Newtown Students Join In On Worldwide Scratch Day

By Eliza Hallabeck

Newtown High School student volunteers were waiting and setting up for the first Scratch Day at the school on Saturday, May 16, at 10 am. They joined others across the world that came together to share their interest, projects, and to learn more about the computer programming software called Scratch.

The NHS student leaders for the day were students from the Connected Innovation Academy class at the high school.

Scratch is a free computer program that helps users create interactive games, movies, and more. The program was created for ages 8 and up, and on Saturday, Scratch days were held worldwide to bring users together.

“I want to make an RPG, which is a role playing game,” said eighth grade Newtown Middle School student Neil Davis when asked why he was attending the Scratch Day event at the high school. He said learning about and how to use Scratch would help him toward his eventual goal.

Fifth grade Reed Intermediate School student Devon Matte said he has already created a number of games with using Scratch, and they are a series of games based on Yoshi, a dinosaur character from Nintendo’s Mario games.

“Yoshi is my favorite Nintendo character,” said Devon while describing the series of games he has created. “You get to be one of the Yoshi brothers, and you get to go through the different levels, and destroy enemies.”

As the day was beginning around 10 am, Reed computer technology teacher Tim McGuire, middle school computer technology teacher Tina Welsh, and high school computer technology teacher Kristin Violette introduced themselves to the 18 participants, who ranged from intermediate to middle school ages.

“With computer technology it is really a sharing experience for all ages,” Ms Welsh said before the opening of the day.

Ms Violette said the Scratch Day at NHS is a test run to see how it works, and eventually the goal is to have it as a yearly event. She said two rooms were set up at the school to separate new users and experienced Scratch users among the 18 participants.

In the new users room, NHS students Tori Sandifer and Zach Bokuniewicz waited to share the curriculum Zach created for the day and the program Tori put together for the event.

In the experienced users room, Ms Violette and NHS students Steven Rollo and Timm Arnone told the students they had a challenge for the day: create a game based on Newtown using Scratch.

“We have about 30 images of the town for you to use,” Ms Violette explained to the students. Both Steven and Timm shared games they created as examples for the challenge. Steven’s example used a photo of the Ice Cream Shop on Church Hill Road as a backdrop for the game, and users had to move an ice cream cone around to feed customers. If users fed the wrong customers, displayed by a ghoulish character, they lost a point.

Timm’s example game was based on Frogger, a product of Sega where a frog has to cross a congested road without getting run over by vehicles, but it was called Capture The Flagpole.

The day was sponsored by The Center of 21st Century Skills at Education Connection. Newtown Public Schools provided flash drives for all participants, workshop materials and the high school for use for the day, according to Ms Violette. The Center of 21st Century Skills at Education Connection also supplied lanyards, name badges, pens and raffle prizes, including two $50 gift cards to Apple and an iPod Shuffle.

The games created by students on Scratch Day at NHS are available online to see and experience at http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/48211.