People have access to an incredible variety of interactive games, stories, animations, simulations, and other types of dynamic, interactive media on their computers today. But, for the most part, these programs are a one-way street: you can only browse and click what others have created; you can’t design and create your own.
Scratch changes that, broadening the range of what you can design and create on the computer, making it easier to combine graphics, photos, music, and sound into interactive creations. With Scratch, you can create characters that dance, sing, and interact with one another. Or create images that whirl, spin, and animate in response to movements of the mouse. Or integrate images with sound effects and music clips to create an interactive birthday card for a friend, or an interactive report for school.
The name Scratch comes from the scratching technique used by hip-hop disc jockeys, who spin vinyl records back and forth with their hands to mix music clips together in creative ways. You can do something similar with Scratch, mixing different types of media clips (graphics, photos, music, sounds) in creative ways.
At the core of Scratch is a graphical programming language that lets you control the actions and interactions among different media. Coding in Scratch is much easier than in traditional programming languages: to create a script, you simply snap together graphical blocks, much like LEGO bricks or puzzle pieces. Once you’ve created a Scratch project, you can share it on the Scratch website, the same way you might share videos on YouTube or photos on Flickr. Or you can embed your Scratch project in any other webpage – for example, embedding an interactive Scratch animation on your MySpace or Facebook homepage.
You can get new ideas for Scratch projects by browsing through projects on the Scratch website. If you like one of the characters or images or scripts in another project, simply download the project and use parts of it in your own Scratch project.
