Coding the Magic wand

Concepts:

• Sensors (Shake)
• Pixels
• Animations

Duration: 25 minutes

Blocks

light.showAnimation(light.rainbowAnimation, 500)
music.magicWand.play()
input.onGesture(Gesture.Shake, () => {
})

Step 1: Show an animation

Open https://makecode.adafruit.com/ in your web browser.

From LIGHT, drag a show animation block, and place it inside a forever loop to show a rainbow animation on the board.

forever(() => {
    light.showAnimation(light.rainbowAnimation, 500)
})

Change the animation by clicking on the rainbow input field and selecting a different animation.

Connect your Adafruit Circuit Playground Express to your computer’s USB port and click Download. Follow the instructions to move the code to your Adafruit Circuit Playground Express.

Step 2: Shake

Next, in the Input drawer, find the ||on shake|| block. Drag one of those out and place it anywhere in the workspace. Click the Hint button if you need help!

forever(() => {
    light.showAnimation(light.rainbowAnimation, 500)
})
input.onGesture(Gesture.Shake, () => {
    light.showAnimation(light.sparkleAnimation, 1500)
})

Build the blocks

• From INPUT drag an on shake block into the coding area
• From LIGHT drag a show animation block into the on shake block
• Change the animation to the sparkle animation

Now, every time you shake the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express, a sparkle animation will play. Pretty cool!

• Download the code to your Adafruit Circuit Playground Express and try pressing shaking it.

Step 3: Sound

Let’s make it play a wand sound whenever we shake the board.

The play sound plays a pre-defined melody. There are a few interesting melodies you can choose from.

From the Music drawer, drag a ||play sound|| block and place it inside the ||on shake|| block, just before the ||show animation|| block.

forever(() => {
    light.showAnimation(light.rainbowAnimation, 500)
})
input.onGesture(Gesture.Shake, () => {
    music.magicWand.play()
    light.showAnimation(light.sparkleAnimation, 1500)
})

Build the blocks

• From MUSIC drag a play sound block and place it at the top of the on shake block, just before the show animation block
• Change the sound effect to Magic Wand. Do this by selecting the list of sounds, then pick the one you want, Magic Wand.

Download the code to your Adafruit Circuit Playground Express and try to shake it.

Try it out!

Good work!

Challenge: Try out some of the other sound effects, and see if you can figure out how to increase the volume of the melodies! (optional)