Lesson 1

How do I program a computer?

Three basic ideas

1. Variables

2. Branching

3. Looping

That’s all there is to it. We’ll explore using a program called Scratch.

Sprites

• Sprites are little pictures• We can animate them by changing the picture quickly• We can move, rotate, scale, hide, flip …..• This is how we create movement for our world.

This is sprite1, it comes already loaded in the SPRITE LIST and has already been placed on the STAGE

Task: Right Click and delete sprite1 from the SPRITE LIST

Task: Click on the insert new sprite button.

Task: Select the sprite called cat2 from the animals folder.

Task: Rename the sprite and call it cat. Remember to always call new sprites sensible names!

Task: From the control menu, drag and drop this rule into the SCRIPTS AREA

Task: From the control menu, drag and drop the forever rule into the SCRIPTS AREA and join it together.

Compatible rules can be joined together in the SCRIPTS AREA

Task: From the motion menu, drag and drop the point towards rule into the SCRIPTS AREA and join it inside the forever rule

Task: choose mouse pointer from the drop down list.

Task: change number of steps to 3.

Task: From the motion menu, drag and drop the move 10 steps rule into the SCRIPTS AREA and join it underneath the point towards rule.

Task: run your program by pressing the green flag.

Notice how the co-ordinates change as you move the mouse and sprite.