Tag Archives: scratch

Aug 01

Friday Post: Book Review

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Hey All,

So, this week K and I went on a last minute cruise to relax and get energized for the upcoming school year.  It was a much needed vacation.

During the cruise I ended up reading (and eating) a lot.  Here are some of the things I read which I thought were great:

Seconds

Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley, who is probably best known for the Scott Pilgrim series, is a standalone graphic novel about a girl, her restaurant, and how life happens.  Don’t go into it thinking it’s going to be another Scott Pilgrim with video game and pop references.  It’s about life, and dealing with all the things that come with it, and how we all sometimes wish for a second chance at events.  I read the entire thing in one sitting.  I could not put it down.  I highly recommend it.

Mega Man Gigamix

I bought this on a whim when I was going to a conference and ended up not having time to read it.  I finally opened it up and even though it says Vol. 1, it’s actually a sequel to Mega Man Megamix.  With that being said, Gigamix works on it’s own, and has two fun stories.

Wizzywig

Wizzywig is the story of Kevin “Boingthump” Phenicle Jr. as he grows up during the early days of the computer revolution, where his curiosity runs faster than the law can keep up.  The story is a very loose adaptation of what happened to Kevin Mitnick.  At times it can be a little pushy on it’s message of corruption and redemption, and the art style can be a bit too over the top sometimes, but all in all, it works.

Super Scratch Programming Adventure

I reviewed this last year, but I decided to reread it as I have been wanting to work more with Scratch.  It’s a graphic novel that teaches you how to program by following the adventures of Scratchy the cat and his friends.  It’s a little hokey, but it does its job well, and by the end, you will have learned how to make a bunch of different types of games.  The version I have is for 1.4, but they have recently updated it to cover version 2.0.  There are also a bunch of demos available at http://scratch.mit.edu

Like I said, it has been a relaxing week, and I’m ready to get back to my projects!

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Shea

Jul 26

Friday Post: Book Reports

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Excuse the delay, I’ve been having connection issues all day.

Hey All!

Happy Friday!

This has been a trying week.  The wife and I are now house hunting, and the endeavor has been…exhausting.  Oh well.  Onto some good stuff.

Book Reports

The book I am writing is currently at the review stage, which is awesome.  Hopefully only another month or so and the finished copies will be available!  While we wait for that to be released, I have some other books I have been reading and I think this community will enjoy.

Super Scratch Programming Adventure!: Learn to Program By Making Cool Games

super_scratch_programming_adventure

This book has a really interesting background.  It was created by created by The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups and the MIT Media Lab.  The book teaches you how to “program” in the Scratch language/IDE.

Scratch is really neat as it’s a drag and drop visual language that is aimed at young / new programmers.  You learn programming concepts as you place blocks of “functions” in various areas to perform actions.

The book itself is well done, with comic book style artwork, narrative, and learning modules.  It’s an easy read, and a good start for a young programmer.

Instant Minecraft: Pi Edition Coding How-to

0636OS_mockupcover_instant-how to_0

Packt Publishing has just published this book about using the Minecraft API for the Raspberry Pi with Python.  I have a soft spot for Packt, as they are the ones publishing my book, but so far I have enjoyed this book.

From the beginning you are thrown into the Python interface and start manipulating the Minecraft world on your Pi.  It is relatively short, only around 50 pages, but I find that to be a good thing.  It’s to the point.  You go from nothing to building a full Revsersi game by the end.

I showed it off at the Orlando Science Center with FamiLAB last saturday and it was really neat to see the amount of children who ran up to see anything related to Minecraft.  Some of the parents were enthusiastic about being able to bring education to a video game.

I hope you have a good weekend and hopefully enjoy these books.

-Shea