Scratch Alumni Series: Alexandra, Finding Inspiration and Inspiring Others through Code
By Melodie D
Alexandra is a Sixth Form student in the United Kingdom. She’s created more than 50 Scratch projects under the username D_i_a_v_l_o over the past seven years to share her animation, storytelling, and coding talents with the online community. From her beginnings drawing inspiration from her peers on Scratch to becoming a source of inspiration for many Scratchers worldwide, Alexandra’s Scratch journey reveals the importance of the online community in fostering and continuing to encourage creative exploration and personal expression through coding.
Early beginnings
Alexandra was first introduced to Scratch as a seven year-old in 2012 by a teacher. She remembers when using Scratch in class, “[the teachers] wouldn’t allow much room for creativity” — even recalling being reprimanded for making something too “complicated” because it was not a part of the original lesson. However, after going over to a friend’s house and seeing their work on a pen project outside of school, she realized, “I could do it myself.” The creative boundaries of Scratch went beyond the rigid rules of the classroom and that, with a little bit of time, tinkering, and “the freedom to do whatever I wanted,” she too could create Scratch projects that “really let me express myself.”
Alexandra’s personal exploration began with a pet game made in Scratch 1.4, “where you could name [the pet], customize its room, appearance, talk to it and feed it.” Then, she recalls, “I made my account because I wanted to upload it to the website, and then made more stuff from there.” She especially enjoyed making animations with Scratch’s paint editor and shared that these projects, in addition to helping her learn how to code, “really help[ed] get me into art because I could incorporate it into my own projects.”
Alexandra drew artistic and storytelling inspiration from other Scratch projects she saw in the online community and books she’d read as a child. Scratch projects like “The Color Divide” were influential in the development of her own animation style, and were the foundation for branching off to develop her own unique artistic and storytelling style.
Growing up
As Alexandra started creating more Scratch projects, she candidly shared, “I didn’t really know what I liked because I don’t think many 10 year-olds do. But Scratch helped me narrow it down.”
Seeing other people’s projects helped her find new passions. Alexandra is known on Scratch for her animations and storytelling. She remembers drawing the inspiration to learn and create animation projects after seeing other Scratcher’s animation projects like, “A Flightful Tale” by Scratcher, Sandant. “That was the first time I saw a series and thought, ‘I really want to do something like this.’” The confidence to experiment and try new things also came from seeing the work shared by others in the Scratch community,
seeing somebody, a teenager, make such a good thing […] it doesn’t feel so far-fetched to be able to make it yourself.
Not only was the Scratch community a source of inspiration for Scratch projects, Alexandra also shared about the deep impact it had in her interests and pursuits outside of Scratch. “I had all of these friends who did all kinds of different things in their lives. I’d have some music friends who would play instruments and upload it to the site. And I’d be like, ‘Oh, everyone’s learning the ukulele. I should learn the ukulele as well.’ Or I’d have other friends doing mathematical things [and] I’d be like, ‘Huh, they’re doing maths. Maybe I can do that too.’” Not only did she learn new coding and animation techniques to share with the community in Scratch projects, “interacting with the community [also] taught me a lot about music, art, writing, and politics.”
Her account took off quickly. She says the engagement from her peers in the online community kept her motivated, “seeing lots of people interested in my projects definitely kept me going […] if it had just been me on the editor by myself, I probably wouldn’t have done much more with it after a while.”
Advice to other Scratchers
With more than a decade of experience in Scratch, Alexandra’s advice for Scratchers is to Stick with it. She remembers some of the initial hurdles when she first started Scratching,
there was a point where I was learning it when it didn’t make sense, and then I stuck with it for a little bit longer. There was a point where it did make sense.
Even simple things take time to click, so she encourages others to “stick with it” too and persevere through challenges.
When she does find herself stuck, Alexandra has a couple helpful strategies:
- experiment with different blocks and coding sequences in the editor, and
- look at other Scratcher’s project code to see how they solved similar coding dilemmas
With perseverance, experimentation, and help from the community, Alexandra has been able to work through tricky code sequences to create compelling Scratch projects.
Looking forward
Alexandra plans on continuing to create with Scratch, even as she begins to think about her future school and career plans. She says, “Scratch introduced me to STEM through various math and science projects, which I think has influenced the subjects I study.” She plans to apply to Cambridge’s Physical Natural Sciences program to pursue her interest in earth sciences, physics, material sciences, and eventually, astrophysics.
When Alexandra is not busy with school assignments, she’s still an active member of the Scratch community. Her ongoing Scratch projects, like “Digitized | Episode Two,” and her collaborations with her friends around the world continue to inspire and motivate her to continue her coding journey.
If you or someone you know is interested in participating in this Scratch Alumni series, please complete this form: http://ow.ly/g6bt50MEGNw
