Make A Recycling Game
Contents
Background
Not everything that we consider ‘trash’ has to go into the trash can and sent off to a landfill. Some items, like plastic bottles and aluminum cans, can be reused to make new products. We call this recycling. For example, paper and cardboard can be recycled and used again in other paper products. The more we recycle paper and cardboard, the less we need to use natural resources like fiber from trees to manufacture new products. It also uses less energy and water in the manufacturing process.
Lots of other waste materials are recyclable, too – many that even surprise you. In teams of two, use online resources to research other recyclable items. Then, share what you find with others on your team.
Your Challenge
1. Make a game.
Raise awareness for recycling by building a program in Scratch that tells other people what waste materials are recyclable.
Requirements
- Have a main character that talks to the player
- Animate the character (make it seem like it’s moving by changing its costume over and over). Do this by choosing a sprite that has more than one costume.
- The stage has items that may or may not be recyclable.
- The player will score points by choosing only items that are recyclable. Players could choose an item by clicking on it – or for an extra challenge, by dragging it to a waste bin.
- Keep track of the player’s score. Recyclable items add points to a score. Non-recyclable items subtract points from the score.
- Make another sprite that the player can interact with to help the player know that they’re done choosing items.
- When the player indicates that they’re done, have the main character talk to the player, telling them how well they did in the game. For example, the character could say something different if the player got all of the items right, almost all of them or none of them.
Don’t remember how to do something? Use the activities in this Guide book as a reference. You can also ask for help from your mentor and view examples of other Scratch projects.
2. Save
Work on your project as long as you like. When you’re done, save it by logging in to your team Scratch account.
3. Evaluate
Does your project meet these goals?
- Educates people about waste materials that can be recycled.
- Has a main character (sprite) that talks to the player.
- The main character is animated.
- Includes a stage with items (sprites) that may or may not be recyclable.
- Includes variables so players can score points if they choose the recyclable materials.
- Allows players to see how many points they have.
- Has a second character (sprite) that tells the player when they’re done choosing recyclable items.
- At the end of the game, the main character tells the player how well they did in the game.
- Doesn’t have any syntax or program logic errors.
- Demonstrates your creativity and teamwork.
Start by sharing your project and source code with your team. Show how you solved each requirement (where did you use a loop, an event, conditions, etc.). Kindly listen to their feedback and consider any changes they may offer you.
One of the main points of Scratch is to allow others to view your projects, look inside them and remix them. You can share a project from either the unshared project’s page or directly in the editor. From an unshared project page, you can click the “share” button in an orange bar above the project, like this:
In the project editor, there is a “Share” button in the top-right corner, which only appears on unshared projects. Clicking this button will share the project, opening the project page, too.