Cool Scratch Projects in easy steps

Sean McManus

• Publisher: In Easy Steps Limited
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781840787146
• eBook ISBN: 9781840787474

Millions of children and young people worldwide are using Scratch to make their own games and animations.Following on from the success of Scratch Programming in easy steps, Cool Scratch Projects in easy steps gives you great ideas to create computer games and other projects that’ll impress your friends and family – and you’ll have endless fun creating and playing them! The book provides step-by-step instructions for building projects that show off some of the cool things you can do with Scratch.It starts with two simple projects to get you started. Find out how to: Make a game with animated cartoon characters
Build a drum machine and make random music
Use anaglyph glasses for 3D effects and 3D Art
Design amazing mazes in a 3D environment
Create your own stop motion films
Use the ScratchJr app to create games and interactive stories anywhere using your iPad or Android tablet Cool Scratch Projects in easy steps has projects for Scratch 2.0 on a PC/Mac and Scratch 1.4 on the Raspberry Pi, and includes a Raspberry Pi Camera Module project. Each project includes suggestions for customizing it, so you can make it your own!A FREE pair of 3D/anaglyph glasses is provided with the print copy of this book.

1

Magic Mirror

In your first project, you’ll see how to make sprites move under your control, how to use the Paint Editor, and how to spice things up with graphic effects.

Introducing Magic Mirror

Using Scratch

Using Scratch 1.4

Making the cat move

Making the mirror

Adding the reflection

Adding the magic controls

Polishing the magic mirror

Introducing Magic Mirror

At the funfair, you sometimes see an attraction where your reflection is twisted, stretched and squashed in warped mirrors. Now you can bring the fun home, with the Scratch Magic Mirror. It takes up less space than a funfair, and has three buttons to change the distortion. (Even more magically, it shows the side of you that’s facing away from the mirror, although that is more to do with how it works, than anything mystical.)

This project provides an easy start in Scratch, but even if you’re an experienced Scratcher, I recommend you try it. Many of the ideas and techniques here will come up again later in this book, and this chapter provides a useful introduction to them.

The Scripts Area expands to fill the screen space available, so if you use a larger monitor, the Scripts Area will be bigger than in my screenshots.

By making Magic Mirror, you’ll discover how to:

•Add sprites and sounds to your project

•Change the background

•Create scripts to control your sprites

•Make sprites move under your control

•Use broadcasts to coordinate between sprites

•Use the graphic effects

•Edit the images used for sprites and backgrounds

This script and many others in this book run noticeably faster on the Raspberry Pi if you go into full screen mode. Click the Easel icon, above the Stop button. The Stop button is above the Stage.

Using Scratch

The main parts of the screen in Scratch are:

•Stage: This is where you can see your animations and games in action. When Scratch starts, there’s a large orange cat in the middle of the Stage.

•Sprite List: The cat is a ‘sprite’, which is like a character or object in a game. The Sprite List shows all the sprites that are in your project. You click them to switch between them.

•Blocks Palette: In Scratch, you give the computer commands using blocks, which are instructions that fit together like jigsaw pieces. The Blocks Palette presents you with all the blocks you can use. When you start Scratch, you can see the Motion blocks, which are color-coded in dark blue, and are used for moving sprites. You can browse a different set of blocks in the Blocks Palette by clicking one of the buttons above it, such as the Looks button or the Sound button.

•Scripts Area: The Scripts Area is where you make your programs in Scratch, by joining blocks together there.

There’s also ScratchJr for tablet devices, covered in Chapter 11. It’s completely different to the computer versions of Scratch.

If you have a choice, pick Scratch 2.0. It doesn’t work on the Raspberry Pi or on the iPad, but it runs on most other computers.

The screen is laid out differently in Scratch 1.4 (the older version, but still used on the Raspberry Pi) and Scratch 2.0 (the newer version). See below for the layout in Scratch 2.0, and see here for Scratch 1.4.

Scratch 2.0

Using Scratch 1.4

The screen layout in Scratch 1.4 is different to Scratch 2.0, and there...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Magic Mirror
• 2 Gribbet!
• 3 Drum Machine
• 4 12 Angry Aliens
• 5 3D Artist
• 6 Space Mine 3D
• 7 Maze Maker and Circuit Breaker
• 8 3D Maze Explorer
• 9 3D Maze Explorer: Finishing touches
• 10 Sprites, Cameras, Action!
• 11 Super Wheelie in ScratchJr
• 12 Five shorties
• Back Cover