SCRATCH Corner

Scratch Day wraps up St. Mary's Scratch Club until the Fall!

Saturday May 18 was International Scratch Day and we hosted one of the 178 Scratch Day Events in 45 countries around the world. The only continent with no Scratch Day event was Antartica!

We combined forces with St. Mary's award winning Robotics Club to demonstrate student projects and watch our Scratch Team members solve problems together and put the finishing touches on some of their projects.

This was the first opportunity for a number of our parents to see the creative work done by their children in the Club.

Here is a
video by the organizers of SCRATCH Day at MIT.
You can also view our
new brochure, created for our Scratch Day Event.

Who can join Scratch Club?

Scratch Club designers are students in grades 4-6 with an interest in using computers to create stories, art, music, dance and games. Students in grades 7 and 8 are welcome... they will work as mentors to a team of younger students working on a project. No past Scratch experience is required... you will learn "on the job"!

What is SCRATCH?

iconSCRATCH is an interactive programming language available FREE from http://scratch.mit.edu .

You can try thousands (actually millions) of simple SCRATCH projects at this site, look at how the projects were created, and download the programs if you want to change them.

Scratch is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, with financial support from the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, Intel Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Google, Iomega and MIT Media Lab research consortia.

Download and install the free SCRATCH program and look at the examples. We will have a SCRATCH challenge periodically on THIS SCRATCH Corner page.

JUST STARTING TO LEARN SCRATCH?
Checkout the Reference Guide

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Activity   Previous Years Scratch Club Activities
 Dinosaurs  
 Week 2 We met Scratchasaurus (S), a rare type of dinosaur that looks suspiciously like SCRATCH the cat. Scratchasaurus introduced us to his world, which is a large flat surface, much like a table top. 

We learned how to have S move around starting at the center, which is called 0,0. The first number is also called X and it tells where S is left and right of the center. The second number is also called Y and it tells where S is above and below the center.  We played a game where each student called out an X value and S would move to that place. We quickly learned that GOOGOL is too large a number for this world. 500 is also too large. 200 fits nicely toward the right edge, and -200 also fits nicely toward the left edge.

The students also called out Y values and S then moved to the X,Y location.
Next we had S put the pen down and we explored the color numbers.
We had S draw multicolored circles, and then S created a bar that stepped through all of the colors.
Week 1      We created a background using a picture of a Savanna in Africa.
Then we imported a friendly Brontosaurus dinosaur and taught her to walk across the screen, using the RANDOM function to change when she walks.
See the Dino1 SCRATCH program.
REMEMBER to SAVE AS on your computer if you want to keep changes!

Next we created a herd of Dinosaurs and let them wander around the Savanna. Watch for a surprise that starts after 22 seconds of wandering.
See the Dino2 SCRATCH program.

Finally we used the herd to create a Dinosaur race
 Cinderella  
 Week 1 Create a Scratch Story about Cinderella and her friends.
Dr. Keefe has collected a number of Cinderella Sprites and included some of them in a sample Scratch Story named cinderella.sb
Save this file to your computer and open it in Scratch!

You can choose two characters and have them talk to each other using SAY or THINK in the Looks section.
Remember to click on the green flag to start the stories.
 Week 2 To see an advanced story using several characters and movement, download jac.sb and open it in Scratch.
Remember - each Sprite can have its own script to control what happens when it is on the stage (and the green flag has been clicked). You can make the Sprite appear (SHOW), disappear (HIDE), and change size (SET SIZE TO...) under the Looks section, MOVE and TURN under the Motion section, and WAIT or REPEAT actions under the Control section. Play with these in your story. Be sure to save the story when you are finished (use your first name and a number as the save name). 
 Week 3 This week we used the Pen section to let you make the sprite draw on the screen. Use the CLEAR at the top of your script, then use PEN DOWN to start drawing, or PEN UP before moving to not leave a line. 
Dr. Keefe had Scratch draw a heart in the Dr.Keefe file. Then you learned how to draw a circle using the Repeat, Turn, and Move commands. Next we  used a second Repeat to have "Jac" (Sprite 7) draw several circles. Finally, we added a Change Pen Color By... to make each circle a different color.
 Week 4 This week we began by discussing the difference between a STORY and a PLAY.
In Scratch we use Sprites as Actors to tell a story in a play.

We replaced the WAIT from Week 2 with other selections from the Control section. BROADCAST lets a Sprite call out... each call has a name.
Other Sprites can use the WHEN I RECEIVE to begin a task associated with the name that was BROADCAST. The BROADCAST can be used to initiate activity by one other Sprite or by multiple Sprites. Any Sprite that has the WHEN I RECEIVE in its script page will initiate an activity - the activities do not have to be the same.

We also used the WHEN SPRITEn CLICKED to initiate activity when the watcher moves the curser over the Sprite and Clicks the left mouse button.
We learned how to move a Sprite inside the Heart drawn by Scratch.

 


[Hint: click on the green flag to start the story]

 WANT TO LEARN HOW TO CREATE SCRATCH PROJECTS:  
 Check the series of lessons created for the Robotics team members:  
 - Introduction to SCRATCH: Lesson 1