GAME CHANGER: Cuttle.xyz launches Auto Trace feature -

WooHoo!  Did you see Cuttle.xyz's latest beta feature!  AUTOTRACE! 

Cuttle's most recent addition of an AUTO TRACE feature reinforces my belief that Cuttle listens to its customers and is dedicated to meeting our needs as it continues to improve its product. 

Just last year, I was asking Toby from Cuttle.xyz if an AutoTrace feature might someday be added to Cuttle. He responded that it was something they would like to add. He asked more questions about how we would like to use that feature.  I shared a recent project where students created journal covers that were inspired by nature .  I also sent him some sample sketches we would like to auto trace for our journal covers. I was so excited to see the AutoTrace feature has recently been added.  Let's test it. 

In our journal cover project,  the students were asked to sketch some shapes they noticed in nature that might be used to create interesting patterns. 

Back in the classroom, we asked them to select one of those shapes and use a dark marker to recreate it on the back of an  index card. Here are a few examples.

Our goal was to create repeating patterns that would make interesting journal covers inspired by nature.  The patterns could then be cut out from one of the two pieces of cardstock we used to cut our two color journal covers.  Complex patterns cut better on a laser cutter, but most patterns were able to be cut using a craft cutter (Cricut or Silhouette). 

Prior to AutoTrace, we used several steps and online tools to crop the images, remove the background, and convert to SVG.  That's ALOT of file management for our Grade 4-6 students.  But they persevered!  

I just tested some of their images with Cuttle's AutoTrace feature. It worked great with the images drawn on white index cards.  Here's a quick video of the test. 

The AutoTrace feature will save so many steps, next time we try this project.  Note: Since AutoTrace didn't work quite so well with colored index cards, I'll make sure to only hand out white index cards for students to draw on next time.  We'll also be a little more careful to only photograph the index card (not the table) next time.  

This feature opens up possibilities! And is one more reason, why I will continue to introduce Cuttle.xyz as a must have tool for our school makerspaces.  Not to mention, the fact that it works on Chromebooks; they have signed student data privacy agreements with our schools, and they have affordable  classroom and school licensing pricing.

Thanks to Toby and his team for being so responsive to our feature request and supporting the needs of our schools in growing the next generation of innovators. 

CS Inspired by Literature #WAOTL Challenge 5 - Adding Dialogue to your Scratch Project

 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 

• Challenge 4 - Adding  New BackDrops and Sound to Scratch projects

• Challenge 5 - Adding Dialogue to your Scratch Project

Today's post will introduce Challenge 5 where we will learn to add dialogue to our interactive experience.

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

Let's add some dialogue to our experience.  We can make the dialogue displayed in text form whenever you click on the character.   

Select one of the character sprites in your project, then drag out the  "When this sprite is clicked block."  
Next, drag a purple "SAY" block. 

After you snap these two together, add text to let your character introduce themselves with an interesting fact.  
Have students reread the book and look at the appendix of the book for facts that can help them understand the role of bioluminescence in your character.

Next, decide how long you should display the “speech bubble”.

What if you want to also add a ‘real voice” along with the text dialogue when you click on your character. 

Use what you learned in the last challenge to record you voice and add a Start Sound block.  

Where would you put that that code block so that you could read AND listen to the sea character introduce itself when you click on it.? 

As I was playing with dialogue,  I decided that I wanted the characters to show when they talked.

I added a Show Costume block, but got  some unpredictable results. 

After some troubleshooting, I found a solution that worked. I knew that the costume always showed up when the diver was touching the sprite.  What if I used the GO TO block to move the character to the diver?  That worked well, and also added a fun element to my project.

Note: There are additional solutions that would require more advanced skills. I chose not to use those to stay within the skills that 4th grade students might have after completing these challenges.

Did you know that Scratch also offers some additional experimental code blocks including a Text to Speech Extension?  If you have extra time, you might want to explore this, by adding the extension, and dragging over the "speak" blocks  to replace the START SOUND block. 

 

Here is a partial solution of Challenge 5 to explore. . https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1097888175/

I’ve coded only the Vampire Squid  to have speak when you click in it. Try adding dialogue boxes to the other characters.

 A nice thing about this story is that there are 4 characters giving the students a chance to repeat the code they just learned 3 more times.

GROUP PROJECT:  If you want students to work in groups, you can ask each student to  code the same story with only ONE character.   Then export all the characters into ONE project.  The code will also export with the character. 

To export a sprite or a stage, simply Right click in the sprite collection area of your project.   This could allow students to work in groups to create and code different parts of a project.  They could them email or upload their sprite to a folder for ONE person to collect them all and assemble them into one project. 

Challlenge 5 will be the last in this short beginning Coding Who's Afraid of the Light Series 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 later this month.   Stay tuned. 

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