Project 4: Animation and Games – Class 6 Vocational Education Chapter 4 Notes & NCERT PDF

About the Project

Project 4: Animation and Games belongs to Part 2 – Work with Machines and Materials of Kaushal Bodh. You have played games on phones and computers and seen animated films and animojis (animated emojis). This project shows you how they are made — and lets you make your own using Scratch, a visual programming language.

People called programmers use coding to make games and animations. Designing a game needs a blend of creativity and technology: it begins with an idea, artists create the visual elements, and programmers do the coding.

Just as we use languages to talk to each other, programmers use programming languages to communicate with devices such as smartphones, computers, tablets, smartwatches, satellites and driverless cars. Some well-known languages are JavaScript, Python and C++. In a visual language like Scratch, instructions are clubbed into blocks that you drag and join, instead of typing long lines of code.

A series of instructions given to a computer or smartphone is called a programme.

What You Will Learn

Materials & Tools

Before you start: you should know basic computer skills — using the mouse and keyboard, checking Internet connectivity, searching on a browser, and downloading and installing software.

Step-by-Step Activities

Activity 1 – Game design

Think about games you play: outdoor (Cricket, Blind Man's Buff) and indoor (Chess, Ludo, card games). Answer: Why do we play games? What do you like in your favourite game? How many can play? What are its rules?

Activity 2 – Model your favourite game

Make a model with craft materials — e.g. a Ludo or Snakes and Ladders board from cardboard and buttons, a model cricket pitch, or a playground for Blind Man's Buff with boundaries marked clearly. Making a model helps you think about the details of a game.

Activity 3 – Trying out online games

Play a few online games and check: Do all games have rules? Characters? Do characters interact? Is there a colour background and music? What makes a game interesting and challenging?

Activity 4 – Preparing to make your own game

Search for Scratch games and animations (e.g. a match the pair game about layers of soil). Then create a Scratch account: log in to the Scratch website, open an account using an email address (your teacher's or a family member's), and click 'Create' to start. Look for tutorials such as "Scratch game tutorials for beginners" or "How to make a maze game on Scratch".

Activity 5 – Build characters, objects and a backdrop

Select and import a Sprite (a character), use in-built Sprites or your own drawing/photo, change its costumes, import objects and choose a suitable backdrop. You may also make images with an AI image generator: type a text prompt (e.g. "A cat flying in the sky"), explore styles, refine ("Make the cat smaller"), then download and use it.

Activity 6 – Programming your characters

Drag code blocks to animate your Sprite: combine 'Motion' and 'Looks' blocks, use 'Control' and 'Events' blocks, add music, and use multiple Sprites.

Activity 7 – Animated birthday card

Make an animated birthday card for a friend using their name/picture as a Sprite, Motion + Looks + Control + Events blocks, and their favourite song as background music. Save and share it.

Activity 8 – Designing your game (Storyboard)

A storyboard is like a roadmap: it plans what will be shown on screen — characters, how they respond, and the sequence of actions.

The book's example story is "Sonu spoiled my homework": Scene 1, background Home; characters Sonu (a small white dog) and Rakesh (a Grade 4 student). Rakesh calls, "Come here, Sonu"; Sonu barks "yu…yu…", jumps onto the table, a glass of milk falls and spills on the notebook, and Rakesh screams. Present your idea to peers and use their suggestions.

Activity 9 – Coding your game

Create characters and scenes, animate them, use dialogue and text, use event blocks to trigger events and sound blocks for background music. Use blocks such as motion, looks, sound, events, control, sensing, operators, variables, with loops and conditional (if–else) statements. Example from the book: a code that makes the Cat move 10 steps and say "Hello" when you press start. Also design a logo for your game.

Activity 10 – Trying it out

Publish with the 'Share' button, ask group members to play, and look for 'bugs' (errors) to fix.

Activity 11 – Sharing your game

Write instructions (audio, video or document): name of the game, its components, and its rules.

Safety

Key Terms

Think and Answer – Hints

Career & Community Connections

Jobs the book links to this project: programmer, software developer, game developer and 3D animator. Teamwork between artists and programmers is how real games are made.

Common Mistakes