Scratch

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HowTo [ID# 272347]  +/-

The Scratch folks are porting it to Sugar.

What is Scratch

Scratch is a highly engaging programming system that allows young students to create animated stories, games, interactive art, and simulations. Students use a drag and drop interface of "code blocks" to create sound, movement and actions to objects called "sprites."

A teacher writes: My 6th grade students enjoyed using Scratch. The Scratch website is well designed with both video and written tutorials. My students were especially pleased to be able to upload their completed projects directly to the Scratch Page. This gave the children a much larger audience than they would have gotten simply uploading to our classroom wiki page.

Scratch works fairly well in an XO environment. A collection of sample projects is included, and students find it fun to open them and edit them as they wish.

How to get started: For young children, the best way to get them interested in scratch is to show them a video tutorial and have them open up complete projects and see how they work.

Make sure to check out the Scratch video tutorials (http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support/Videos) for insight about how to use it. MIT's site also has downloadable PDFs with tutorials, Scratch cards, and a reference guide. http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support

The current version (v13) has much better Journal support, although it still lacks a Sugar UI. All features work, although the "note" and "drum" blocks do not support MIDI instruments and drums.

If you have feedback about the XO version of Scratch, please write to scratch-xo at media.mit.edu.

Download

Current release:

• File:Scratch-23.xo : ARM camera plugin recompiled to solve SL #3604.

Previous releases:

• File:Scratch-22.xo : Add ARM binaries with hardfp support.
• File:Scratch-21.xo : Restore translation files missing in v20.

• File:Scratch-20.xo : Add ARM binaries

• Scratch-19.xo
• Scratch-18.xo
• Scratch-17.xo
• Scratch-16.xo
• Scratch-15.xo
• Scratch-14.xo
• Scratch-13.xo
• Scratch-12.xo

Note: On XO-1.5 computers, Scratch-13 could freeze up soon after playing any sound unless power management was disabled. A workaround was added to v14 and the problem was fixed in v15. It was never a problem on XO-1 computers.

Media and Sample Project Download (v12 and earlier)

Starting with v13, Scratch for the XO includes the complete set of sample projects and media from the MIT Scratch 1.4 release (minus the .mp3 sound files, which cannot be read on the XO).

The following information may still be of interest to those using Scratch v12.

Scratch v12 included only a subset of the sample projects and media library (images and sounds) that came with the full version of Scratch. If you would like the full versions of the sample project and media library folders, you can download and install the following ZIP files:

• Media.zip (13.6 MB)
• Projects.zip (9 MB)

You will need to install these folders manually using the Terminal Activity. First locate the Scratch activity folder. In that folder, delete the Media and Projects folders that came with XO version of Scratch. Then, unzip the above ZIP files to replace them. (These versions include everything that came with the XO version of Scratch plus much more.)

Note: In some some settings (e.g. rural Cambodia), many of the images in the Media folder seem out of place, irrelevant, or meaningless. It is perfectly reasonable to edit or augment the Media and Sample projects folder. For example, it might be appropriate to create your own image library with digital photos of people, animals, buildings, and vehicles from the local environment. It may be possible to make this a participatory activity, with students helping to collect or draw images.

FAQ

Q: How do I get Java onto the XO?

See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Java.

Q: How can I use resistive sensors with Scratch?

One way is to use the Scratch Sensor Board (see below).

Starting with v13, you can connect a resistive sensor to the microphone port on an XO-1 computer. (See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Making_XO_sensors/How_to_connect_sensors for how to make a cable.) To enable resistive sensor input, hold shift while clicking the "Edit" menu, then select "Enable Resistive Sensors". The Scratch "loudness" block will report a number between 0 and 100 based on the resistance. To return to normal "loudness" operation, select "Disable Resistive Sensors" and unplug your sensor.

Note: Resistive sensors do not yet work in Scratch on the XO-1.5, although I have been told that the hardware can support resistive sensors.

Q: How do I import pictures taken on the xo (or transfered by usb) to the scratch media files for use as backgrounds, etc?

Starting with Scratch v13, you can import images from the Journal by clicking on the "Journal" button in the Scratch import dialog.

Scratch v13 includes a camera feature that allows you to import an image from the camera as a sprite costume or stage background. Just click on the "Costumes" or "Backgrounds" tab, then click the "Camera" button.

You can also use the XO clipboard to move a photo from the camera into Scratch. In the photo app, drag the photo thumbnail to black edge on the left side of the screen. It should stick there. Then go to Scratch and drag the picture on the Scratch screen. It will be added to whichever sprite (or stack) is currently show in the middle scripts/costumes/sounds pane.

To import photos from the USB drive, insert the USB drive. (On some XO's, you must insert the USB drive *before* starting Scratch.) Then, in Scratch, click on the "costumes" or "background" tab, then click the "import" button. In Scratch v13, click the "USB" button.

In earlier versions of Scratch, click on the "computer" shortcut. You should see the "media" folder. Double-click on that, and you should see your USB drive. Double-click on that, and you should be able to find and import your photos.

Scratch Sensor Board

You can connect real-world sensors to your Scratch Projects via a Sensor board: http://scratch.wik.is/Support/Sensor_Boards.

NOTE: With Scratch v11 and later, the sensor board works out of the box. I'm leaving these instructions here in case someone has an older version and can't upgrade for some reason.

To use a Scratch Sensor Board on the XO with versions of Scratch older than v11, you must add a file to the folder:

/etc/udev/rules.d

This file should contain the single line:

KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", MODE="0666"

Adding this file allows Scratch to read and write data to the sensor board. You will need to make yourself root using the "su" command in order to add a file to that folder.

See also

• Etoys - a similar environment (written in Squeak Smalltalk)
• Turtle Art - a turtle graphics activity with Scratch-like snap-together program elements
• http://scratch.mit.edu/
• http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Scratch_on_Linux
• http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Scratch_1.4_Release_Notes

Activity Summary

Icon:	Sugar icon::Image:Activity-scratch.svg
Genre:	Activity genre::Games
Activity group:	,|x|Activity group::x}}
Short description:	Short description::TODO! An easy-to-learn, multimedia programming language in which you snap together colorful command blocks
Description:
Maintainers:	,|x|Contact person::x}}
Repository URL:	Source code::http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=activities/scratch
Available languages:	,|x|Available languages::x}}
Available languages (codes):	,|x|Language code::x}}
Pootle URL:
Related projects:	Related projects,|x|Related projects::x}}
Contributors:	,|x|Team member::x}}
URL from which to download the latest .xo bundle	Activity bundle::http://web.media.mit.edu/~jmaloney/scratch-xo/Scratch-13.xo
Last tested version number:	Activity version::13
The releases with which this version of the activity has been tested.	,|x|Software release::x}}
Development status:
Ready for testing (development has progressed to the point where testers should try it out):	,|x|Ready for testing::x}}
smoke tested :
test plan available :
test plan executed :
developer response to testing :