Invent with Scratch!

Scratch is a graphical programming environment from MIT. It teaches programming concepts to kids by snapping ‘code blocks’ into place to form complete programs. Scratch is completely free. It is free to read online under a Creative Commons license. If you’d like to support the author, you can purchase a print or ebook.

Playing video games is fun, but programming your own video games is a creative, challenging skill that will let you make your own fun. The free Scratch programming environment gives everyone an easy way to learn programming skills. While Scratch is primarily designed for 8- to 16-year-olds, it’s used by people of all ages, including younger children with their parents and college students learning their first programming language.

There’s so much that you can do with Scratch, it’s hard to know where to start. That’s where this book comes in. This book guides you through creating several video games in Scratch. By building the projects in this book, you’ll get a good idea of which blocks are commonly used to create video games in Scratch. These projects provide a solid foundation for you to build upon when creating your own original programs.

No previous programming experience is necessary to read this book. The only mathematics skills required are basic arithmetic: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Don’t let math phobia prevent you from learning to program. And don’t forget that the computer will perform calculations for you!

Each program in the book is easy to make by following the step-by-step instructions. You’ll learn about the code blocks and programming concepts as you make games that use them. No matter your skill level, there’s no reason you can’t start reading this book now!

Kids can follow along with the activities on their own, but this book is also for parents, teachers, and volunteers who want to introduce their children or students to the world of programming. The projects are ideal for a weekend activity or after-school computer club. Adults don’t have to be software engineers to use this book to help others learn.