Scratch 101: Turbo Mode

Welcome to this Scratch 101 Lesson about the "Turbo Mode" feature and how to evaluate its effectiveness. 

What is Turbo Mode?

In Turbo Mode, all scripts run to their maximum potential (as quickly as they can) based on a number of factors related to your processor and other aspects of hardware. This can help increase the rate at which your computer performs calculations, yet it can also degrade the performance of projects which rely heavily on built-in graphics components because of the increased memory requirements. 

Enabling Turbo Mode:

To use Turbo Mode you must hold down shift and click the green flag. If done successfully you should see the words “Turbo Mode” in orange text to the left of the green flag as shown in the image below.

Project Template: 

A pre-made template can be found here: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/236419105/

Our Project:

We will evaluate the effectiveness of Turbo Mode by testing how quickly it can repeat a "blank" command (i.e. the call has no purpose or output which affects our program). If it runs in under 1/10 of a second, our "Turbo" variable will be set to "true" to indicate that our program is running at our desired speed. Otherwise it will be set to false.

Explanation:

1.) “When Green Flag Clicked Block” - This is our event handler and connects the rest of our program with the green flag found in the player.

2.) “Reset Timer Block" - A built in command call which resets the timer in the player.

3.) "Useless Code Sequence" - An iterative loop which runs a blank call ten times to waste some runtime. How quickly the program in "turbo mode" can get through this will help evaluate its effectiveness.

4.) "The Final Test" - If the program runs longer than 0.1 seconds then turbo mode is off (based on the expectation that "turbo mode" in effective) and it will set the variable to false and if it the program runs faster than 0.1 seconds then turbo mode is on (we presume) and then the variable will be set to true.

Method-Based Hierarchy:

We can also separate the turbo mode test from the original event handler to build a method which can be integrated into other programs quite easily. Projects which require a faster rate of calculation will usually integrate this test to ensure that the user has turbo-mode on to ensure a better experience. Methods are easier to integrate because they streamline the code and separate out the different "functions (purposes)". 

Completed Projects:

Completed Project (No Method): https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/236419745/

Completed Project (with Method): https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/236419587/

This post was in part contributed by jakel181 with heavy revisions. 

Classics Videos

Source: Met Museum of Art. Imperial Augustan Era.

The study of classics is one which combines language, history and cultural study into one field. Each civilization has their own traditions, and thereby their own “classics.” In the East some may point to the Confucian classics or other ancient texts, while in Western Civilization many will point to Ancient Greek and Latin texts.

It is these civilizations which will be at the forefront of a new project: MakeTheBrainHappy – Classical Studies. The reasoning for this project is the same as all other resources on these pages: to distribute information in a free, compact, and helpful manner. There are certainly many other resources for some specific ideas, but this project intends to combine the study of language, culture and history into one place. This is why it has been given the title of “Classical Studies”.

Instead of regular static text pages, videos with illustrative visuals have been created. All information and image content are sourced using URL links. Some topics will be familiar fables while others are obscure events. 90%+ of the videos are under five minutes. This format will continue for the foreseeable future.

Topics for the channel at the present time include the Latin Language, Roman History, Roman Culture, Ancient Greek History, Ancient Greek Culture, and Ancient Geography. The amount of content likewise will continue to grow as more videos are created.

            Some of the information is organized in YouTube Playlists, but these are sometimes inadequate when a viewer seeks information about the individual videos. Therefore a “classics” page has been created which organizes the information in a logical manner.

            Thank you for your continued support of these endeavors!