On the 23the of August, Scratchers all over the world assembled for the International Scratch conference Europe in Cambridge. Three days of talks, workshops and inspirational key notes filled the agenda. CoderDojo Belgium was there to report to you the newest and coolest from Scratch land.
Scratch
coaches from all over the world gathered at Cambridge University’s Churchill
College to see how Mitch Resnick kicked off the conference with an inspirational
talk about the deeper meaning of Scratch. Mitch Resnick is the spiritual father
of Scratch and was kind of a celebrity during this conference (with people
chasing him for selfies and all). Watch his talk here:
What followed was a buffet of interesting
workshops. We can’t talk to you about all of them because well… we couldn’t
attend all of them at the same time. Here’s just a short overview of some of
the most interesting workshops:
Translating in Scratch:
One of the many cool new features of
Scratch 3 is how easy it is to add extensions. While most of you have probably
discovered the Micro:bit, Lego Mindstorm or video extensions, the translate
extension remains a bit overlooked. In a multilingual country like Belgium,
this feature however is really worth a try. Especially when combined with the
text to speech extension, the translation tool contains the potential for some
really cool projects. You’ll notice the translator is linked to Google translate,
yet there are a few languages missing from the list. It wouldn’t be Scratch if somebody hadn't come up with a cunning workaround. Just add an extra variabele
with the desired language (note that it should be a language that is present in
the current Google translate library). Set your variabele to your desired
language as seen below and you’re good to go!
Just imagine all the cool projects kids
could create with this. Never again will they have to think of a method to
learn their vocabulary in French, English or even Latin!
Scratch Go
This is
brand new! Scratch is working on a tool to connect Scratch with the physical
world. The idea is that you can attach the Scratch Go to whatever you want to
attach it. It has motion sensors, light sensors, a big orange button in the middle
and a little green one to simulate the green flag. This enables kids to turn
everything into a controller for their games.
Its key
assets would be that it is robust and has a long battery life expectancy (it automatically
turns of when not connected) making it the ideal tool for young coders. The Scratch
Go will be entirely programmable via Scratch and uses a Bluetooth connection to
connect to your computer.
We don’t
expect it to be in shops very soon but it is certainly something to look
forward to.
Scratch AI
Big news
from the land of the rising sun! Google Japan is working on an extension to
introduce artificial intelligence in Scratch. They aren’t really there yet but what they are working
on now is a feature that would allow the programmer to teach the computer how
to recognize objects by using the camera. Some might think it sounds a bit
scary, others think it’s the future of Scratch! Decide for yourself!
That’s all
for this short overview of the Scratch conference. If you have any other
questions, please feel free to contact An@coderdojobelgium.be or maarten@coderdojobelgium.be and we will gladly tell you more.
Psst: and check out our story on our Instagram account.
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