A 3rd Grader’s First Program – Part 2

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Welcome back, explorer! 👋

Today, we’re going on a treasure hunt with Scratch Cat. Let’s find the hidden gems! 💎

Step 1: Meet Scratch Cat Find Scratch Cat on the stage. He’s our main explorer for the treasure hunt.

Step 2: Moving Scratch Cat We want Scratch Cat to move when we press the arrow keys. Here’s the easy way to do it:

  1. Click on “Events” and grab the “when green flag clicked” block.
  2. Then go to “Control” and get the “forever” block. Stick it under the first block.
  3. Inside “forever”, we need two “if” blocks from “Control”. One for the right arrow key, and one for the left arrow key.
  4. From “Sensing”, put a “key [right arrow] pressed” in the first “if” and a “key [left arrow] pressed” in the second.
  5. In both “if” blocks, from “Motion”, add a “change x by 10” block. In the “left arrow” one, make it “change x by -10”.

Now, Scratch Cat moves left and right with your arrow keys!

Step 3: Treasure Time! 🏝️ Let’s add a treasure for Scratch Cat to find:

  1. Click the face below the stage to pick a sprite. Choose a gem or any sprite you like.
  2. Drag the “when green flag clicked” block for the gem.
  3. Go to “Motion” and add a “go to random position” block.

Now, when you click the green flag, a gem appears at a random place!

Fun Puzzle: Scratch Cat Finds the Treasure! 🧩

Here’s a fun challenge: Can you make Scratch Cat say “Hooray!” when he touches the treasure? You’ll need to use blocks from “Control”, “Sensing”, and “Looks”.

Here’s how you can do it:

Step 4: Celebrating the Treasure When Scratch Cat touches the treasure, we want him to cheer:

  1. Click on Scratch Cat to choose him.
  2. Start with the “when green flag clicked” block from “Events”.
  3. Get the “forever” block from “Control”.
  4. Inside “forever”, put an “if” block from “Control”.
  5. Inside “if”, from “Sensing”, put a “touching [gem]” block. Make sure to choose your treasure sprite!
  6. Inside “if”, from “Looks”, put a “say ‘Hooray!’ for 2 seconds”.

Now, Scratch Cat will say “Hooray!” whenever he finds the treasure!

Well done, explorer! 🎉 You helped Scratch Cat find the treasure and even made him cheer when he found it! That was a lot of fun. Keep exploring and creating your own adventures with Scratch!

Parents: The above was generated 100% with ChatGPT 4. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get young people interested in tech and this is a good tool to help achieve that goal. For reference, my original prompt was “Write an introduction tutorial to scratch.mit.edu for a 3rd grader who doesn’t like to read to see if they are interested in programming“ with some further modifications, so use it at your own risk. Generate your own activities at https://chat.openai.com/chat. 😊

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