The word kōlam means beauty

Kōlam is a traditional hand-drawn art form in Tamil Nadu and South India. Kōlam patterns are most commonly drawn with chalk or rice powder by women on the thresholds of homes and temples and are of significant cultural importance in Tamil society. 

What it also embodies is a perfect symmetry of straight or curved lines built around or through a grid of dots. The designs have a recursive nature and their symmetry and recurring fractals in the design, are likened to mathematical models such as the Sierpinski triangle.

This project will let you use the Pen function in Scratch to generate recursive and symmetrical patterns that are inspired by Kōlam designs.

This project is suitable for Beginners.

STEP 1 - Importing the Pen extension

Start a new Scratch project and click on Add Extension button  at the bottom left of the screen.

You will see a selection of different modules. Select the Pen module:

You will notice that you will have a new set of coding blocks called Pen. Now we’ll be able to use our Sprites to draw on the stage.

STEP 2 - Coding your sprite to draw a geometrical design

A Sprite is an object in Scratch that can perform actions.

You can use any sprites to draw the shape. We’ll just use the default Cat sprite. 

Make sure all the code goes inside the Cat Sprite!

First, drag and assemble these blocks inside the Code Area (the large area where blocks are assembled).These codes will put the Cat at the centre of the stage. And makes it visible.

Then we’ll use the Pen code Erase all to clear the stage.Followed by Pen down to start drawing.

Just like using a real pen, the sprite will leave a pen trail when the Pen is Down and will stop leaving a trail when the Pen is Up.

Now we are going to add more code to the Cat Sprite.Add in the additional code blocks to the previous code. 

You can now run the program by clicking the green flag and see the result!

You should see a nice geometrical design being drawn out.

Let’s look closer at the code we added in.

Blocks held inside Repeat () will loop a given amount of times.

The Turn () degrees blocks will turn the Sprite a specified amount of degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise and this changes the direction the Sprite is facing.

We added a Hide at the end to make the Cat invisible so we can see the pattern better.

STEP 3 - Coding another design.

Let’s change the pattern by changing the code.

By making changes to the degrees and number of times we repeat a code, we can change the pattern of the output.

Try changing your code with these new numbers.

You will see that it is a new design.

Let’s try one more.

You can experiment with different numbers and instructions to create unique graphics of your own!

There are a lot of designs for you to experiment and discover!

How to share the project

Now that you have completed a project. Be sure to save it using the File menu.

You can share your project in many ways. 

One, you can click on the Share button which will allow your project to be view by others. Then you can simply send your friends the URL of your project.

Two, you can right-click on the stage when the project is running and save the project as an image. You can then send this image to your friends.

We are excited to see what you have created! 

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