Matt's Lab

Any graphical object or character in a video game is known as a sprite. Code provides instructions for sprites. A game’s program can tell the sprite how to move or react when a button is pressed. Every time Mario bops his head on a box and a mushroom appears, sprites (Mario, the box, the mushroom) are interacting with each other and responding accordingly based on the game’s code. You can create your own sprites to use in your video games! I used Piskel , an online sprite creation tool, to create my m4ttbit sprite for a blob-catching game I made using Scratch . Piskel lets you create an 8-bit or pixelated sprite and even animate it. To create an animated sprite, you’ll want to develop a frame for each movement. A frame toolbar in Piskel lets you easily create a frame for a standing sprite or a series of images to make it look as though your sprite is running, jumping, or flipping. When you’re finished creating the frames or series of images for your sprite, export them by savin...

I attended the 2017 ISTE Conference in San Antonio where I had the privilege to explore the latest trends and movement in educational technology. New platforms for teaching computer science skills to new technologies, like virtual and augmented reality, are really taking off in education. But is that enough? Virtual & Augmented Reality Let me get these two technologies out of the way first. Virtual reality puts learners in another environment. When they put on VR goggles or use a smartphone with the popularly cost-efficient Google Cardboard , students are given access to new worlds and locations they might never get to explore in real life. Virtual reality, I believe, is still in its infancy, both in the consumer and educational markets. Currently in education, I see virtual reality used to take students on virtual field trips. They can explore national monuments, tour the Louvre in Paris, or visit animals deep in the Pacific Ocean. In addition to exploring our world, other ...

My 4th and 5th grade STEM class students created an interactive light and sound dance machine. Using a Picoboard , a sensor board, the students designed and created mat switches to interact with a dance program they coded on Scratch. Two pieces of structure materials, such as cardboard, were lined with foil on one side of each panel. Students determined that the two pieces had to be separated slightly with the foil-lined sides facing each other. They used tissue, foam cutouts, paper, and other insulators to separate the two halves of their mat switches. While some student groups began mapping out their dance pad layout, others finished making their various mat switch designs. Speaker wire was used to connect the electrical current to each dance pad or switch. The wire then connected to the alligator clips on the Picoboard. The Picoboard connected to a computer that projected its screen on an interactive white board. Students created and executed their own computer program...