Cool Scratch Projects in easy steps

by Sean McManus

Overview

Millions of children and young people worldwide are using Scratch to make their own games and animations.

Following on from the success of Scratch Programming in easy steps, Cool Scratch Projects in easy steps gives you great ideas to create computer games and other projects that’ll impress your friends and family – and you’ll have endless fun creating and playing them! The book provides step-by-step instructions for building projects that show off some of the cool things you can do with Scratch.

It starts with two simple projects to get you started. Find out how to:

Make a game with animated cartoon characters
Build a drum machine and make random music
Use anaglyph glasses for 3D effects and 3D Art
Design amazing mazes in a 3D environment
Create your own stop motion films
Use the ScratchJr app to create games and interactive stories anywhere using your iPad or Android tablet

Cool Scratch Projects in easy steps has projects for Scratch 2.0 on a PC/Mac and Scratch 1.4 on the Raspberry Pi, and includes a Raspberry Pi Camera Module project. Each project includes suggestions for customizing it, so you can make it your own!

A FREE pair of 3D/anaglyph glasses is provided with the print copy of this book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781840787146
Publisher:	In Easy Steps Limited
Publication date:	09/27/2016
Series:	In Easy Steps
Pages:	180
Sales rank:	1,111,289
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	6 Years

About the Author

Sean McManus writes inspiring books about business and technology. His books include Scratch Programming in easy steps and Web Design in easy steps, and he has written for magazines including The MagPi, Raspberry Pi Geek and Internet Magazine. Sean is also a Code Club volunteer. He lives in the UK.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Top tips for making these cool projects 7

Notes and Resources 8

1 Magic Mirror 9

Introducing Magic Mirror 10

Using Scratch 11

Using Scratch 1.4 12

Making the cat move 13

Making the mirror 16

Adding the reflection 19

Adding the magic controls 20

Polishing the magic mirror 22

2 Gribbet! 23

Introducing Gribbet! 24

Drawing the frog's body 25

Drawing the frog's face 28

Drawing the background 30

Animating the eyes 31

Setting up the variables 33

Adding the frogs' scripts 34

Making the final images 37

Adding the main game script 38

Ending the game 39

Customizing Gribbet! 40

3 Drum Machine 41

Introducing Drum Machine 42

Drawing the background 43

Drawing the grid 44

Adding the beat marker 45

Adding the cursor 47

Adding the switch controls 49

Adding a drum 51

Adding finishing touches 53

Remixing Drum Machine 54

4 12 Angry Aliens 55

Introducing 12 Angry Aliens 56

How the 3D effect works 57

Testing the anaglyph effect 58

Making the starry sky 59

Drawing the crosshairs 60

Moving the crosshairs 62

Adding the target sprites 64

Adding the red alien scripts 65

Adding the cyan alien scripts 66

Adding the fire button 67

Customizing the game 68

5 3D Artist 69

Introducing 3D Artist 70

Building 3D Artist 71

Adding the random artist 73

Customizing 3D Artist 74

6 Space Mine 3D 75

Introducing Space Mine 3D 76

Drawing the tunnel 77

Drawing the numbers 78

Setting up the game 79

Adding the tunnel 80

Adding the numbers 81

Building the game 83

Adding the finishing touches 86

7 Maze Maker and Circuit Breaker 87

Introducing Maze Maker 88

Making the grid 89

Preparing the background 90

How the maze maker works 91

Checking rooms and walls 92

Understanding how it works 95

Testing the wail checker 96

Preparing for the cat code 97

Making the maze maker 98

Adding components 99

Saving mazes 100

Displaying mazes 101

Adding the bug 102

Adding the player's sprite 104

More amazing ideas to try 107

8 3D Maze Explorer 109

Introducing Maze Explorer 110

Creating the wall images 111

Creating the door 113

Creating the sky and floor 115

Positioning the left walls 116

Testing the walls 119

Adding the right walls 120

Building the test maze 121

Entering movement data 123

Adding the player scripts 125

Drawing the maze 126

Showing the walls 129

Testing the maze display 132

Adding player movement 133

Adding a compass 136

Adding the exit door 137

9 3D Maze Explorer: Finishing touches 139

Rewarding the player 140

Adding collectables 142

Collecting items 144

Using drawn mazes 145

Adding a map 147

Customizing the game 148

10 Sprites, Cameras, Action! 149

Sprites, Cameras, Action! 150

Shooting and viewing shots 151

Editing the frame sequence 154

Adding captions 156

11 Super Wheelie in ScratchJr 157

Introducing ScratchJr 158

Starting Super Wheelie 159

Building the first level 160

Adding the second level 163

12 Five shorties 165

Scratch Cat Maestro 166

Going Dotty 168

Pipeline Defender 170

Digital Scoreboard 173

Baby, I'm a starfish! 174

Index