Last month, we challenged you all to design a virtual pet in Scratch based on one of your favorite wild creatures. We mentioned the long history we humans have had domesticating plants and animals and we could feel the interest in wildlife come through in the many submissions we received from you all. Some were informative and educational while others were fun and lighthearted but all of them reminded us to appreciate our planet and the many wonderful creatures we get to share it with. Thanks for all your terrific submissions!

Grand Prize

Our Grand Prize winner is Wild Digital Pet - Gila Monster by TudeTen from McPherson Magnet School in Orange, California! Other than the fact that Gila Monsters are awesome, TudeTen made some simple yet effective design choices that really made this digital pet stand out. The sunny, arid landscape in the background of the project accurately reflects the real habitats of Gila Monsters in the wild, the buttons that let you interact with the pet are hidden until you reach certain points which helps avoid bugs caused by impatient users, and the entire experience is coded cleanly so that events meant to occur once don’t happen again unless you restart the program completely. Great work, TudeTen!

1st Runner Up

Our 1st Runner up is digital wild scratch cat made by Thats_alot_of_Damage from Rogers Middle School in Long Beach, California! This project had just the right amount of bizarre for our team, which is quite a lot! There are five items you can interact with in this digital pet including pizza, water, drums, slime, and the otherworldly looking scratch cat that Thats_alot_of_Damage made from the original Scratch cat sprite. We really liked the echo effect added to each item when the cat interacts with it as it adds to the odd vibe of the project. Great work, Thats_alot_of_Damage!

2nd Runner Up

Our 2nd Runner up is My Wild AnimalRC by Ryan from Eastview Senior High in Apple Valley, Minnesota! Ryan did a great job of incorporating a few fast facts about brown bears in this projects. The bear is then able to “interact with” (eat!) the fish and scratch cat sprites included which is fairly straightforward but we liked the overall look of this project, background and all. Keep up the good work, Ryan!

Our Grand Prize winner will receive a $50 Adafruit Gift Certificate for their school, and our 1st and 2nd Runners up will each win a prize of their choice from our new prize chest.

The end of the school year is getting closer and closer. Have you learned anything new that you’d like to teach others? This month, your challenge is to create a tutorial for others on how to do something you’ve already learned.