Book Image

Scratch 1.4: Beginner's Guide

Book Image

Scratch 1.4: Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

If you have the imaginative power to design complex multimedia projects but can't adapt to programming languages, then Scratch 1.4: Beginner's Guide is the book for you. Imagine how good you'll feel when you drag-and-drop your way to interactive games, stories, graphic artwork, computer animations, and much more using Scratch even if you have never programmed before. This book provides teachers, parents, and new programmers with a guided tour of Scratch's features by creating projects that can be shared, remixed, and improved upon in your own lesson plans. Soon you will be creating games, stories, and animations by snapping blocks of "code" together. When you program you solve problems. In order to solve problems, you think, take action, and reflect upon your efforts. Scratch teaches you to program using a fun, accessible environment that's as easy as dragging and dropping blocks from one part of the screen to another. In this book you will program games, stories, and animations using hands-on examples that get you thinking and tinkering. For each project, you start with a series of steps to build something. Then you pause to put our actions into context so that you can relate our code to the actions on Scratch's stage. Throughout each chapter, you'll encounter challenges that encourage you to experiment and learn. One of the things you're really going to love is that, as you begin working through the examples in the book, you won't be able to stop your imagination and the ideas will stream as fast as you can think of them. Write them down. You'll quickly realize there are a lot of young minds in your home, classroom, or community group that could benefit from Scratch's friendly face. Teach them, please.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Scratch 1.4 Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
Preface
Scratch Resources
Index

Summary


We saw how easy it was to connect Scratch to a webcam, and then import those images into our projects. We then exported the images from our webcam as a new sprite for use in other projects.

As we have seen, the PicoBoard easily integrates real-world stimuli into our Scratch projects. All the previous programming concepts we learned still apply when we connect the PicoBoard. The board enables interactivity in many creative ways:

  • We used our own voice to transform a sprite and change the background.

  • We used our slideshow to display the next slide by pressing the PicoBoard's button.

  • By increasing the light, we made our dragon sprite shoot a bigger flame.

  • We demonstrated gravity with the slider sensor.

  • Using the alligator clips, we made our Jumping Jack sprite sing and dance based on the amount of electrical resistance.

That's it. You're ready to show the world your Scratch programming skills. You have all the tools you need to turn your imagination into your very own mad scientist's laboratory...