Preface

If you're relatively new to programming, or are just looking for a programming language that allows you to explore your visual and creative side, Scratch will be a lot of fun for you. Scratch was developed as a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab to make programming more accessible to young and/or new programmers.

As you work through this book, you'll gain a greater understanding of how to work with Scratch while simultaneously developing an understanding of fundamental programming principles that you'll want to know when you eventually begin to work with other programming languages.

You'll notice pretty quickly that this book is written focusing on Scratch 2.0, the newest version of Scratch. Don't worry though if you're still working in Scratch 1.4, the Scratch creators did a nice job keeping consistency between versions, so the differences won't be too challenging.

This book was written to be read in small bits at a leisurely pace or for an extended period of time in one sitting, it's up to you. Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of Scratch and is broken down into easy to follow recipes. While most chapters make use of previous skills you've learned up to that point in the text, you don't necessarily need to read each chapter in order. Each recipe begins with the explicit steps you need to accomplish the goal of the recipe, follows with an explanation, then ends with some other ideas you may wish to explore on your own.

Lastly, the best way to learn Scratch (or any new programming language for that matter) is to not be afraid to play around as you go. Be sure to unleash your creative side; all you need is this book, a computer with Scratch, and your mind!

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Scratch, introduces the basics you'll need to know as you start working with Scratch. This chapter builds the foundation for the work done in all the other chapters and will help you get comfortable with Scratch.

Chapter 2, Storytelling, covers what you need to begin telling stories in Scratch, extending upon the animation techniques from.

Chapter 3, Adding Animation, tells us that Scratch is great for working with media; this is the chapter where you work with bringing some basic animation techniques into your programs.

Chapter 4, Basic Gaming, explains some of the first steps in creating a game in Scratch, as mostly everyone likes to create games.

Chapter 5, Spicing up Games, expands on the principles from the last chapter on games. This chapter spices things up while also bringing up some techniques you'll use for other programming.

Chapter 6, Bringing in Sound, covers adding and working with sounds in your programs.

Chapter 7, Integrating PicoBoards, explains how to get your sensor board working, as well as some fun programs to work with the board.

Chapter 8, Programming to Calculate, works with some of the techniques that make some tedious programming tasks easy.

Chapter 9, Project Remixing, covers taking projects in one form and transforming them. We'll examine this idea while also exploring other odds and ends in Scratch.

Appendix, Collaboration, covers how you can collaborate and share with other scratchers, as one great aspect in Scratch is to be able to share.

What you need for this book

We don't have to work with too much software for Scratch. We'll be working with Scratch 2.0 for the most part, which runs directly out of your browser. This requires any one of the following browsers:

• Chrome 7 or later

• Firefox 4 or later

• Internet Explorer 7 or later

Along with the browser, you should have Adobe Flash Player Version 10.2 installed (there is a good chance you already have all of this). If you don't have the ability to update your current software to meet these requirements, you can also download Scratch 1.4 from http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch_1.4/. We go into more detail on getting started with Scratch in the first chapter.

You can also find the requirements for using Scratch on your computer at http://scratch.mit.edu/help/faq/.

Who this book is for

This book is intended for a wide variety of audiences. You should be familiar with operating your computer pretty comfortably, and it would be helpful if you've seen Scratch before, though that is not required. If you've worked with Scratch quite a bit, it may be worthwhile to skip the first chapter, though there will be plenty to explore in the rest of the chapters.

More information

For extra book content, visit http://www.bmilo.com/ScratchCookbook.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "You'll notice that we imported the first four that are available in the Outdoors folder, and deleted the default white background".

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Place a forever loop directly underneath, from the Control category".

For blocks where you as the programmer need to place a value, words, or something else, you'll notice we indicate that with parentheses. An example of this is the move () steps block from the Motion category.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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