Scratch 2.0 Has arrived!

Its here... Scratch 2.0

Building on the success of 1.4 This version offers so much more.

We've been testing it out during the after school club at the University and its pretty good!

New programming interface and program software is now web-based

Its now web-based and offers a multitude of new programming functions and you still need an account.  

Now its web-based it comes with some obvious benefits - you don't need to download software and then install, you just surf and go!

The clever bods at MIT might also develop a stand alone player so watch this space!

The Random Excuse Generator App

The Create Project 2013 Presents the .....

The App we have all been waiting for!! Created using MIT App Inventor - a great tool for rapid prototyping!

In April during workshops at Sheffield Hallam University, Jenson Grant worked with a group of Y11 secondary school students to build the worlds most useful Mobile Phone App!

Design View of our App in MIT App Inventor

During our design process we developed a design brief and thought about the user mechanics of the App. 

Why the user would want the App and what the user was going to get out of the experience.

Blocks view shows you all the programming logic . You need the latest version of JAVA on your computer to run this! 

During the design and building process we; 

- thought about what we needed in our lives - what would make us excited!

- sketched some designs and opened MIT App Inventor accounts. 

- designed an interface

- built the programming block

- tested and packaged the APP!

Our completed prototype ready for soft testing and distribution to our mobile device!

MIT App Inventor is a quick and easy to learn tool for rapid prototyping and we would need to make lots of changes to our app if we ever wanted to bring it to Market but as a quick and easy introduction - it was faultless!

The create project is an initiative supported by Maxine Greaves at Sheffield Hallam University, to encourage young people to creatively engage in digital technologies. 

Creating Sprites In Scratch

You awoke this morning with a burning desire to place an animated version of yourself in a Scratch games ... well this tutorial is for you!

The Scratch version 1.4 Interface

You animate sprites in Scratch by changing the sprites costumes, this means that you will have to take several photos of your subject in different poses. The process is a bit like taking photos for stop motion animation.

Each costume is a separate image in a different pose.

Lets go through a list of things you need to do to successfully create your own sprites. This tutorial assumes you know how to animate sprites in scratch.

1. Taking Your Pictures 

You need a digital camera - a tripod is helpful but not essential.

A webcam connected to a computer is a good solution.

If you are pretty confident using  video, you can film your subjects poses and grab still images from the video.

You can take take as many pictures as you like but lets keep it to a manageable 3.

A webcam will transfer yours picture directly to your computer and there's no need for a tripod.

2. Image size.

Keep you images small.

Set your image resolution/size to 480 x 360 pixels or 640 x 480 or about 1 mb in size.



3. The Pose

For inspiration check out some of the poses in the Scratch people library!

Keep your subject in the centre of the frame to get a smooth animation.

Use a green screen or a plain backdrop that contrasts against your subject.

A green screen or plain contrasting backdrop = easy background removal!

5. Editing your Pictures

Use an image editor to erase your background.

You can use programmes like Corel Paintshop Pro or Adobe Photoshop. You can also use free image editors like GIMP or Pixlr.com.

You should see a checkerboard pattern after you take away your background

Name your files sequentially; e.g., image1, image2, image3 then save as a .GIF or PNG file format.


6. Now lets open Scratch!

Open image1.png as a new sprite then import the rest of your images - select costumes tab - import.

You can also use the image editor in Scratch to remove backgrounds from your sprite. 

7. Add your code

Rearrange this code to make a basic animated sprite

You can now treat your sprite like any other sprite in scratch- well done!

Next Scratch 2.0 is here

PIE Vs SheffieldArtsLab

A Digital Arts and learning collaboration/interaction between Destinations Arts and Sheffield Hallam University.

A project that experiments with interactive creative learning tools.

More information coming soon!

MIT App Inventor

Originally a Google Project, MIT App Inventor allows to you to create on Android based handheld devices. MIT, the makers of Scratch are now managing the project and offering loads of support to would be App developers.

The App Inventor offers a natural progression from the Scratch programming environment as it offers a similar colour coded 'drap-and-drop' coding solution. 

It all online with no downloadable moving parts and if your used to Scratch and programming concepts, its very easy to pickup!

I recently created an App that translated English to Igbo, which was nice...

Scratch and Raspberry Pi's

Great example of using ultra low cost computers to inspire young people to code. 

A London primary school got kids from 5 to 11 to learn about coding with Scratch, a fun free programming resource. No reason why this can't be repeated all over the country. Scratch is free to download on an Apple Mac, PC or Linux based computer OS.  

The Raspberry Pi is a £25 computer the size of a credit card. Its so cheap and powerful that it could revolutionise computing in schools!

There is also a downloadable step-by-step resource for teachers to use in class. Check out the article in Wired.

Interactive Language Teaching Resource

Welcome to Coco and online interactive language teaching environment. A friendly ape/gorilla/monkey called Coco performs user directed tasks in a series of brightly coloured scenarios with onscreen text in French, English, Polish, German, Spanish and Chinese. 

Children listen, click through each scenario and repeat. Its aimed at children between the ages of (3-6 years. Words are spoken by natural speakers in each language. You need a decent computer with sound and a Flash plugin installed in your browser for it to work.

Free Software - Scratch

The interface is in 3 sections; Instruction library broken into
categories, the programming environment where ou can choose
your animation graphics, and the Stage wher you buil  

Created by those cleaver cats at MIT Education, SCRATCH is a powerful piece of software that makes programming as easy as stacking LEGO bricks! 


You connect colourful jigsaw like 'instruction' pieces together to create a 'programming script' the 'script' controls and animates graphics of animals, humans, objects and fantasy creatures. You can add text, speech bubbles, music, sound effects and even record your own voice!  


Recommended for Y4 upwards, and a challenge for learners at all levels 


Great for 'control' and fulfils much of the ICT, English, Maths, and any other subject you want to throw into the mix. 


lessons exploring the interface then you can create an dancing animations, interactive games, rainbow music machines!


It has a library of graphics for you to use or you can design your own.


community leaves the 'code' so you can replicate whta they have created


Thes best thinkg is its free! Find out more about SCRATCH and try it out