Cat Scratch Fever

The last assignment of the previous module was an extra credit piece- use Excel to build a ‘binary calculator’ that would convert 8-char binary to numeric values. Mine could have been more polished if i’d had more time on it, but as it was it was still spectacular for that class. Macros, hidden formulas, stuff we hadn’t even touched. Didn’t get any points for it though.

First assignment of the next module was the first intended stab at coding, through the visual tools at MIT’s Scratch. The actual assignment was to use the default starter cat sprite and the tools available to have the cat draw circles in the four corners of the frame. I was feeling a little pissy about that missing extra credit, and wanted to trample all over this one. My awesome calculator was taking his instructions too seriously? Then I’ll give him a sense of how seriously I take his grading!

Two points here. First, I don’t know what I was hoping to accomplish by assuming an adversarial stance, but I don’t think I would’ve come up with the same result if I hadn’t been thumbing my nose at something. Second, I’ve learned over time that when you exceed requirements by more than x amount while clearly screwing around, some teachers will take that personally.

I didn’t want to make the same video everyone else was making, having this dumb cat make a tour of the perimeter, circling at each corner. I wanted to get the circles done all at once, but the prof could be touchy about rules so I wanted them being drawn by the same cat. Once I knew the cat had to be drawing the circles with his mind, the scene’s story fell into place. The biggest technical challenge here was overcome with the addition of the secondary sprites. We hadn’t covered anything beyond movement and drawing in class, so I was jumping ahead to material the prof had no plans to cover. Once I had the means for the cat to astrally project, the two pieces remaining to juggle were the editing of the sound (downloaded an old Meow Mix jingle), and timing the actions of the five sprites just so with every interval, so everyone would hit their marks at the sound cues.

After each due date, the prof would project some of the submitted work for the whole class. He showed a few of the cat animations that were turned in, then he brought up the subject of those calculators. He showed a few of those to the class, and then showed them mine. Now, I’ve been building in Excel for longer than most of that class had been alive. So there was a big difference. He explains to the class that he hadn’t given “that guy” any points for his (my) calculator, because he was sure the file had been found somewhere, or commissioned. He didn’t consider the possibility that it was legit until the same guy (me) turned in – segueway back to the Scratch assignment – this work. He showed it at least three times.

And I finally got my credit for the calculator.

     The follow-up assignment was more of the same. Replacing the circles with a square/rectangle/triangle/star, and a challenge to the class to give the wiseass (me) some competition. That wasn’t what he said, but it’s what he meant. I couldn’t see anyone in the class having quite the chops but I still wanted to stay ahead of both what they could do and what the prof would expect. And it HAD to be even crazier. Like, metal. And all because someone out there actually made a metal version of the meow mix tune, I had a source I could mix in and the rest was adapting the pieces and timing.

The coding blocks for these guys got a little more intense, even the backup singers had more than a single screen going on. Again, if I’d had more time… it would probably be a little longer. There are some quick cuts in the audio cue that require precise video timing, I think I could’ve made a cleaner sync with more deliberate sound editing. But it was still a semester beyond the assigned specs.