Raspberry Pi A, User Manual, Page: 174 / 314

P A R T I I I
P R O G R A M M I N G W I T H T H E R A S P B E R R Y P I
158
SO FAR IN this book, you’ve learned a lot about how to use programs that other people have
written on your Raspberry Pi. The chief goal of the Raspberry Pi project is to get people writ-
ing their own programs, however—and not just adults. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is
working to get the device adopted as an educational tool for all age ranges.
A key requirement for reaching that goal is ensuring that young children can experience the
joy of creating their own software, rather than just consuming other people’s code. The secret
to this is
Scratch .
Introducing Scratch
Created by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Media Lab in 2006 as an offshoot of the Squeak and Smalltalk languages, Scratch takes the
core concepts of programming and makes them accessible to all. Long-winded typing—tiring
and dull for younger children—is replaced with a simple jigsaw-like drag-and-drop environ-
ment, which nevertheless encourages programmatic thinking and introduces the core con-
cepts used by all programming languages.
Officially considered a program for ages eight and above, but accessible to even younger pro-
grammers with a little help and guidance, Scratch is deceptively powerful. Behind its colour-
ful and mouse-driven user interface is a programming language that includes impressive
multimedia functionality. It should come as no surprise then that, of the more than two-
and-a-half million Scratch projects shared by users of the software on the official website, the
majority are games.
Encouraging children to learn how to make their own games can be a great way of sneaking a
little learning into their playtimes. Scratch’s friendly user interface and excellent handling of
core concepts mean that children are unlikely to get frustrated by a sudden steep learning
curve. Better still, the concepts learned in Scratch offer an excellent foundation for progres-
sion to a more flexible language like Python (see Chapter 12, “An Introduction to Python”).
Even before moving on to another language, Scratch offers more than just a framework for
games. It can be used to create interactive presentations and cartoons, as well as interfaces
with external sensors and motors through the use of add-on hardware such as the PicoBoard
and the LEGO WeDo robotics kit.
The recommended Raspbian distribution for the Raspberry Pi comes with the latest version
of the Scratch development environment pre-loaded, so if you’ve been following the recom-
mendations throughout this book you’re ready to start. If you’re using a different operating
system, visit the official Scratch website at
http://scratch.mit.edu
to download the
software—and you can find versions for Windows and Apple’s OS X in the same place.