Practice: make a sprite move

Everything below happens at the computer, with your instructor walking the room. Take your time — nobody is racing, and clicking things to see what they do is the correct way to learn Scratch.

1. Get set up (15 minutes)

1. Go to scratch.mit.edu.
2. Create your account (your instructor is doing this with the whole class — choose a username you would be happy for a teacher to see, and write your password down where you keep such things).
3. Click Create to open a new empty project.
4. Click Untitled at the top and rename your project My first project.

2. Wake the cat up (15 minutes)

Build and click each of these little stacks one at a time, watching the stage each time:

• move 100 steps
• turn ↻ 90 degrees then move 100 steps
• say Hello! for 2 seconds then say I am learning to code for 2 seconds
• change size by 50 — click it three times, then use change size by -50 to shrink back
• go to x: 0 y: 0 — the magic "come home" block, useful whenever the cat wanders off

3. Make him walk in a square (20 minutes)

This one takes thinking, which is the point. A square is: go forward, turn a quarter turn, and do that four times.

Build one long stack:

move 100 steps → turn ↻ 90 degrees → move 100 steps → turn ↻ 90 degrees → move 100 steps → turn ↻ 90 degrees → move 100 steps → turn ↻ 90 degrees

Click it. Did he end up back where he started, facing the way he began? If not, do not panic — look at your numbers. Is every turn 90? Is every move the same size? Finding the difference between what you meant and what you typed is called debugging, and it is most of a programmer's life.

Now slow it down: put a wait 0.5 seconds after each move so you can actually watch the square being drawn. Much nicer.

4. Add a second character (20 minutes)

1. Add a new sprite from the library — a dog, a dinosaur, a ball, whatever appeals.
2. Check the sprite list: is the new sprite selected? Its code area should be empty.
3. Give it its own short script — a move, a turn, a say.
4. Click between the two sprite cards and notice that each keeps its own blocks. Two actors, two scripts, one stage.

5. Dress the stage (10 minutes)

Add a backdrop from the library (bottom-right button next to the Stage panel). Choose somewhere your characters might plausibly be. Your project now has a set.

Extension, if you finish early

• Make the cat draw a triangle instead of a square. (Hint: three sides, and the turn is not 90.)
• Make the two sprites take turns speaking, using wait blocks so their conversation makes sense.

Done?

Click See Project Page, then Share, and add your project to the class studio your instructor has set up. Then look at two classmates' projects and tell each of them one thing you liked. Sharing is half of Scratch.