Hello Scratch!: Learn to Program by Making Arcade Games

Summary

Hello, Scratch! is a how-to book that helps parents and kids work together to learn programming skills by creating new versions of old retro-style arcade games with Scratch.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About the Technology

Can 8-year-olds write computer programs? You bet they can! In Scratch, young coders use colorful blocks and a rich graphical environment to create programs. They can easily explore ideas like input and output, looping, branching, and conditionals. Scratch is a kid-friendly language created by MIT that is a safe and fun way to begin thinking like a programmer, without the complexity of a traditional programming language.

About the Book

Hello Scratch! guides young readers through five exciting games to help them take their first steps in programming. They’ll experiment with key ideas about how a computer program works and enjoy the satisfaction of immediate success. These carefully designed projects give readers plenty of room to explore by imagining, tinkering, and personalizing as they learn.

What’s Inside

• Learn by experimentation
• Learn to think like a programmer
• Build five exciting, retro-style games
• Visualize the organization of a program

About the Readers

Written for kids 8-14. Perfect for independent learning or working with a parent or teacher.

About the Authors

Kids know how kids learn. Sadie and Gabriel Ford, 12-year-old twins and a formidable art and coding team, wrote this book with editing help from their mother, author Melissa Ford!

Table of Contents

PART 1 – SETTING UP THE ARCADE
Chapter 1. Getting to know your way around Scratch
Chapter 1. Becoming familiar with the Art Editor
Chapter 1. Meeting Scratch’s key blocks through important coding concepts

PART 2 – TURNING ON THE MACHINES
Chapter 1. Designing a two-player ball-and-paddle game
Chapter 1. Using conditionals to build a two-player ball-and-paddle game

PART 3 – CODING AND PLAYING GAMES
Chapter 1. Designing a fixed shooter
Chapter 2. Using conditionals to build your fixed shooter
Chapter 3. Designing a one-player ball-and-paddle game
Chapter 4. Using variables to build your one-player ball-and-paddle game
Chapter 5. Designing a simple platformer
Chapter 6. Using X and Y coordinates to make a simple platformer
Chapter 7. Making a single-screen platformer
Chapter 8. Using arrays and simulating gravity in a single-screen platformer
Chapter 9. Becoming a game maker