Hello Scratch!: Learn to Program by Making Arcade Games

Book Description 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.

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

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Content

PART 1 - Setting up the arcade
Chapter 1. Getting to know your way around Scratch
Chapter 2. Becoming familiar with the Art Editor
Chapter 3. Meeting Scratch's key blocks through important coding concepts

PART 2 - Turning on the machines
Chapter 4. Designing a two-player ball-and-paddle game
Chapter 5. Using conditionals to build a two-player ball-and-paddle game

PART 3 - Coding and playing games
Chapter 6. Designing a fixed shooter
Chapter 7. Using conditionals to build your fixed shooter
Chapter 8. Designing a one-player ball-and-paddle game
Chapter 9. Using variables to build your one-player ball-and-paddle game
Chapter 10. Designing a simple platformer
Chapter 11. Using X and Y coordinates to make a simple platformer
Chapter 12. Making a single-screen platformer
Chapter 13. Using arrays and simulating gravity in a single-screen platformer
Chapter 14. Becoming a game maker