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#1 2013-04-02 15:00:05

lukesow
New Scratcher
Registered: 2013-04-02
Posts: 4

Job Interview Advice

Hi,

I have got a job interview and in this interview I must teach a 25 minute lesson using scratch. The following information is an extract from the information pack I was given:

Topic of lesson: Use programming to creating an original short game using Scratch

Year group: 7 or 8

Length of lesson: 25 minutes

All candidates will teach one lesson of twenty five minutes to either a year seven or year eight group using Scratch software (available to download for free). Please allow for a range of ability, SEN and More Able students. There will be between 15 and 25 students in each class. All students will have experience of using the software as part of the year 7 curriculum. The students created a maze game, the shark game and will have varying experience of creating other low level games.

_________________________________________________________________________________

I am looking for advice as to what I could do as an idea for this game.
I have just downloaded Scratch yesterday but I managed to create a game where a ghost eats bats and it has a scoring system and a countdown timer.

I was thinking of a game like this:

Graduate from school

There would be say 9 rooms - each room representing a school subject. The user navigates to each room collecting objects whilst racing against the clock.

Then have a scoring system where the user gets a final score

9 objects - A*
8 objects - A
7 objects - B
6 objects - C
5 objects - D
4 or less - fail

What's your thoughts?

I only have 25 minutes so this may be too much.

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#2 2013-04-03 18:07:45

EdgeGamer
Scratcher
Registered: 2012-07-04
Posts: 100+

Re: Job Interview Advice

Sounds interesting, a bit like my Easter Egg Hunt project (on the Scratch 2.0 website) but with a timer. However, I'm not sure clicking around a room is the most exciting thing ever. At the very least, you could make it so that, say, the history room is cluttered with pots and helmets from the Roman era and such so it is very cluttered and the specific object being searched for is very hard to find. You could also add special parts like somebody taking an object and you have to take part in a little race game to get it, but this could take a while. Another idea is to make the game a platformer. Say, you start in the Maths room, you have to jump over books and avoid spinning + symbols (I know, weird) to reach the object, then you go onto the next room which has the theme of a different subject. You basically must see how many levels you can complete in the given time. The downside of this is that it would require quite a bit of knowledge on Broadcasts and Variables, which childeren of that age do not know about. Actually, the idea as a whole would require broadcasts and variables, so I just hope that they can figure it out with some help.

I hope that these suggestions and ideas are helpful. This does seem like quite the project for 25 minutes, as I would imagine something like a racing game would fit the time span better. However, if you can sit down and make the game yourself in 25 minutes, then maybe you can show the childeren how in even less. Good luck! Let me know what you think of all of this.


http://blocks.scratchr.org/API.php?user=EdgeGamer&action=onlineStatus&onlinehttp://i46.tinypic.com/jjpkeg.gif&offline=http://i49.tinypic.com/2mg05ki.gif

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#3 2013-04-03 19:23:01

lukesow
New Scratcher
Registered: 2013-04-02
Posts: 4

Re: Job Interview Advice

Thank you for your fabulous ideas. I am cautious about time that's my main worry!

I am thinking about a game which races against the clock as it is easy to program. I want to be original as well and your suggestions are certainly that, What about the racing car game, that sounds good. G=How could I make that increasingly challenging. i could set them a task to create a basic game to start with and then have extension activities for kids who complete the simple task. Some kids will struggle with the basis while others will fly through it all.

hmmmm.... tough one this isn't it?
Still thinking

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#4 2013-04-05 14:29:48

EdgeGamer
Scratcher
Registered: 2012-07-04
Posts: 100+

Re: Job Interview Advice

A racing game shouldn't be too hard. You could make them all make a simple multiplayer racing game, and have those that find it easy add fun bits like speed boosts, power ups, things like that. All that they would need to do would be to draw a race track background, add 2 driving cars and their scripts and make some scripts so that if they touch the green grass colour then they lose.


http://blocks.scratchr.org/API.php?user=EdgeGamer&action=onlineStatus&onlinehttp://i46.tinypic.com/jjpkeg.gif&offline=http://i49.tinypic.com/2mg05ki.gif

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#5 2013-04-06 09:05:38

lukesow
New Scratcher
Registered: 2013-04-02
Posts: 4

Re: Job Interview Advice

EdgeGamer wrote:

A racing game shouldn't be too hard. You could make them all make a simple multiplayer racing game, and have those that find it easy add fun bits like speed boosts, power ups, things like that. All that they would need to do would be to draw a race track background, add 2 driving cars and their scripts and make some scripts so that if they touch the green grass colour then they lose.

I really like hat idea, also (I'm new to scratch) can't they play each other by sharing a code or something. I'm sure I read that.

I think this will work quite fine.

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