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
About the Reader
Written for kids 8-14. Perfect for independent learning or working with a parent or teacher.
About the Authors
Kids know how kids learn. Sadie and Gabriel Ford, 12-year-old twins and a formidable art and coding team, wrote this book with editing help from their mother, author Melissa Ford!
Quotes
Brilliant writing on the art and science of game making using Scratch! Applicable to anyone new to game development...solid examples throughout the book.
- Peter Lawrence
Very well written. There were so many things to learn, I wished there had been more chapters in the book!
- Khaled Tannir
A great book for learning how to program your own games while enjoying quality family time with your kids.
- Gonzalo Huerta-Canepa
An excellent guide through the world of Scratch.
- Karim Alkama
Table of contents
- Copyright
- Brief Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- About this book
- About the authors
- Part 1. Setting up the arcade
- Part 2. Turning on the machines
-
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
- Appendix. Scratch quick start guide
- Extra Practice Chapters
- Appendix
- Appendix
- Index
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
Product information
- Title: Hello Scratch!
- Author(s):
- Release date: November 2017
- Publisher(s): Manning Publications
- ISBN: 9781617294259
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