4. Art Moves

In this video, you’ll get familiar with Scratch and create your own program that tells the world about your favorite art. Scratch is a programming language. Programming languages allow computer scientists to give computers instructions.

You’re looking at Scratch’s project editor and a famous painting called the Mona Lisa.

In Scratch, characters and objects, such as this image of the Mona Lisa, are called “sprites.”

You will program spites to do different things. Today, you will program the Mona Lisa to do something surprising. In the middle of the screen, you’ll see the scripts menu, where you will find the instruction blocks you’ll use to create programs. These blocks are arranged in color-coded categories, like “motion” and “looks.”

One of the best ways to learn computer science is to explore and try new things. While you’re working in Scratch, if you see a block that looks interesting, click it to find out what it does!

Cool! This block makes the sprite say “hello” for 2 seconds.

To select a block to use in your program, click and drag it into the scripts area.

Many blocks, such as this one, have values that you can change by clicking on the white bubble and typing. For example, instead of saying “Hello” for 2 seconds, the Mona Lisa can say “I love art!” for 1 second if you change the values.

To add another instruction to your program, select a block and drag it until it snaps into the first instruction block. The computer will “read” the instructions you create to make the sprite do what you want it to do. When a computer scientist tells a computer to read and carry out instructions, it is called “running” the code. These blocks run in the order they are stacked. To run a stack of blocks, just click on it.

Cool! This sprite says “I love art” then moves 10 steps.

As you explore, if you can’t figure out what a block does by clicking on it, click the “block help” icon, then the block. Doing this gives you a definition of what the block does, then shows an example of how it’s used.

This block appears to go around other blocks, so this example will try that.

Oh wow! Now this sprite says “I love art!” and moves over and over.

Now that you’ve seen a brief introduction on how to use Scratch, it’s your turn to explore. Your first project is to make the Mona Lisa -- a famous piece of art -- do something surprising. Click on the Scratch project tab you opened previously, and try out different blocks. Use the “block help” tool if you need more information on a block. Most importantly, explore what you can do in Scratch, and have fun.

Once you have a set of blocks you like, you can add a "when flag clicked" block from the events menu to the top so that the blocks will run whenever someone clicks the flag. This will make it easier for other people to use your program. If you have a question while you’re working, ask a neighbor or put your sticky on your computer monitor to get the attention of the CS First Guru.