Scratch Holiday Card
VMU Project Link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/465938057/
Happy Holidays! In today’s activity we will be using Scratch to create animated holiday greeting cards to share with friends and family. This activity combines Scratch coding with graphic design in a fun pairing of computer science and media arts. As you create your Holiday greeting, be sure to check the VMU Project for examples.
Examine the VMU Project example. Spend some time navigating through our example card and try to identify its various components. On the first page, a stamped envelope greets the viewer. An animated holiday wish greets us after clicking the wax seal button. The greeting is composed of animations, moving text, and music playing. These additional elements will be the focus of this project guide.
Let’s open up the project by clicking the “See Inside” button in the top right to examine the different sprites and scripts that make up the project. We can see that every piece of text and graphic are separated individually. We also notice that the script is only using the “Motion”, “Looks”, “Sound”, “Events”, and “Control” Blocks. When we examine the backdrops tab at the top, we can see the envelope and the snow scape background. Now that we’ve taken a look at the example card let’s begin building your greeting card.
Let’s start with our first page. This page exists to create an introductory cover for whomever is viewing your card. A simple background is excellent, so when the viewer goes to the following card page, there is more surprising content after clicking the “open” button. This background can be selected from existing Scratch images, painted using the Scratch tool, or you can even upload an image of your own.
Next, we will create the button and text that will take us to the next page. In the example, we used a stamp but any image or Sprite will be appropriate. The most important part of our script is the “broadcast” block. This allows us to send messages and start new script events to various scripts and backdrops across our project. The other example script exists to show and hide the button as we move from the first page to the second page. If you are going to include text along with the button image, be sure to give that sprite the same script so no matter where the viewer clicks – they have the same experience.
To create our next page, we need to make sure that the “broadcast” block will hide the previous sprites. It will then “show” the new sprites and switch backdrops. You will need to have first page elements triggered by green flag event blocks and second page elements triggered by “when I receive” and select green also which will receive the “broadcast” block trigger message. The example animates text with the “go-to” and “glide” blocks. The “go-to” assigns a starting position and “glide” moves the sprite to a new x,y location.
The example project uses the “whirl block” drop down option to spin the Holiday greeting text. You can use “wait” blocks to create small incremental changes over a short amount of time. If we were only to use one block, the visual effect would only change once by the value we set. We also lengthen the effect by using “wait” blocks to separate each change in the “whirl” effect.
To create even more change within a sprite, we can use the “next costume” block to change the Sprite’s costume, creating an animated effect. In the social media text sprite, “next costumes are separated by “wait” blocks and “start sound.” The “wait” blocks create a pause between every costume change and an accompanying sound with every change. For the snowman and falling snow, “next costume” is placed in a “forever loop” so that the sprite is repeatedly cycling through its costumes.
Adding sounds, graphics, and personal touches are a great way to bring individuality to your Holiday greeting. For more royalty-free music and images, go to: