LOL Cats with Scratch

Just poking around looking for resources, I fell into this really interesting project carrying the logo from Bourne Grammar School.

It’s a project constructed by Marc Scott that lets you use Scratch to create your own LOL Cat.  It’s titled “A Virtual Pet in Scratch” and released under a Creative Commons license.

This isn’t a simple, straight-forward project as the menu driving the project will attest.

A project like this is inherently interesting as it builds in some coding to humanise (or Catise) the program with a load of artificial intelligence.  From an expectation perspective, there’s a great deal about coding that goes into making this work.

Those who look down their nose at block coding saying that it’s not real coding need to take a look at this.  It’s not trivial and uses so many programming constructions.  And that’s just for the basic project.  Students will want to hack the experience to make it their own.

Even just navigating through the project is a delightful experience.  You’re moving left, right, up, and down to negotiate your way through everything.  “Everything” includes text, images, and video.  Mouse, of course, but try your arrow keys.

If you’re using Scratch, contemplating using Scratch, or are looking for an enhancement project for students, you owe it yourself to devote some time exploring this project to see where it fits in your classroom.