8th Grade Tech Class

In 8th grade tech class students will spend most or all the trimester working on one capstone project, either a Scratch program or a 3d scale model of a building.

Scratch projects will focus on mastery of specific subjects from the State of Washington computer science algorithms and programming standards for grades K-8.  Scratch projects must incorporate the following:

  • Creating a flow chart as a design tool for describing the branches or paths through a portion of your game
  • Nested loops:  repeating iterative loops inside other loops.  These are common in many games.
  • Compound conditional processing:  combining Boolean expressions with AND and OR.  “If the player has a torch and a match or the player has a flashlight, then…”
  • Use of the Scratch list variable to store collections of information, such as inventory in an adventure game

The primary Scratch programming assignment for 8th grade is to create an adventure or quest-driven game incorporating the above concepts.

The primary 3d modeling assignment is to create an accurate scale model of a real building significant to their experience and studies at St. John School.  This can be a model of the church or a significant building from one of the middle school student trips (Washington State, Washington DC).  Students may choose any building from the real world, past or present, for which the student can describe how it connects with their studies and experience at St. John School.

Detailed expectations and other resources for these assignments may be found on the 8th Grade Tech Class SharePoint site, which is only accessible with a St. John School Office 365 account.  Students will save documents and receive supporting materials and detailed directions on the SharePoint site.  Go to Office.com, log in with your school account, click on SharePoint, and you will see it.