Name of Assignment: Birthday Cake Scratch Subject: Computer Science Principles Facilitator/Teacher: Mr. Murali
Description of Work/Assignment: For this assignment, I had to take a half done Scratch project and "remix" (add to or change) it. In this case I had to make a birthday cake's candles light up like bits in binary. There were eight candles and they lit up in different orders depending on the age you entered.
Which 21st Century Skill do you feel this assignment addresses, and why? I feel like this assignment addresses a handful of 21st Century Skills, but the one I think I used the most while completing this was communication skills. This is because I had a lot of trouble understanding the code that went into making the candles light up.
What are you most proud of from this assignment, and why? I am most proud of the end product. Though I did partially use somebody else's work, I was still very happy with what I'd learned and how the scratch project looked at the end.
How did you develop and/or improve upon your 21st Century Skill with this assignment? I developed my communication skills by asking for help from my peers and the teacher and when going into powerschool, I noticed he hadn't updated my grade so I had to email Mr. Murali to have it adjusted.
What was most difficult about completing this task? The most difficult part about making the binary birthday cake was understanding how each block of code worked to make the candles light.
How could you improve this work? If you could start over, what would you do different? If I were to redo this project I would likely start from scratch and use the beginning code as a recipe rather than only do a part of the assignment.
How does this relate to what you have learned in the past? We do a little bit of coding and computer work every year but, I believe this is the first one since seventh grade where we used scratch. Those scratch lessons made it a lot easier to work on this assignment.
How can you apply this to future learning? I know that I will likely be using scratch in another couple of years and I am now prepared to work on more advanced assignments.