Speech Recognition in Scratch 3 - turning Hello into Bonjour!

The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently released a programming activity Alien Language, with support Dale from Machine Learning for Kids, that is a brilliant use of Scratch 3 - Speech Recognition to control a sprite in an alien language. Do the activity, and it is very much worth doing, and it will make sense! I  would also recommend going to the machinelearningforkids.co.uk site anyway it is full of exciting things to do (for example loads of activities https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/#!/worksheets ). Scratch 3 has lots of extensions that are accessible through the Extension button in the Scratch 3 editor (see below) which add new fun new blocks to play with.

The critical thing for this post is Machine Learning for Kids have created a Scratch 3 template with their own extensions for Scratch 3 within it https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/scratch3/. One of which is a Speech to Text extension (see below). You must use this one not the standard Scratch 3.

My idea is to can I set it to react one way when I say "hello"; then say "french" and then say "hello" it says "Bonjour". Two other extensions are needed along with the Speech to Text one - one for speech to text and the translate shown below.

Ok, so to the fun bit. The listen and wait, and when I hear blocks are the key new blocks, and they do what they say. The three sets of the code are ones I used for this activity.

Thank you to Machine Learning for Kids for creating such a brilliant Scratch extension - this is well worth a play with.

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Experience at Raspberry Pi Cademy 7-8th December 2015

I was fortunate to get a place at Picademy (#picademy) this week. It was a fantastic opportunity and great fun, especially as most of it was about Physical computing.

In the screenshot above I was playing SonicPi (http://sonic-pi.net/) programming music (or trying to create music in my case). If you haven't had a go at throughly recommend it. It is great that SonicPi is available on the Mac and PC as well. 

Playing with connecting Python and Minecraft is very engaging and fun, but programming LEDs and Motors through either the the GPIO or using an HAT (see the images below) is just what I enjoy the most.

In the above image was my attempt at a simple 'Dalek' - essentially a cup and straw, with a wheeled motor inside. Controlled using python,  Pi through an ExplorerHat. It essentially moved in a circle either clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Rise of Rabbitsapien - A team of us put together a project of a robot with a rabbit (no other soft toys were available) with a Passive IR sensor in its belly; that carries out a set routine when movement is detected.

It was also great to come away with some many resources both physical and activities. Thank you to the Pi Foundation for such a good experience.

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with.