April 2013 Meetup Discussion Notes: Ideas for a HS Pong Game

At the April 2013 Scratch Educator Meetup, a group of HS Scratch educators got together to share ideas for creating a pong game from, well, scratch.

Laura Johnson took some notes of the discussion that are shared here:

Specifications:
- start with one row of blocks and one ball --> have to move the ball to the wall of blocks using the paddle
- when the ball hits the blocks –
     > block has to disappear
          - 3 choices for triggering disappearance:
               paint a block in the background and using "touching" block
               sprite hitting sprite
               coordinates
     > ball has to change direction
          - how to simulate the angle that would result in the real world?

Questions / Considerations:

            - how to decide what level of specification to offer students regarding game mechanics? --> dependent on time and level of students

            - storyboarding / psuedo-flowcharting is helpful to plan game

            - using this as an advanced Scratch activity, but still providing various levels of challenges within it

            - pros and cons of showing students the final product (as in, this is what you're aiming for) vs. telling them the specifications and letting them conceptualize it themselves

            - value in taking time to discuss various approaches to the same problem / set of constraints, are some better than others?

Do you have other suggestions for specifications/questions/considerations? Please share them below!