will be released in February. 

You can subscribe to this blog to get notified when the next challenge is posted.

Originally created for  CSTA-Vermont during Computer Science Education Week 2024

CS Inspired by Literature © 2024 by Lucie deLaBruere is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0