Scratch is a high-level, block-based visual programming language and website aimed primarily at children as an educational tool, with a target audience of ages 5 to 16. Users can create projects on the website using a block-like interface. Scratch was conceived and designed through collaborative National Science Foundation grants awarded to Mitchel Resnick and Yasmin Kafai. Scratch is developed by the MIT Media Lab and has been translated into 70+ languages, being used in most parts of the world. Scratch is taught and used in after-school centers, schools, and colleges, as well as other public knowledge institutions. As of 15 February 2023, community statistics on the language's official website show more than 123 million projects shared by over 103 million users, and more than 95 million monthly website visits. Overall, more than 1.3 billion projects have been created in total, with the site reaching its one millionth project in April 21st, 2010 and its one billionth project on April 12th, 2024. Scratch takes its name from a technique used by disk jockeys called "scratching", where vinyl records are clipped together and manipulated on a turntable to produce different sound effects and music. Like scratching, the website lets users mix together different media (including graphics, sound, and other programs) in creative ways by creating and "remixing" projects, like video games, animations, music, and simulations.
Scratch 3.0
User interface
The Scratch interface is divided into three main sections: a stage area, block palette, and a coding area to place and arrange the blocks into scripts that can be run by pressing the green flag or clicking on the code itself. Users may also create their own code blocks, which will appear in the "My Blocks" section. The stage area features the results (e.g., animations, turtle graphics, either in a small or normal size, with a full-screen option also available) and all sprites' thumbnails being listed in the bottom area. The stage uses x and y coordinates, with 0,0 being the stage center. With a sprite selected at the bottom of the staging area, blocks of code can be applied by dragging them from the block palette into the coding area. The Costumes tab allows users to change the look of the sprite with a vector and bitmap editor in order to create various effects, including animation. The Sounds tab allows attaching sounds and music to a sprite. When creating sprites and also backgrounds, users can draw their own sprites manually, choose a sprite from the library, or upload an image. The table below shows the categories of the programming blocks:
Offline editing
An offline "Desktop Editor" for Scratch 3.0 is available for Microsoft Windows 10 and above in the Microsoft Store, Apple's macOS, ChromeOS, Android, and unofficially in Linux, but Scratch is working with open-source partners to support Linux in the future. This allows the creation and playing of Scratch programs offline. Previous versions of the offline editor are also accessible.
Extensions In Scratch, extensions add extra blocks and features that can be used in projects. In Scratch 2.0, the extensions were all hardware-based and Pen was a normal category. Software-based extensions were added in Scratch 3.0, such as text-to-speech voices, along with some new hardware-based extensions like the micro:bit. The extensions are listed below.
Physical LEGO Mindstorms EV3 – Control motors and receive sensor data from the Lego Mindstorms EV3 Makey Makey – Use Makey Makey to control projects LEGO Education WeDo 2.0 – control motors and receive sensor data from the Lego WeDo micro:bit – Use of a micro:bit to control projects LEGO BOOST – Bring robotic creations to life Go Direct Force & Acceleration – Sense pull, push, motion, and spin
Digital Many of the digital extensions in Scratch 3.0 used to be regular block categories that were moved to the extensions section to reduce clutter. These include:
Music – Play digital instruments (drums, trumpets, violins, pianos, and more). Previously part of the Sound category. Pen – Draw on the Stage with a variety of thicknesses and color. Previously a normal block category. Video Sensing – Detect motion with the camera. Previously in the Sensing category. Face Sensing - Detects motion with the camera to create costumes and games that interact with a user's face. New digital extensions have also been added in collaborations with commercial companies. These include:
Text to Speech – Converts words in a text into voice output, especially having an option for languages (variety of voices, supplied by Amazon) Translate – Uses Google Translate to translate text from one language into a variety of other languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Greek, Norwegian, and Japanese Makey Makey – Options for better key pressing and press multiple keys in order. You can grab a join block if you want more control on the extension. A paper published in 2019 by NYU argues and illustrates, for coding music with Scratch, "that the music and sound blocks as currently implemented in Scratch may limit and frustrate meaningful music-making for children, the core user base for Scratch."
Scratch Lab The Scratch Lab displays experiments from the Scratch Team, intended to explore whether new features may be added to the full website in the future. Experimental features currently under development include:
Video Sprites – Fill sprites with live video. Animated Text – Bring words to life with colors, fonts, and animations.
Community of users
Scratch is used in many different settings: schools, museums, libraries, community centers, and homes. Scratch is designed primarily for users aged 8–16, but it is used by all ages and has a sizeable adult user base as of 2009. This wide outreach has created many surrounding communities, both physical and digital. In April 2020, the Tiobe ranking of the world's programming languages included Scratch in the top 20. According to Tiobe, there are 50 million projects written in Scratch, and every month one million new projects are added.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
