Kaumudi: A picture of Tejas pointing to one of the statements on the black
board and translating it in Marathi and Jyoti saying the same in Telugu.
On the board they have a few statements written.
Good morning, Good bye.
What is your name? My name is -----.
Where do you stay?
I stay in Mumbai.
Moz: Telugu and Marathi. Good to see you learning more languages.
Tejas: Moz, Does the computer understand the languages that we speak?
Moz: Yes. It understands a few languages. But the number of words and the
sentences that it understands are limited.
Jyoti: It is just like a robot.
Moz: Yes. Suppose Tejas understands only the following 5 statements.
Move forward -- steps, change direction to north, change direction
to south, change direction to east, change direction to west.
Tejas: Ok.
Moz: Jyoti will give you instructions to move from the place that you are now
using the limited instructions.
Tejas: Yes. As I move I will hold a chalk piece down so that you can see how I
moved.
Tejas and Jyoti first discuss the limited instructions that they have. They decide
to give instructions to Moz to move on a square. They write the step by step
instructions. Then they convert the movements into the limited instructions.
Kaumudi: Please illustrate each instruction and also put the text of the
instruction as a caption.
Change direction north
Move forward 10 steps
Change direction to west
Move forward 10 steps
Change direction to south
Move forward 10 steps
Change direction to east
Move forward 10 steps
Tejas: Look at the square which shows Tejas's trail!!
Jyoti: Does computer understand these instructions? Can we use some
pictures?
Tejas: Which application do we use to give the instructions?
Moz: You will see the instructions that the computer understands which are
similar to the above. Yes you can use pictures.
Kaumudi:Moz points to scratch and says,
Usha: A scratch icon please
(Keeping two icons with light and dark background: Swati please choose the
appropriate one)
Moz: Scratch has instructions that the computer understands.
Usha: Put a screen shot with the instructions to draw a square in the scripts
area.
Tejas: Look. These instructions are similar to the instructions we gave to Moz.
Jyoti: Moz, How do we make the computer follow these instructions?
Moz, Double clicks on the block of the instructions. The cat moves and a square
is drawn.
Usha: A screen shot of just the stage panel for the above, with the output of the
program on the stage. Here we can give the execution of each direction. One of
the screens on the website gives such an example. One of the designers can
help us in getting the screen.
Jyoti: Oh! Look the cat is moving and a trail of the cat is shown.
Moz[points to the stage area]: This area is called the stage, similar to the stage
where you perform. The computer follows the step by step instructions to give
the output for your instructions.
Skill box
Stage
The Stage is where you see your stories, games, and animations come to life.
Kaumudi:Tejas points to the scripts area and says, This can be just the scripts
panel. No need of complete window
Tejas: So, this is where we write the instructions?
Moz: Correct. This is called Scripts area. The step by step instructions are given
here.
Jyoti: And the cat performs step by step all the instructions!
Moz: The cat is called the sprite.
Skill box
Scripts area
Script is the step wise instructions you give to the sprite to do a particular
task. Scripts area is the place where you write the script for the sprite.
Kaumudi: Jyoti points to the blocks Palette and asks
Jyoti: Are these the instructions that the computer understands.
Moz: Yes.
Jyoti: But there is no “pen down” instruction here.
Kaumudi/usha: The menu panel of the options motion, pen, sound..... should be
enough here.
Jyoti points to the pen and says,
Jyoti: Let me click on pen and see what happens.
Usha: A screen with “pen” instructions view please.
Jyoti: Oh! This is just like paint. Each option gives a different set of instructions.
All the pen related instructions are grouped together here.
Skill box
Pen block has instructions to give a trail of the sprite, to change the colour of
the trail etc.,
Tejas: Yes. All the movement related instructions are listed when we select
motion option.
Moz: Good observation.
Skill box
Motion block has instructions to make the sprite move, like number of steps to
move, direction to move, etc.,
Tejas: Jyoti, let us use try drag and drop to put the instructions in the scripts
area.
Kaumudi: Pictures for Drag and drop of scripts to scripts area.
Jyoti: This is good. And when we bring one instruction below another it pastes
itself to form a block.
Moz: Correct. When you put all the instructions together it is called a block of
the program. Explore the instructions in the options “Motion”, “Pen”.
Skill box
To write a Scratch program (the detailed instruction set for the sprite) we have
to just drag the instructions (graphic blocks) for motion, sound, etc from the
blocks palette area and drop them into the scripts area. These graphic blocks
are pasted one after the other which is called a script. When you double-click
on a script, Scratch runs the blocks from the top to the bottom of the script.
Tejas and Jyoti try out the following instructions using motion and pen and run
the block of the program.
Tejas: Jyoti, we can change the number of steps the sprite moves, by deleting
the number and adding the new number.
Usha: Cut just the move instruction, point to the 10 and put a bubble with the
above.
Jyoti: Yes, and we can change the direction by clicking on the arrow and
selecting the direction.
(Usha the down arrow with the options in point in direction)
Tejas: Let us try the sound block instructions now.
Skill box
Sound block has instructions to make the sprite speak, and also add musical
sounds etc.,
A small program with sound instructions added will come up here with the
output.
Tejas: Do we always have to use the cat as the sprite.
Moz: There are some sprites that are available by default. You can use these or
you can even draw your own sprite and use it.
Moz points to and says
Moz: Click on this button to get a list of available sprites, from where we can
select a new sprite.
Skill box
To add a new sprite
Click on to paint a new sprite.
If you want to select a sprite from the existing list of
sprites, click on to You will get the list of sprites and
select one.
Clicking on this button will give you a surprise sprite.
Usha: Steps to select a sprite and use new sprite. I have just put the
delete a sprite step from your lesson.
To delete a sprite, select the scissors from the Tool bar and click on the sprite or
right-click on the sprite and select delete from the pop-up menu.
Moz: To change the look of the sprite you can use costumes.
Jyoti: Can we use more than one costume for a sprite.
Moz: Yes. You can.
Tejas: The instructions to change the costume are in the costume block!
Moz: Correct.
Jyoti: This is fun. Let us use the instructions in motion, pen, costume and sound
and make a program.
Tejas and Jyoti write the instructions and run it.
Step by Step execution of the instructions. Usha: Here we can have it in the
screen style the program and the execution.
Kaumudi: Tejas and Jyoti happily looking on at the execution of the instructions.
Tejas: That was fun.
Jyoti: Can we make the sprite repeat the actions?
Moz: Yes, you can and you can also control the way the script is executed. Next
time we will explore these features of scratch. Chin chinaki...
