Category: Scratch Tidbits and Tips

Last week, an obnoxiously long texting acronym made it’s way into our conversation. I was reminded how I really need to brush up on this sort of super important information. So I wrote a Scratch app that uses two data lists to allow me to look up an acronym from a list of ten. This example uses variables, data lists, user input and a cute little orange martian guy. I wonder what would happen if I enter one that isn’t on the list? Why don’t you try it and find out!

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/95235421/

At our last meeting we had the question of whether we could set up our Sprites to face the direction of their movement automatically instead of having separate costumes for mirror images. It turns out that we can use the Rotation Style setting of each sprite to do that!

In this example, the characters will all start moving to the right and are programmed to make a 180 turn when touching the edge. How they look on their return trip to the left depends  on the Rotation Style setting.

Here they are after the 180; they are all moving to the left although one looks to be upside down and another moves “backward”:

Design Time vs Run Time Property Settings: Setting the Rotation Style in the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) as above is an example of a Design Time Property Setting. We can also change the Rotation Style during the program execution, i.e. Run Time,  by using the Set Rotation Style command in the Motion section of scripts. 

If you’ve spent millions of hours perfecting your artistic rendition of a new Sprite in Scratch’s costume editor, (let’s say an adorable tiger!) and another billion hours working out the complex script for the little guy’s dance moves, you may want to re-use the costume art and/or the script in the same project and you’ll definitely want to save them for posterity.

Here’s how to “leverage existing code” (programmers like to say stuff like that and managers LOVE to hear it!)