Super Scratch Programming Adventure!

$24.95, book

Teaches: math, logic, Scratch programming

CTR Review

This is a color, cartoon-illustrated guide book designed to teach programming fundamentals of Scratch - the educational programming language developed by Mitch Resnick's group at the MIT Media Lab. The book is thin -- 160 pages, organized into 10 chapters that start with sprites and coordinates, and end with complex sprite movements and sound recording. Each chapter starts with a cartoon that stars Mitch (a tall, geeky programmer inspired by Mitch Resnick) and Scratchy (the cat). It then introduces a basic programming challenge, and walks you through each step. Missing are useful features, such as an appendix or command directory, making this less of a reference book, and more of an attempt to contextualize Scratch, which in turn, can lead an upper elementary age child through the Scratch basics. The book was written by The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups Learning through Engineering, Art and Design (LEAD) and localized into English by the Canadian-based No-Starch Press. We were interested to learn that Scratch has now been localized into 50 languages. The book is best used with Scratch version 1.4, which includes Windows 2000 or newer, Mac OSX 10.4 or newer, and Ubuntu Linux version 9.4 or newer. Computers should have at least 120 MB of free disk space, and it helps if they also have a camera and microphone.