13 Scratch
Scratch will help us become familiar with the structure and capabilities of algorithms.
Scratch is a program developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab (at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). It is fun and free and easy to get started.
Software setup
Go to Scratch using your internet browser. You can always undertake projects here as long as you have an internet connection, or you can also download an offline version. Once you have everything working, click on the “Create” button.
Scratch basics
We’ll now use Scratch to introduce some of the key components of programming. In addition to the following instructional videos, it’s also a great idea to do some exploring yourself of what each of the different types of programming blocks do. The video will talk you through the basics.
Play around with Scratch
Have a play around with the scripts we’ve looked at as well as some of the other ones available to see what they do.
