Scratch Programming 1

Scratch projects are made up of objects called sprites. You can change how a sprite looks by giving it a different costume. You can make a sprite look like a person or a train or a butterfly or anything else. You can use any image as a costume: you can draw an image in the Paint Editor, import an image from your hard disk, or drag in an image from a website.

You can give instructions to a sprite, telling it to move or play music or react to other sprites. To tell a sprite what to do, you snap together graphic blocks into stacks, called scripts. When you click on a script, Scratch runs the blocks from the top of the script to the bottom.

Here is an excellent introductory video all about programming in Scratch.



Scratch Cards

"Scratch Cards" provide a quick free way of beginning to learn Scratch code. They are small PDF documents that can be folded and glued into cards. They cover how to: Change color, Move to a beat, Key moves, Say something, Glide, Follow the mouse, Dance twist, Interactive whirl, Animate it, Moving animation, Surprise button, Keep Score. A zip file of the set of cards can be downloaded.

Click the following link to go to Scratch Cards:
http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support/Scratch_Cards.
Here you can download the cards individually, or else get the zip file of all the cards.

Also downloaded is an excellent 23 page Scratch reference Guide PDF as part of the zip file.

To download and install the Scratch programming tools, go to this web page http://scratch.mit.edu/ .

The download will supply the Scratch Programming Interface:



(Click the above Image to see it full size. Click the Internet browser's back button to return.)

Let's take a look at the free Scratch cards.

Here is a typical beginner's scratch card:



Here is a short YouTube video on how to do the exact same thing, but this time to a Fish rather than a Butterfly.



We followed the color change instructions, and then added a few extra blocks to create a Butterfly that will move across the screen.

Also we edited the Background to be black by "edit" and then drawing a big black rectangle over it.



Here is the resulting Scratch Project.
Click the Green Flag to start, and then keep pressing the space bar.

Here is another basic Scratch Tutorial that creates a "Dancing" clip.

We do this by animating a sprite picture, and then adding sound. Here is a video on the steps to follow:




Here are the Code Blocks we made for the "Dancing Queen Project":



Here is the completed Scratch project. Make sure your speakers are on, and click the Green Flag to start, and the Red dot to stop.

So download those Scratch cards from
http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support/Scratch_Cards
and get into learning Scratch.

And if you want some more "watch and do" videos, then check out this page: http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Video_Tutorials .

And finally, thanks to Darrel Branson who put me onto these excellent resources.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Northpoint's iBand

A group of guys at a community church in America made a band called 'North Point's iBand' and did a Christmas concert of three songs on some iPad's and a few old iPhones.

You can download their songs for free at www.northpointmusic.org/christmas.

The band consisted of ten men on stage performing “Carol of the Bells,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Feliz Navidad,” only they don’t have instruments; they have iPhones.

“The band was a one-time thing. It was a fun experiment,” explains the band’s pianist Reid Greven.

Comprising five iPads, five iPhones and the Georgia-based North Point Community Church’s normal assembly of professional musicians; the iBand was born after members of the group stumbled upon an iPhone performance on YouTube.

“We all own iPhones, and being musicians we all have music apps on them and we went from there,” explains Greven.

When the group performed Dec. 5 in front of the church’s 12,000-person congregation, they had no idea what sort of reaction they would get.

“We woke up that Sunday morning hoping for maybe some smiles and maybe some mild applause,” says Graven. “We just hoped they would get what we were doing and not hate it.”

Interview Source: http://www.thestar.com

Here is a video of their performance. Some of the sounds are fairly average synthesized samples, but the drums, bells, and some of the other parts are really impressive.

North Point's iBand from North Point Web on Vimeo.

Looks like we have a few more iPad apps to check out here at Passy World over the Christmas break. A Nerd's work is never done.

If money is tight this Christmas, and Santa doesn't bring you an iPad, then you could always do some "tic tac music".




And while we are taking a look at amazing musical innovations, here is a sneak peek at the next generation of technology: Invisible Drums!




Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Friday Funny Made of Lego

Image Source: http://attachments.techguy.org

Maybe not everyone in the above picture enjoys Passy's World of ICT Friday Funnies.

So how do we assemble a Friday Funny that will make them smile?

Let's try assembling this week's Friday Funny out of lego ?
It should be pretty obvious how to do this, as per the following video.



Obviously you are hungry for more wonderful lego humour, but just be careful of what you consume.


Image Source: http://images.mocpages.com

Perhaps you are hungry for some Pizza. A lot of people are, as shown in this marvelous little documentary.



And because you loved that little adventure so much, here is an equally exciting sequel.



We don't have a relevant picture to fit in just here, so you'll have to take your own happy snappy.


Image Source: http://www.crazyjunkyard.com

Time now for some random Lego Super Heroes.


Image Source: http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com

Here is a sneak preview from next season's new Batman thriller.



Also hitting the cinemas next season will be the stunning remake of Jaws!



It seems there is no end to how clever people are able to get all artistic with their lego masterpieces.


Image Source: http://www.inquisitr.com

And here is a very clever game of Lego Mini Golf. Take note of the important tips about outwitting your opponent.



Saving the best for last, here is the over four million views Lego Nintendo Wii video. It is definitely one of our all time favourites here at Passy World.



And so it's hats off this week to all those creative people around the world making great stuff out of colored bricks!


Image Source: http://www.gizmodiva.com

Time to go snap together another colourful and creative weekend.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Embedding Scratch on a Website

To start the above game click the Green Flag icon in the top right corner.

Then use the mouse to make the Fox chase and catch the other animals. The yellow birds are worth one point, and the green animal is worth five points.

Note that the Fox slows down, (because he is getting tired), as the game progresses.

Click the Red Circle in the top right hand corner to stop the game.

The above Chasey game is not yet finished, but it is our first creation using the fabulous programming tool "Scratch" which is free from MIT University in the USA.

Go to http://scratch.mit.edu to download Scratch and get started.

Here at Passy World we will be playing around with Scratch for the next couple of weeks, and we will put up some future posts about our experiences.

So this post is a bit of "the chicken before the egg", and if you are already into Scratch, and have some games you would like to put onto a Website or Blog, then the PDF document below explains exactly how to do this.

If you would like to have your own full size copy of this PDF, then simply click the save disk icon button on the PDF viewer, and you should be able to save it to your own hard disk.

Alternatively, you can view or save the full size PDF by clicking the link below:

Click here to open or save the “How to Embed Scratch” PDF

Got go now and scratch up something to eat for dinner.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Diigo Web Pages Bookmarking

Diigo is a set of internet site bookmarking tools. It is great for keeping track of your favorites in the cloud, so that they can be accessed from any computer or mobile device.

It also has great additional features for sharing bookmarks, organising bookmarks into lists, and creating groups of people to share with in Diigo.
Diigo can also highlight text on a stored site, and add sticky notes to sotred web pages.

The feature we like best about Diigo is making a slide show in Diigo of a specific set of bookmarked internet sites. More on all of these features a bit later on.

Here is a great introductory video on what Diigo does



Here is a video that shows how Diigo lives in the "Cloud" and includes useful info about the iPad and Android apps for Diigo.



This video does not have narration, but is like a filmed PowerPoint.
We recommend this as a video to watch if you do not have sound available on your computer at the moment.




Using Diigo without the Toolbar

Here is a video that shows the main features of Diigo. Importantly, it will show you how to add Bookmarks to Diigo, if you are logged on at a location where you cannot install the Diigo Toolbar.




Diigo Groups

Groups are a great way of setting up some people who can collaboratively share web pages that they find on the Internet.

Here is a basic video on how to join Diigo and share with a group/



Here is a video about how to set up a Group on Diigo. It shows a good example of how to set up a group for a class you might be teaching.



Here is a video about how to invite people by email to join a Diigo Group that you have created. These people don't have to be members of Diigo yet, as the email will guide them on how to create a Diigo account prior to joining the group.



Here is the second part of the previous video about getting people to join your Diigo Group. It explains how to download the Diigo toolbar and get started using Diigo. It then shows how you can add bookmarks out of your own "My Library" into the shared group.




Diigo Slide Shows

Here is a video about Diigo "WebSlides" for making slideshows.



Here is a slideshow we made all about Integers for Mathematics that is embeded here in our Blog.

The only problem with Diigo slideshows is that none of the links to YouTube videos work, because the video cannot load from within the Diigo slideshow.



Here is a direct link to the above Diigo slideshow. (We could email this link to people, to give them our slide show).

http://slides.diigo.com/list/bigpassy/mathematics-of-integers

Here is a link to our Diigo "List" that we created and then generated the slideshow from: http://tinyurl.com/integers1ppa

It is important that users of the list click the small green links for each web page, rather than the blue Diigo links which sends them to Diigo's history for the site.

For details on how we created the "list" and "webslides" slideshow, see the PDF document link later in this blog post.

We have only recently joined Diigo here at Passy World. Below is a PDF document that goes through what we did to get set up. It may supply you with some interesting tips and traps about using Diigo.

Our main objective in getting set up was to create a List of websites related to Integers in Mathematics, and then to turn this list into a Diigo slide show.

(Note that this is a 2.5MB PDF document and may take a while to load in).

Click here to open or save the “How to Use Diigo” PDF

Here is a video about how Diigo caN be used in Year 7 English for collaborating responses about a newspaper article.




Diigo and Delicious

"Delicious" is another free application that can bookmark web sites. Here at Passy World we haven't used "Delicious" for bookmarking yet, but the really cool thing is that apparently all your Diigo bookmarks are automatically added to "Delicious".

Here is a video about how to use "Delicious".



So that's the full story on Diigo. We can see that it will be quite a useful free tool for us to use here at Passy World, and hopefully will be useful to you guys as well.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

iRig for Guitar

Here at Passy World we have just bought the fabulous Amplitude iRig for our guitar. Ever since we got it, we have been playing guitar so much that our fingers are killing us! It is absolutely awesome.

The "iRig" as pictured above is basically an adaptor that an electric guitar or bass plugs into, and then this connects to the earphone socket of an ipad, ipod touch, or iphone. We then plug earphones or headphones into the irgig adaptor's other end, and presto we have a full set of guitar amps and effects pedals.

The sounds are great, the volume is adequate, (especially if using some good headphones), and the latency is perfect with no real lag time at all.

The free app that comes with the iRig adapter gives you a digital delay, a distortion pedal, a noise gate pedal, and a basic Marshall style amplifier. There are then two ways of micing up the amp.

We soon found we wanted a full set of effects pedals and amps and cabinets, and so for around $20 we brought the full Amplitude irig set from the Itunes store. You could also just buy separate pedals for around $4 each, but we definitely recommend buying the full $20 set of pedals and amplifiers.


Image Source: http://www.ikmultimedia.com

Here is a You Tube video that demonstrates just how good the iRig is.



Of course the great thing is that as well as all the effects pedals you could ever want, (11 stomp pedals in total), you also get 5 amps, 5 cabinets and 2 microphones.

When running the iRig however, we can only use 4 pedals with one amplifier and one microphone at a time. Eg. We cannot seem to connect all 11 pedals to each other.

Here is one of the five amps that comes with the $20 full package:


Image Source: http://www.techfame.com

Here is a typical configuration of four pedals with an amplifier


Image Source: http://www.ikmultimedia.com

If you want to read a great review of the iRig by Robert from Dolphin Street guitar, then click the link below:

http://www.dolphinstreet.com/blog/irig-iphone.php

Here is a video of Robert putting the iRig through its paces.



The iRig is made by IK Multimedia, and here is a link to their site:
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/irig

Here is their promotional video for the iRig.



Here is a great clip that shows the iRig being used on an iPad



The IRig software is available as Apps on Itunes. The actual Irig adaptor needs to be purchased at your local music shop. It will cost about $60 in Australia, and less in the USA. Passy World purchased ours from Cranbourne Music who are a great store here in Melbourne Australia.

So if you have an electric guitar then definitely spend around $80 on an iRig setup. This will give you in your pants pocket the equivalent of thousands of dollars worth of Amps, Cabinets, and Pedals that you can use with just a guitar and and iphone. This is truly awesome technology!

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Big Fat Friday Funny

Image Source: http://www.cnlr.co.uk

This week we are expanding our waitlines to have a funny look at a big problem we currently have here in the Western world: our size!

Don't laugh but Big Passy was very bigger two years ago, weighing in at an obese 125kg. Thankfully I am now a much healthier 90kg, but it wasn't easy getting rid of that extra mass.

Let's begin with a silly joke:

Q. What do you call two fat men having a chat?
A. A heavy discussion.

Joke Source: http://www.basicjokes.com

A lot of times people blame Mc Donald's food for weight problems. But Big Passy enjoys eating Maccas at least once a week, and it is fine as long as you do some exercise to compensate for the high calorie intake.

I don't think these guys have been balancing out the fast food equation.


Image Source: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com

Here is a basic diagram of how that whole overweight equation works:

Too much big calories in = Too much growth in all the wrong places


Image Source: http://a1.phobos.apple.com


"F is for Fat" Jokes

Freddy is so fat, he shows up on radar.

Frank is so fat that NASA orbits satellites around him.

Faye has so many double chins she looks like she is staring at you over a pile of pancakes.

Ferdinand is so fat, they used his belt to measure the Earth's equator.

Two fat blokes in a pub, one says to the other, "Your round."
The other one says "So are you! You big fat pig!"

Fatima was so fat that they baptized her at Sea World.

Francessca is so fat, she had her baby pictures taken by satellite.

Fillipo is so fat, when he steps on the scale it says, "No live stock please."

Frederica is so fat, she has more chins than a Chinese phonebook.

Felicia is so fat, when she stepped on a scale it said 1 person at a time please.

Frederico's butt is so big, he got stopped at the airport for having 200 pounds of crack!

Ferica is so fat, even Bill Gates couldn't pay for her liposuction!

Fawn is so fat she took her pants to the dry cleaners and the lady said, "we don't do curtains".

Jokes Source: http://www.carlmerritt.com

Most of the videos we checked out on YouTube for this post were very unkind and unsuitable. However, the following video shows how when you are overweight, your center of gravity shifts, and it is much easier to fall over.

This certainly happened to Big Passy a few times during his previous "Big Boy" life.

I guess this video is more a warning than something funny to laugh at.



Fat Theology

And God populated the earth with broccoli and cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow vegetable of all kinds, so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.

And Satan created McDonald's. And McDonald's brought forth the 99-cent double-cheeseburger. And Satan said to Man, "You want fries with that?"

And Man said, "Super size them." And Man gained pounds.

And God created the healthful yogurt, that woman might keep her figure that man found so fair.

And Satan brought forth chocolate. And woman gained pounds.

And God said, "Try my crispy fresh salad."

And Satan brought forth ice cream. And woman gained pounds.

And God said, "I have sent your heart healthy vegetables and olive oil with which to cook them."

And Satan brought forth chicken-fried steak so big it needed its own platter.

And Man gained pounds and his bad cholesterol went through the roof.

And God brought forth running shoes and Man resolved to lose those extra pounds.

And Satan brought forth cable TV with remote control so Man would not have to toil to change channels between ESPN and ESPN2.

And Man gained pounds.

And God said, "You're running up the score, Devil."

And God brought forth the potato, a vegetable naturally low in fat and brimming with nutrition.

And Satan peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy center into chips and deep-fat fried them. And he created sour cream dip also.

And Man clutched his remote control and ate the potato chips swaddled in cholesterol.

And Satan saw and said, "It is good."

And Man went into cardiac arrest.

And God just sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery.

Jokes Source: http://www.basicjokes.com

So that's it for our Fat Friday. Now it's time to drift off into another big weekend.


Image Source: http://blogs.nyu.edu

Enjoy yourselves, but make sure you do something active in the next two days!

(No Longer so Big) Passy Wasabi