by Daryl Bagley

Created on: June 12, 2009   Last Updated: July 04, 2009

Scratch is a programming language designed by MIT to help kids learn to program at an early age. Scratch is very easy to teach yourself after a quick intro. Scratch can be downloaded here so you can see what I am talking about.

Scratch's interface is very simple. On the very left, you will see a lower box and an upper box. The upper box contains divisions of scripts. The scripts themselves can be seen in the lower box. Scripts tell a sprite what to do. To the right you will see the information about your sprite. At the top, you can see the x, y, and direction of your sprite. You can see the name of your sprite, along with a picture of your sprite. The three buttons closest to the left tell your sprite how to turn. If you click on the first one, your cat can point in every direction. If you click on the middle button, your cat can face left and right. If you click on the bottom button, your cat will always face right. There are tabs that you can click on to view your scripts, costumes, and sounds.

If we keep moving right, we will see a white screen with a cat in the center. That cat is your actual sprite, and the white screen is your stage. Below the stage we find 3 buttons that let you paint new sprites, get new sprites from a file, or get a random sprite. You will also see a projector screen that allows you to make your stage bigger. Under the buttons are your sprites and your stage. If you click on one, you can see them at the top where the cat is. The buttons at the very top are the basic saving, opening, etc. that you see in other programs. There are also buttons that let you get help, change the language, and give you extra abilities. Below those buttons are buttons that let you change tools. The first tool is your standard pointer, the next tool is a coping tool, the third tool is a deleting tool, the fourth tool increases the size of a sprite, and the last tool decreases the size of a sprite. There is a flag button that we will get to later, and a stop sign that stops all scripts.

Finally we are ready to program. Click on the scripts tab to modify the cat's scripts. If you click on the control division, you will see scripts that have a curved top. Those scripts start of larger scripts. Drag either "when flag clicked", "when sprite1 clicked", or "when space key pressed". "When space key pressed" has a triangle pointed down by space, meaning that space can be changed by a drop down menu.

Next, we can go to motion. In motion, you can see multiple scripts

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