
MIT's Scratch Team releases Scratch 2.0 editor and player as open source - speakvisually
https://github.com/LLK/scratch-flash
======
gw
I've taught a few kids using Scratch and it works quite well. I'm happy to
hear they're working on an HTML5 version, and hopefully it will be possible to
install if offline like the current Adobe AIR version does. I teach with a few
netbooks running Ubuntu, and can't always rely on having internet, so I had to
install the last version of AIR that supported Linux to get it working.

There is also an unaffiliated app for Android called Pocket Code that is
clearly inspired by Scratch. It works nicely on Nexus 7 tablets, and touch
screens are clearly more natural for kids, but it is buggy and more limited
than Scratch so I had to stop using it. Hopefully it will improve, or the
Scratch team will provide their own mobile port (not a simple task, of
course).

~~~
cschmidt
As I mentioned below, they are making a tablet version of Scratch aimed at 5-7
year old kids. Out this summer....

[http://www.scratchjr.org/](http://www.scratchjr.org/)

~~~
higherpurpose
Just iPad or Android, too?

~~~
sdg1
An Android version is planned for later.

------
300bps
I played with Scratch for some time with my 9 year old son. They've done an
excellent job with it. We ended up using Construct 2, only because they've
done an even better job and it releases to HTML 5, is playable on all kinds of
devices including iPad.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
[https://www.scirra.com/construct2](https://www.scirra.com/construct2) \- not
seen that before, thanks for the tip.

Edit: looks like it's Windows only. Will try with WINE.

Edit2: Pretty buggy on WINE over Kubuntu 14.04 - crashes when trying to start
project from template or when run layout on empty project.

~~~
TomGullen
Tom here from Scirra (it's awesome to spot links to Construct 2 in the wild!)

Yes, Windows only for now. We stuck with what we knew to start off which was
Windows development.

------
raimondious
We are hiring! [http://scratch.mit.edu/jobs/](http://scratch.mit.edu/jobs/)

Also, Scratch Day is May 17th:
[http://day.scratch.mit.edu/](http://day.scratch.mit.edu/)

~~~
yawn
Is local a hard requirement for the Software Engineer position?

~~~
raimondious
I believe it's preferred, but I am not the one to ask. You should ask through
the email linked there.

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JoshTriplett
This (along with the existence of the HTML5 version linked elsewhere in the
comments, [https://github.com/LLK/scratch-
html5](https://github.com/LLK/scratch-html5) ) is great news! I've always
hesitated to point anyone at Scratch due to its non-open license. It's great
to see that problem solved.

~~~
markdown
You'd point someone to an inferior learning tool because of your prejudice
against non-free software? Really?

~~~
patja
And it has always been free in cost

------
barbs
_Scratch is a multimedia authoring tool that can be used by students,
scholars, teachers, and parents for a range of educational and entertainment
constructivist purposes from math and science projects, including simulations
and visualizations of experiments, recording lectures with animated
presentations, to social sciences animated stories, and interactive art and
music. Simple games may be made with it, as well._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(programming_language)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_\(programming_language\))

------
davexunit
It's unfortunate that Scratch is built upon the Flash platform. Though Scratch
has been released under the GPL, it requires nonfree software in order to run.
Scratch looks interesting, but I cannot recommend its use until this problem
is fixed.

~~~
sdg1
We have a work-in-progress HTML5 version as well:
[https://github.com/LLK/scratch-html5](https://github.com/LLK/scratch-html5)

~~~
davexunit
Well that is great news! Thanks for letting me know.

------
nighthawk24
Catroid is another cool related project
[https://github.com/Catrobat/Catroid](https://github.com/Catrobat/Catroid)

~~~
grdvnl
This is great. Every time I visited the Scratch website I wished I could use a
similar project on a tablet/smartphone.

~~~
cschmidt
They are making a tablet version of Scratch aimed at 5-7 year old kids. Out
this summer....

[http://www.scratchjr.org/](http://www.scratchjr.org/)

------
davidw
Scratch is really cool - my 6 year old daughter enjoys it a lot even though
she doesn't grasp all of it yet. But I think it's a good start in that it
starts introducing some of the concepts behind making a computer do things,
and making things with computers. She has fun with it too, it's pleasant,
which should help develop a positive attitude.

------
codewiz
Turtle Art (AKA Turtle Blocks) is another LOGO-derived educational language
with aims similar to Scratch.

Turtle Art is free software and its block language seems more powerful and
orthogonal. It can be extended with inline Python expressions or by loading
Python scripts. I think it's a great way to introduce young children to the
basic concepts of programming with a smooth transition to a mainstream
language.

While Turtle Art is bundled with the OLPC-derived Sugar learning environment,
it also works on a regular Linux desktop.

Get it here:
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art](http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art)

------
philippeback
There is also the Phratch version (Pharo based).
[http://www.phratch.com/](http://www.phratch.com/)

This is more for grown ups where one can integrate all kinds of cools things.

A video with Lego Mindstorms EV3 controls.

[http://vimeo.com/82540943](http://vimeo.com/82540943)

And engineers have fun too.
[http://vimeo.com/89912838](http://vimeo.com/89912838)

------
droob
Neat! It would be nice if README.md gave a little introduction to the project.

------
tijs
Hardly 'open' but if you're looking for something similar that works nicely on
an iPad Hopscotch is also worth a look
[https://www.gethopscotch.com](https://www.gethopscotch.com)

Bit more limited than Scratch but the new editing interface they just released
works really well.

~~~
patja
I teach programming in the classroom using Scratch and just recently started
using Hopscotch for younger learners (age 9 and 10). I really dislike many of
the changes in the new Hopscotch release. they feel like UX designing run
amok, out of touch with the audience of young learners.

The script blocks (the code) that were front and center are now buried behind
a few additional taps.

They've replaced buttons clearly labeled with text with icons that are
sometimes cryptic even to me (let alone a 9 year old). Would you guess that an
icon with an "i" is how you edit your code? I assumed it would just be some
kind of read-only display of extended properties, not an editing capability.

And the worst and most subtle change is the de-emphasis of the X/Y Cartesian-
esque grid. Before you had clearly labeled X and Y value textboxes and a grid
with matching color-coded horizontal and vertical guide-lines to make it easy
to understand the grid, and labeled light gridlines every 100 pixels. Now
nothing is labeled or shown except while long-tapping to move a sprite's
starting position. Anything that ties into math curriculum is a win (Cartesian
coordinates, ordered pairs), and they took much of that goodness away in favor
of a more "streamlined" UX.

I do like that they fixed the problem of moving large chunks of script blocks
inside of the repeat loops though.

~~~
tijs
My daughter is a bit too young still so i haven't tried it with any actual
kids yet, except myself. I liked the cleaner visual style but it might indeed
be less clear now..

------
higherpurpose
I saw somewhere that (now their) App Inventor makes for 13 percent of language
use for education purposes, while Python is at 14 percent. They must be doing
something right.

[http://appinventor.mit.edu/](http://appinventor.mit.edu/)

~~~
galaktor
This is great. I use it for prototyping app ideas, and it works good so far.
Only thing I've found to miss for my particular prototype is a "wait"
function, but there's ways to build a little procedure for that.

(Also I submitted AppInventor to HN a while ago [1], but it didn't get any
attention. Bad timing maybe? Either way, I think it's excellent in it's
simplicity)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7715679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7715679)

------
danielweber
ISTR Scratch being available as a standalone executable, and then changing
into a web app. The standalone tool made it easy to let my kid play around
with while not having the whole internet there to distract him. Is the
standalone app still available?

~~~
beemoe
Yes, the old 1.4 version is available and the new 2.0 version has a stand
alone build that works without internet access. It requires adobe AIR.

[http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/](http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/)

[http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch_1.4/](http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch_1.4/)

------
jimmar
Interesting project! Just a note--I got to step 3 of 13 on the Scratch
tutorial and the language switched to Dutch or something ("3 Dansen maar Voeg
een nieuw NEEM STAPPEN-blok toe. Klik in het blok en typ een min-teken.")

~~~
mercer
That's Dutch, and I did a double take when I suddenly saw Dutch in my Hacker
News!

I can't wait to have my siblings try some programming with this tool!

------
millettjon
Scratch is great for making animated comics. It appeals to girls as well as
boys. I taught kids from 6 to 12 years last year. Kids older than that got
bored with it. Highly recommended.

~~~
Retr0spectrum
I'm 16, and I still use Scratch from time to time. It is well suited to
creating simple 2D games, although it is not efficient enough for anything
particulary complex.

------
juliendorra
We love and use Scratch a lot at Coding Goûter events. Recently we also
started to use the HTML-based SNAP![1] that also has the advantage to let
older kids create their own custom blocks (functions). It's open source, and
seems to be evolving fast. (It started as a clone of scratch, but might
diverge in the future if I understand the conversations right)
[1][http://snap.berkeley.edu/](http://snap.berkeley.edu/)

------
Patrick_Devine
I absolutely love Scratch. I get my six year old daughter to make all of the
artwork and sound effects and I end up doing all the code. I've been really
looking forward to Scratch Jr, just to see if she can do more of the coding.

One thing I'd love to see is an atan2 function in the math routines. Right now
if you want to do anything a little bit tricky you end up having to implement
your own.

~~~
MartinCron
I do the same thing with my 6 year old daughter. She feels like a game
designer and comes up with super crazy game ideas. Shark Salon? Sure! Let's do
it!

------
skierscott
Ah, Scratch. This is how I got started with programming (pretty late, my
senior year in high school). I made a game[0] where you try and knock another
player or a dumb AI off a disk.

[0]:[http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1108096/](http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1108096/)

------
RobotCaleb
Is there a linux distro that is centered around Scratch that I can PXE boot on
my media center PC for my son to play with?

I'm interested in getting him into computing of sorts. I tried Doudoulinux,
but it was mostly not good.

~~~
OWaz
Instead of using your media center pc could you get him a Raspberry Pi? I
bought my nephew an RPi so he could use Scratch and have a computer of his
own. The only challenge I had was figuring out an easy way to introduce him to
Minecraft Pi edition.

~~~
RobotCaleb
I have one for him. I just don't have anything to set it up with, yet. The
HTPC is an easier test bed since it's already setup for PXE.

------
craigching
One of the older versions of Scratch had support for Lego WeDo. Does Scratch
2.0 have support for Lego WeDo? Would love to introduce it to my kids!

~~~
programmarchy
Yes, Scratch 2 does support Lego WeDo.

To enable support, shift + click "More Blocks" and the "Add an Extension"
button will appear. From there you can select the LEGO WeDo extension. [1]

If your kids are into robotics, you may also be interested in MOSS - a modular
robotic construction kit [2]. MOSS also supports Scratch programming, and in
fact we are releasing our extension to the public this week (I'm the lead
programmer on the project.), which we'll be announcing very soon.

We've been experimenting with Scratch in classrooms here in Boulder, CO, and
we're amazed at how fast kids pick up programming concepts with Scratch!

[1]
[http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/LEGO_WeDo_Blocks](http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/LEGO_WeDo_Blocks)
[2] [http://www.modrobotics.com/moss](http://www.modrobotics.com/moss)

~~~
craigching
> If your kids are into robotics, you may also be interested in MOSS

Ah, thanks for reminding me! I'd been keeping my eye on MOSS and they should
be out now! Cool that Scratch supports MOSS as well!

------
peterb
I tried to get my son into Scratch, but he didn't like it. He loves hacking on
Lua code in the Roblox game.

------
sceadu
[http://snap.berkeley.edu/](http://snap.berkeley.edu/)

