A couple of years back I wrote a Scratch app for use with a projector, to project onto a pumpkin at Halloween:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/77949454/

I've had a good look around and there are extremely few free videos out there of any quality for projection - we would be doing a real service to Halloween party-goers everywhere by creating some free projection content.

So my challenge for you is to create a great Halloween haunt app suitable for use with a projector.

Halloween is about two weeks off, which should give you enough time to think of a good idea, design it, draw any needed artwork, and implement it.

As well as using pumpkins (or turnips, in the UK), options include projecting onto foam cut-out tombstones, skulls, windows, doorways, and walls.
You can either do front projection or back-projection onto transparent screens or mesh. Black backgrounds around the content are best for projecting onto objects, but an all-white background is good for projecting things like bugs onto walls or onto tables from above, or for projecting animated fake shadows onto a lit area (or a window, from behind - use the white plastic you cover picnic tables with, or shower curtains) Oh - I nearly forgot - projecting onto a white surface in a picture frame to make a fake painting is cool too! If you do that use a standard frame size so it fits, or support tweaking the size in the app.

Tell you what, if there are at least 10 genuine entries (I mean entries by at least 10 regular people, not 10 programs by one person or multiple accounts etc :-) ), I'll pony up for a real honest to goodness prize to be sent in time for Christmas. It'll be something like an arduino or a raspberry pi… (To avoid any issues with privacy, I think the best way to deliver a prize would be by mail c/o your parents at their work address, if they'll contact me.)
I may trigger the prize on slightly fewer than 10 participants, if the entries are really good quality :-)

I'll demo as many as I can at our neighborhood party and I'll post Youtube videos of how people react to them! I hope everyone else who can make use of them will do too.

Reactive apps are cool but your project should have a default mode where it doesn't require any input, so we can record a loop of the project running as an mp4 or wmv so that people can play them from other devices such as DVD players or from an SD card on a raspberry pi or suchlike.

Also if possible make your app run in as sensible a way as you can on Phosphorus, which is marginally easier to use with projectors.

Does anyone know of a good and free way to record a Scratch project run, with video and sound?

Apps should be complete and judging will be at 6pm Central on Friday 28th. That should give people time to set their projectors up over the weekend ready for Monday 31st night.

Please show your work in progress and allow people to comment and advise - we'll get better entries that way. I don't mind collaboration - in something like this it's not cheating! And if you're feeling prolific, multiple entries are OK. And existing code can be reused, you don't have to write it from scratch. Just *in* Scratch.

If this is a success we can do it again for Christmas.

Graham

Already have a Raspberry Pi at home and Arduino in school xD

(No need to change the prize though, most likely not participating in this competition since I have some other things to do)

when I receive [flash_player_version] :: motion
say [Windows 7, Flash 15.0 (release 0)] :: sensing 
stop script :: custom 

Tropic wrote:

Already have a Raspberry Pi at home and Arduino in school xD

Ah, but do you have an MSP430? :-)

This seems like something fun to do
I'll give it a shot

This is really neat! I'll see what I can come up with.

I've made a project cover script that will cover the edges of your project using two slider variables (width and height). Everyone can add the sprite to their project so that we have custom aspect ratios for everything.

I will defiantly try this

Is it OK if our video has certain requirements such as a white table to work well?

A studio to put the projects in might be nice

gtoal wrote:

Tropic wrote:

Already have a Raspberry Pi at home and Arduino in school xD

Ah, but do you have an MSP430? :-)

No and never heard of it xD

when I receive [flash_player_version] :: motion
say [Windows 7, Flash 15.0 (release 0)] :: sensing 
stop script :: custom 

IcyCoder wrote:

Is it OK if our video has certain requirements such as a white table to work well?

yep, that's ok. just state what the optimal projection style you need is in the notes.

liam48D wrote:

A studio to put the projects in might be nice

ok, done. I'll add projects to https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/3484569/ whenever they're announced here.

Remember, all things being equal, a project that is put up early and improves due to community input will be rated marginally higher than a similar project that appeared fully-formed on the last day of the competition. Give advice and take advice!

G

I want to make a painting that randomally does something so you think it is a painting and then you get spooked.

I hate to state the obvious here, but isn't a good way to record scratch projects with sound just to use the Scratch in-built recorder? (and then use an external converter to change from .flac to .mp4 if necessary)

Also, I've never heard of anyone using turnips in the UK (I've only ever seen pumpkins lol) Is that a Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland thing?

If only camera was supported in Phosophorus…

Thinking about adding some spooky shadows inside windows… Say I had a projector inside of a house, facing towards a window. The window has a white sheet of some kind covering it (the sheet is inside the house, not outside). If the project had a white or gray background and then had black spots on it, would those black spots look like convincing shadows?

PullJosh wrote:

Thinking about adding some spooky shadows inside windows… Say I had a projector inside of a house, facing towards a window. The window has a white sheet of some kind covering it (the sheet is inside the house, not outside). If the project had a white or gray background and then had black spots on it, would those black spots look like convincing shadows?

yes, that technique definitely can work. You'll see a lot like that on youtube under ‘halloween projection’…

gtoal wrote:

PullJosh wrote:

Thinking about adding some spooky shadows inside windows… Say I had a projector inside of a house, facing towards a window. The window has a white sheet of some kind covering it (the sheet is inside the house, not outside). If the project had a white or gray background and then had black spots on it, would those black spots look like convincing shadows?

yes, that technique definitely can work. You'll see a lot like that on youtube under ‘halloween projection’…

Also it's OK to require the projector to be turned by 90 degree. For consistency let's say it's always a 90 degree anti-clockwise turn, so we don't get half the vertical format entries upsides-down. So high X becomes high Y, the RHS becomes the top. (Yes, I did just edit and change that, but I doubt anyone has started yet)

chooper100 wrote:

I hate to state the obvious here, but isn't a good way to record scratch projects with sound just to use the Scratch in-built recorder? (and then use an external converter to change from .flac to .mp4 if necessary)

Also, I've never heard of anyone using turnips in the UK (I've only ever seen pumpkins lol) Is that a Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland thing?

Scratch has an in-built recorder? I must try it :-)
EDIT: just did, it works pretty well! Unfortunately it doesn't record what the microphone hears which makes projects that react to the microphone look a little weird. But good enough for most purposes.

Never occurred to me that England didn't make turnip lanterns too! Must indeed be a Scottish thing.
EDIT: No, it's an age thing - when I was a wee lad, Britain didn't import pumpkins.

This is pretty much a classic implementation, complete with candle and wire handle: http://www.instructables.com/id/Traditional-Jack-O-Lantern/

G

gtoal wrote:

PullJosh wrote:

Thinking about adding some spooky shadows inside windows… Say I had a projector inside of a house, facing towards a window. The window has a white sheet of some kind covering it (the sheet is inside the house, not outside). If the project had a white or gray background and then had black spots on it, would those black spots look like convincing shadows?

yes, that technique definitely can work. You'll see a lot like that on youtube under ‘halloween projection’…

Cool! I've got my first attempt here: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/125497351/