TECHie Club

Scratch
Posted by: mmaina on Feb 23, 2010
Today I learned about Scratch. In Scratch, you make an animation about any cartoon that you wish about.Then you chose a character. After you do that, you can make motions, colors and more stuff. Try it, it's fun!! 

Scratch
Posted by: jgamino on Feb 23, 2010
Today in TECHie club, we did Scratch. In Scratch, we get to make our own animations. We started to make our own stage. We put numbers on the stage for 3, 2, 1. It was fun. Everybody should try it.

Today
Posted by: jmickens on Feb 02, 2010
Today in TECHie club, we did algorithm. We played games called linear searching, binary searching, and hashing. We played those games because they teach my class about searching.

MINDSTORMS NXT ROBOTS
Posted by: jstaggs on Feb 03, 2010
A  mindstorms NXT robot is the line follower. This robot follows a line that is a different shade. For instance, first you have to calibrate it. This means you have to get the NXT to know which line shade to follow. After you calibrate the robot, you start the robot and the robot should follow the line using the light sensor.

Feb 3, 2010
Posted by: dscott on Feb 03, 2010
Today I learned to find out how web sites are made. HTML is the language used to write web sites. We used Google to search web sites. It was fun.

Scratch animations
Posted by: ahernandez on Jan 27, 2010
Hello. Today in TECHie Club we learned how to do "interactive art". Interactive art was fun; everybody especially had fun when we got to add sound. People loved choosing, "baby cry". It sounded like a big baby crying. I think like, five or six people chose a sound called "song" I know they liked it because one of the girls that chose it are still singing it. Here’s how it goes, "sing me a song. Sing, sing, me a song." But, before we were allowed to add music, we learned how to broadcast. It was a really easy thing to learn. You just had to click on "controls" then look for "broadcasting." Then we did something with a dinosaur and buttons. We used a dinosaur as a sprite, and then we added buttons. After we "broadcasted," whenever we pressed the buttons, the dinosaur would change colors. That's pretty much what all we did. Bye!

NXT
Posted by: bsaunders on Jan 27, 2010
Today in TECHie Club we built robots. I and my partner had some trouble with our car because our back wheels did not work. We also learned about sensors and when we put the sensors on our robots I think it will be really cool. Also a NXT block is like the brain of the robot and it is what the sensors tell the information about their surroundings. Some of the sensors in a NXT set are the sensor that hears thing, the sensors that can feel and the light sensor. I think that today was the best TECHie Club meeting so far. The sensors are input items because they input the surroundings to the brain (NXT block).

Mindstorms NXT
Posted by: jstaggs on Jan 27, 2010
An NXT brick is the computer of the NXT. You can tell the computer what to do when you program it. The sensor available in an NXT kit is a touch sensor which can detect obstacles. Also there is the sound sensor with can tell how loud or soft a sound is. The sound sensor also can tell one clap between two claps. The light sensor can tell colors and brightness. The ultrasonic sensor uses sonar that can measure a distance.

NXT's!!!
Posted by: kcannell on Jan 30, 2010
At TECHie Club, I got to make amazing NXT projects. We got to make a Hand Generated Car, and a Top Spinner. They were both very interesting to make. My favorite part of making them was at the end, and finding out that they worked. That was one of my favorite TECHie Club meetings ever! We worked with a NXT brick, and what you can do with it is control different projects you make out of the NXT kit. There are four sensors available in a NXT kit. First, there is a sound sensor, and it detects sound. Second, there is a touch sensor, and it detects touch. Next, there is a light sensor, and it detects light. Finally, the ultrasonic sensor, and it detects movement. An input is for putting demands into the NXT brick to tell it what to do. An output is whatever comes out, what your creation does. Now I hope you see how amazing NXT's really are.

SCRATCH!
Posted by: ahernandez on Jan 20, 2010
Hey! Today in Techie Club we did... Scratch! Scratch is where you can make animations. What we did was we looked at someone else's animation and did our own animations. Before we did any of this, we watched an awesome video on the web. It had a guy who's name was Pranav Mistry. He made a bunch of different stuff. One thing he made was a thing where you attach a 'marker" that looked like tape around his fingers. You could attach a wire to anything and it would be like a computer. Our Techie teacher told us that it would sell in a few months for ~$350. If you saw it, you would think it would cost more than that. Trust me. Bye.

Binary!!!
Posted by: icannell on Jan 18, 2010
Binary is a different system of numbers using only two numbers:  1 and 0. For example:
The number 4 would be 100.
The number 8 would be 1000.
The number 9 would be 1001.
The number 10 would be 1010.
The number 16 would be 10000.
These are examples of decimal being converted into binary.  Decimal is the system of numbers we use.

A Recipe and Scratch
Posted by: jsegura on Jan 20, 2010
A recipe is a list of instructions. Kind of you use like when you make a cookie. You need instructions. Well, a computer needs instructions too. Scratch is a program that helps you do animations, interactive-arts, and games.

What I Learned
Posted by: mmaina on Jan 19, 2010
I learned how to make a webpage. It was hard but if you listen, it is pretty easy. This is how I made my beginner webpage. First, you press the Nvu icon then you save your blank page before you start anything. Next, you press the image button and press the S drive, go to students, pick your grade and name and look for your logo. After you saw your logo, press the open button and you will see your logo on which was the blank page then you type your name and put ''example: Michelle’s webpage'' and put the pictures that you like or inspired with and that’s the way you make your webpage. You may add more if you like.

Point Structure

• Basic (200 points): A completed Scratch project must include the following:
  • You can start the script by using the green flag
  • use at least 2 control blocks
  • have a minimum of 10 work pieces (blocks, sprites, costumes, backgrounds, sounds)
• Good (up to 500 points): A completed Scratch project + project notes
  • what it is
  • how to play it
  • a brief explanation of development
• Great (up to 1000 points): A good projected + good project notes
  • efficient use of blocks
  • creative use of sprites, costumes, backgrounds and sound (not necessarily all)
  • a good explanation of how and why different components were used
• Excellent (up to 2000 points): An excellent project + full documentation
  • efficient and well organized script
  • a well thought out and fully documented project
  • documentation must include how you came up with the idea and logic behind it

Rules

• Submission: Either send file to TECH CORPS or give it to the volunteers to send it to TECH CORPS.
• Number of submission: Unlimited
• Must be your own work
• No duplicate projects
• If the project is a joint effort, points will be split evenly