Notes:
Lesson 1.1: Scratch basics
Learning objective: In this exercise, you will learn how to use the Scratch graphical user interface (GUI), how to create characters (sprites and costumes) and stages (backgrounds) for your projects, and how to add scripts.
Resources: The sprites “cat” and “roman_cat”, and the background “roman_stage”.
Have you ever been in a school play? If you have, you’ll know that to put on a play you need a stage, actors, costumes and a script. Think of Scratch as being a bit like a play. The actors are called “ sprites ”.
You can dress your sprites in “ costumes ”, and each sprite can have more than one costume. The “ stage ” is the area on the screen in which your sprites will perform the tasks you write for them.
To make your sprites move and talk, you need to give them instructions. You do this by writing “ scripts ” using blocks of code from the Blocks Palette and Scripts tab on the left of the screen.
That’s enough introductions for now; let’s get to grips with the program itself.
Open Scratch from your Raspberry Pi’s Applications menu. You should now be looking at the Scratch graphical user interface, or GUI (pronounced “gooey”). Have a look around and tick the boxes below as you find these items:
1. The stage (a big white screen) 2. A sprite (clue: it’s a cat) 3. The two costumes that your sprite can wear (click on the Costumes tab) 4. The Scripts tab
Click on the Scripts tab, can you see any instructions for the cat to follow?
A beginner’s guide to Scratch
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