Code Your Own Radio

Learning Target OR Standards & Connections
  • ISTE 4b Students select and use digital tools to plan and manage a design process that considers design constraints and calculated risks.
  • MU:Cr2.1.C.IIIa Assemble and organize multiple sounds or extended musical ideas to create initial expressive statements of selected extended sonic experiences or abstract ideas.
Essential Outcomes(s) Level(s)
Students will…

  • Use digital tools, Soundtrap and Scratch, for a creation project 
  • Compile and share a variety of composed music 
  • Use block coding to create a radio to showcase their music
 6-12
Activity/Project
  1. Share with students an example of the finished product they will be creating.
  2. Students will compose or have composed a variety of different music on Soundtrap. Once they are done, they will export the mp3’s from Soundtrap. Tutorial here. 
  3. Students will open a new Scratch project.
  4. Students may try to figure out how to code by themselves or use the following tutorial.
    1. Students will select a backdrop and the radio sprite on the bottom right corner.
    2. On the top, there are tabs for Code, Costumes, and Sounds. Students will click Sounds and hover over the icon at the bottom left to add a new sound and choose Upload Sound. They will upload their Soundtrap mp3’s to Scratch.
    3. They will then go back to the code and click on the radio sprite.
    4. Students will choose Events and select “when this sprite is clicked.” 
    5. They will then choose Sound and add “stop all sounds” and “start sound”
    6. In the Operators, they will drag “pick random 1 to 10” and add it after “start sound”
    7. If students want to change the volume, they will choose Events and select two of the codes “when down arrow/up arrow key is pressed” 
    8. Then when they choose Sound, they will add “change volume by…” and add -10 for down arrow and 10 for up arrow
  5. Students will then share their project with their classmates. You may do a gallery walk, share on a class website for commenting/feedback, or share one at a time in class.
Extended Learning
  1. Allow students to be creative- the example above does not have to be the final product students share! Let students change the sprite or the background, change the concept, or try more advanced coding.

 

The author of this lesson plan is Serena Robinett, previous NYC DOE music educator and now an Education Specialist at Soundtrap for Education. 

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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