Programming Languages

Using Scratch

Scratch is an elementary coding language with a visual interface. "Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab (Scratch - Developers, 2021, p. 1)." It is designed for ages 8 to 16. When I started my first project in Scratch, I saw the building blocks and quickly built a little 9-step animation. I could not figure out how to get it to start. I needed to watch some of the help videos. I was then able to get the animation to work, but each time I ran the application, it started from where it had previously left off. I found a video on restarting locations. I realized that I needed to initialize specific settings at the beginning. 

The application made motion easy by filling existing coordinates into the visual code blocks. I then found it difficult to go back a step, so I needed to figure out how to reset orientation and starting point. I found that I could use individual blocks outside the application but within the workspace to reset the application. Entire blocks of code can be copied and then used again, with slight changes to different variables that would make parts of the application appear more random. While running the program over and over, minor bugs started popping up. Some layers started rendering behind others when they had been working correctly. The laying issue seemed to be a cache issue in the browser possibly. After closing and re-opening the browser, the layering issue was corrected. The sound was loud at first. The tool that lowered the volume kept dropping it until it was zero. The volume needed to be initialized at 100% to start. The project can be found here.  https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/723502032