Scr0100: scratch overview

Not in organized classes

By following the discussions in the forums, I have observed that a large percentage of scratchers are not enrolled in any sort of formal programmingclasses. Rather, this is something that they are doing on their own. In fact, it seems that for many scratchers, creating, sharing, and discussingprojects is a form of social networking much like other students might engage in using the better known social networking sites.

Viewing tip

I recommend that you open another copy of this document in a separate browser window and use the following links to easily find and view the imageswhile you are reading about them.

Images

• Image 1 . Rushes with sun by pandalecteur.
• Image 2 . How to draw a head by dialga..
• Image 3 . Marble Racer SBE 4000 by jamie.
• Image 4 . Perspective03 by dbal.
• Image 5 . Day Dream by cremeglace.
• Image 6 . Screen shot of the Scratch development environment.
• Image 7 . Costumes for a boy walking.
• Image 8 . The toolbox buttons and toolbox pane.

Programming for many purposes

The Scratch player applet

Scratch projects are normally executed within the Scratch development environment shown in Image 6 . However, you must have the Scratch software installed on your computer to execute and view the projects that way. Theanimations that you will see in this module are produced by a Java applet that is created by MIT to cause the scratcher's shared projects to be accessibleonline with no requirement for the viewer to have the Scratch software installed.

These applets usually start running as soon as the web page that contains them is loaded into the browser. (Sometimes you need to click the green flag in the upper-right corner to cause the applet to start running.) You can stop the execution of an applet by clicking the red button in the upper-right corner.You can restart the execution of the applet by clicking the green flag.

Computer art by pandalecteur

The scratchers who create and post these projects come at it from many different viewpoints, but they are all programming in order to accomplish theirown purposes. My guess is that in many cases, programming is simply a means to an end. For example, I would categorize the scratcher named pandalecteur , whose work you will see in Image 1 , as a serious artist. You will find a link to more of her creations here . She combines her programming talent with her artistic talent to produce beautiful animated creations.

Figure

Image 1. rushes with sun by pandalecteur.

Click here to view the applet. Close the applet page when finished viewing.

Click the link to run the applet

Image 1 contains a screen shot from the applet along with a link that you can click to open another page (window) and cause the applet to run in that page.

Be sure to close the pages

Be sure to close the pages containing the applets when you finish viewing them (or at least click the red button) to avoid having multiple applets running at the same time as you read the remainder of this module.

What if the applets don't run?

You may find that these applets won't run on your computer. If so, that probably means that the Java runtime environment is not installed on yourcomputer. You can download and install the Java runtime software by clicking here .