Adventures In Coding

Eva Holland is an accomplished author, trainer and co-founder of WatzThis?, a company aimed at teaching technical topics in a fun and approachable manner. In addition to being co-author of this book, Eva is the co-author JavaScript For Kids For Dummies and Coding with JavaScript For Dummies. She enjoys tennis, music, and exploring the caves of the unknown. Chris Minnick is a prolific published author, trainer, web developer and co-founder of WatzThis?. Chris loves sharing his knowledge with others and has trained thousands of adults and kids in computer programming. As an author, his published books include JavaScript For Kids For Dummies, Coding with JavaScript For Dummies, Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 For Dummies, and Webkit For Dummies. Chris is an avid reader, writer, swimmer, and musician.

Introduction 1 What Is Scratch? 1 Who Should Read This Book? 1 What You Will Learn 1 How This Book Is Structured 2 What You Need to Use This Book 2 Conventions 2 Companion Website 3 Contact Us 3 Adventure 1 Scratching the Surface 5 Coding Is Everywhere 5 Speaking the Language of Machines 6 Knowing Your Coding Lingo 7 Writing Your First Scratch Program 8 Joining Scratch 8 Meeting Scratch the Cat 11 Moving Scratch Around 12 Connecting Blocks 13 Looping Movements 14 Starting at the Green Flag 16 Bouncing Off the Walls 17 Creating a Sprite 18 Handling Collisions on the Dance Floor 19 Slowing It Down 22 Learning the Scratch Environment 23 Exploring the Scratch Project Editor 24 The Toolbar 24 The Stage 31 The Sprite Pane 32 The Sprite Info Pane 33 The Scripts Area 33 The Block Palette 34 The Costume Pane 35 The Sound Pane 36 Working with Colors and Shapes in Scratch 37 Further Adventures in Coding 37 Adventure 2 Where in the World Is Scratch? 39 Setting the Stage 39 Interacting with the Stage 41 Customizing the Backdrop 42 Using a Picture Backdrop 46 Taking a Picture of the Stage 46 Understanding Coordinates on the Stage 47 Taking Center Stage 48 Moving Left, Right, Up, and Down 49 Knowing Your Directions 50 Working with Degrees of Rotation 51 Spinning Sprites 51 Moving a Sprite 54 Stepping 55 Gliding 55 Jumping 55 Creating Random Scratch Art 56 Randomizing Movements 56 Drawing Random Lines 58 Further Adventures in Coding 59 Adventure 3 Using Control Blocks 61 Understanding Code Nesting 61 Branching Programs in Scratch 64 The if ( ) then Block 64 The if ( ) then, else Block 65 Boolean Blocks 67 Making Comments in Scratch 69 Standalone Comments 69 Block Comments 71 Looping in Scratch 72 Looping Forever 72 Stopping Loops with the stop ( ) Block 72 Creating a Counting Loop 72 Looping Until a Condition Is Met 73 Waiting 74 Building the Fly Catcher Game 74 Setting the Stage 75 Placing the Frog 76 Adding the Hippo Fly 77 Scripting the Hippo Fly 78 Making the Tongue 78 Further Adventures in Coding 81 Adventure 4 Using Sensing Blocks 83 Learning the Sensing Blocks 83 Getting and Using Text Input 84 Detecting Key Presses 89 Watching for Mouse Moves 91 Using Timing 94 Sensing Touching and Distance 97 Building the Apple Patrol Game 102 Further Adventures in Coding 105 Adventure 5 Using Event Blocks 107 Understanding the Role of Events 107 Working with Key Press Events 109 Using Backdrop Change Events 114 Implementing Sensing and Timing Events 118 Detecting Video Motion 118 Measuring Loudness 118 Waiting for the Right Time 118 Getting Your Message Across 118 Putting on the Big Event 123 Setting the Stages 124 Programming the Ringleader 126 Programming the Ballerina Show 128 Programming the Dinosaur Show 130 Programming the Stage 131 Showing and Hiding Sprites 133 Further Adventures in Coding 136 Adventure 6 Variables and Lists 137 Understanding Variable Blocks 138 Variables Have Names 140 Variables Can Display on the Stage 142 Variables Can Change 144 Scratch Variables Are Persistent 146 Scratch Variables Are Big 147 Making Lists 148 Making a List 148 The Ultimate Party Host 151 Introducing the Lists and Variables 152 Asking for Names and Ages 152 Recalling Names and Ages 154 Further Adventures in Coding 158 Adventure 7 Using Operators in Scratch 159 Saying Hello to the Operators 159 Doing the Math 161 Addition 161 Subtraction 164 Multiplication 165 Division 166 Coding Logically 168 Operating on Text 170 Combining Text with join ( ) ( ) 170 Finding Letters 172 Getting Text Length 173 Understanding Other Operations 174 ( ) mod ( ) 174 round ( ) 174 ( ) of ( ) 175 Make a Math Practice Game 176 Programming Different Paths 177 Making the Addition Quiz 178 Making the Multiplication Quiz 181 Further Adventures in Coding 182 Adventure 8 Using Graphics and the Pen 185 Creating Art with the Paint Editor 185 Using Bitmap and Vector Graphics 189 Understanding the Bitmap Tools 189 Drawing with the Vector Tools 190 Making Slides 192 Use the Pen to Make a Skywriting Plane 198 Further Adventures in Coding 203 Adventure 9 Building Your Own Blocks 205 Making Your Own Blocks 205 Splitting Programs into Custom Blocks 206 Changing Custom Blocks 210 Borrowing Blocks with the Backpack 215 Putting on a Fashion Show 217 Further Adventures in Coding 222 Adventure 10 Making and Using Sounds and Music 223 Using Sounds 223 The Sound Library 224 Using the Sound Editor 227 Editing Sounds 228 Recording Sounds 229 Importing Sounds 231 Forming the Scratch Jazz Band 232 Tuning Up Your Instruments 232 Finding a Drummer 233 Playing the Melody 234 Playing Together 237 Singing Along! 240 Further Adventures in Coding 242 Adventure 11 Exploring the Scratch Universe 243 Visiting scratch.mit.edu 243 Sharing Your Projects 245 The Scratch Community Rules 249 Remixing Projects 252 Interfacing with the Real World 253 Understanding Electricity 255 Understanding Makey Makey 256 Understanding Conductivity 257 Sensing with the PicoBoard 259 Further Adventures in Coding 261 Appendix A Installing the Scratch Offline Editor 263 Installing the Scratch Offline Editor on Windows 263 Installing the Scratch Offline Editor to Your Mac Operating System 268 Other Resources 275 Appendix B Testing Your Programs 277 Practice Proper Planning 277 Ask Other People to Test 278 Look for Possible Invalid Input 279 Use Comments Often 280 Test Early and Often 280 Keep Track of Tests and What Breaks Things 280 Use Custom Blocks 281 Use Sliders for Numbers 281 Keep Learning 282 Keep Practicing 283 Glossary 285 Index 289