In Full Color! In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, learn how to make your own animations, games, simulations, and interactive stories with MIT Media Lab’s amazingly easy Scratch 2.0! Using this book’s straightforward, step-by-step approach, you’ll walk through everything from joining the global Scratch community to adding audio/video and sensing the outside environment. You’ll learn to write reliable, efficient code and take advantage of millions of Scratch programs shared online. Every hands-on lesson builds upon what you’ve already learned, fully preparing you to create inspired projects of your own! Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common Scratch 2.0 programming tasks. Quizzes at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge. Challenges give you the opportunity to extend upon what you’ve learned in each chapter and flex your new-found programming skills. Notes present interesting information related to the discussion. Tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks. Cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them. Learn how to… Create your first project Master basic features including the Stage, Backdrops, Sprites, and Costumes Make things happen with Motion blocks Add sophisticated logic without complicated coding Use audio and video you capture with a webcam or microphone Include your own drawings in your projects Sense what your game’s players are doing and interact with them Write programs that respond to outside changes such as temperature and touch Test your projects to find and fix problems Document and publish projects so others can help you improve them “Remix” projects with online Scratch code and content Create games with multiple game screens and button controls Master skills you can use with even the most powerful programming languages Who Should Read This Book Brand new to programming: Welcome! You don’t need any prior experience with programming in order to gain value from this book.  Considering a career change: Perhaps you are a K-12, junior college, or university student who has perhaps a bit of past programming experience, and you are pondering a full-time career as a software developer. Learning Scratch serves as an excellent diagnostic to gauge your aptitude and interest in the subject matter. Just tinkering: Maybe you are a technology buff who always wondered what work went into developing a software project. You have no real career aspirations in programming--you just enjoy tinkering and having fun.  If you find that you don’t belong in any of the previous three classifications, then don’t worry about it. Set your sights on learning as much as you can and, above all else, having fun, and you’ll be fine!

Table of Contents:
Introduction     1 Hour 1: What Is Scratch?      7 What Is an Educational Programming Language?      8 Understanding Scratch History     10 Creating Your Scratch Profile     14 Browsing the Scratch Websites     18 Previewing Popular Scratch Projects     21 Summary     23 Workshop     24 Challenge     25 Hour 2: Creating Your First Project     27 Navigating the Scratch Project Editor     27 Formally Introducing Scratch Blocks     34 Previewing Your Project     35 Using My Stuff     39 Summary     42 Workshop     42 Challenge     43 Hour 3: Working with Costumes and the Stage     45 Understanding Sprites     46 Adding and Managing Costumes     50 Understanding the Stage     52 Adding and Managing Backdrops     54 Let’s Assemble the Pieces, Shall We?      55 Summary     60 Workshop     60 Challenge     61 Hour 4: Using Motion Blocks     63 Getting to Know the Stage More Intimately     65 Bouncing Around the Stage     69 Tracking a Sprite to the Mouse     72 The Hour 4 Project: Drawing in Scratch 2.0     75 Summary     77 Workshop     77 Challenge     78 Hour 5: Using Looks Blocks     81 Getting to Know the Looks Blocks     81 Interacting with the Player     87 Getting Sprites to “Talk” to Each Other     90 Summary     94 Workshop     94 Challenge     95 Hour 6: Using Sound Blocks     99 Understanding Notes and MIDI Instruments     100 Understanding the Backpack     104 Playing the Drums!      105 Using the Sound Library     108 Recording and Editing Your Own Audio     110 Summary     116 Workshop     116 Challenge     117 Hour 7: Working with Pen Blocks     119 Getting to Know the Pen Blocks     120 Gaining Some Experience with the Pen Tools     123 Creating a Simple Drawing Program     126 Summary     134 Workshop     134 Challenge     135 Hour 8: Using Events Blocks     137 Understanding Events Blocks     137 Digital Versus Analog Events     139 Understanding Broadcasts     143 Watch Me Move!      149 Summary     153 Workshop     153 Challenge     154 Hour 9: Using Control Blocks     155 Introducing the Control Blocks     155 Testing Out Control Structures     159 Working with Clones     164 Summary     167 Workshop     168 Challenge     169 Hour 10: Using Operators Blocks     171 Becoming Familiar with the Operator Blocks     171 Performing More Complex Math     174 Integrating Operators into Your Scratch Projects     177 Summary     184 Workshop     184 Challenge     185 Hour 11: Using Sensing Blocks     187 Introducing Sensing Blocks     187 Delving Deeper into Sensing     192 Putting Together Everything You’ve Learned So Far     195 Summary     198 Workshop     198 Challenge     199 Hour 12: Using Data Blocks     201 What Are Variables?      201 What Are Lists?      207 Combining Variables and Lists     213 Summary     214 Workshop     214 Challenge     216 Hour 13: Using Cloud Data     217 What Is a New Scratcher?      218 Creating Cloud Variables     220 How to Post High Scores Using Cloud Data     226 More About Username     228 Summary     230 Workshop     230 Challenge     231 Hour 14: Adding Multimedia to Your Project     233 Adding Photos to Your Project     234 Adding Audio to Your Project     238 Adding Video to Your Project     243 What About Hyperlinks and Interactivity?      246 Summary     247 Workshop     247 Challenge     248 Hour 15: Creating Your Own Blocks     249 Spending Some Time with Layers     249 Understanding Custom Blocks     254 Creating Custom Blocks in Scratch 2.0     257 Building Your Own Blocks in Snap!      263 Summary     264 Workshop     265 Challenge     266 Hour 16: Documenting Your Project     267 Commenting Your Code     267 Working with Pseudocode     270 Wireframing and Storyboarding     274 Publicly Documenting Your Scratch Project     277 Summary     280 Workshop     280 Challenge     281 Hour 17: Publishing Your Project     283 Sharing Your Project     283 Project Documentation, Revisited     285 Interacting with Your Viewers Through Comments     286 Interacting with Other Scratchers on the Forums     291 Improving Your Project’s Visibility     294 Summary     296 Workshop     297 Challenge     298 Hour 18: Using the Scratch Offline Editor     299 A Bit of Scratch Version History     300 Introducing the Scratch 2.0 Offline Editor     301 Uploading and Downloading Assets     304 Understanding the Scratch File Format     307 Integrating Scratch 1.4 with Scratch 2.0     310 Converting Scratch Projects into Other Formats     311 Summary     315 Workshop     315 Challenge     316 Hour 19: Troubleshooting Your Project     317 Learning the Basics of Debugging     317 Resolving Common Scratch Script Errors     322 Accessing Code Block Help     326 Summary     328 Workshop     329 Challenge     330 Hour 20: Remixing a Project     331 The Importance of Attribution     332 Understanding the Remix Tree     334 How to Remix a Scratch Project     336 Remixing Part of Another Scratcher’s Project     338 Improving the Visibility of Your Remix     342 Summary     345 Workshop     346 Challenge     346 Hour 21: Creating Your Own Sprites and Backdrops     347 Introducing GIMP     347 Understanding Bitmap and Vector Graphics Modes     351 Creating a New Stage Backdrop     353 Creating a Custom Sprite--The Easy Way     357 Creating a Custom Sprite--The Difficult Way     359 Summary     362 Workshop     363 Challenge     364 Hour 22: Implementing Buttons and Multiple Screens     365 Working with Multiple Screens in Scratch     366 Creating Multistate Buttons     371 Wiring Up Buttons to Your Screens     376 Summary     378 Workshop     379 Challenge     380 Hour 23: Connecting Scratch to the Physical World     381 Setting Up Scratch 1.4     382 Introducing the PicoBoard     383 Introducing the MaKey MaKey     389 Summary     394 Workshop     394 Challenge     395 Hour 24: Capstone Project: Arcade Game     397 Introducing Dodgeball Challenge     397 Laying Out the Screens     400 Wiring Up the Screen Navigation     401 Building the Sprites     404 Adding the Main Game Logic     408 Testing and Tweaking the Project     409 Summary     411 Thanks, and Goodbye     411 Index     413