Using MIT Scratch for Programming

and Control
Creating a Scratch Packman
Year 8 ICT
 What you will learn:
• To design a maze background
• To resize a sprite
• To move a sprite under keyboard control
• Stop the sprite moving over the background
• To get ‘prizes’ to disappear
• To score with the prizes
• To get the prize to appear again unexpectedly
• To choose your own prizes
• To randomly alter the grid.
 Stage 1 of Packman

Maze
Score

‘Prize’ Explorer
 Stage 2 of Packman

Explorer
moves
 Stage 3 of Packman

Score
goes up

Explorer
grabs
prize
 Stage 4 of Packman

Explorer
moves on
 Stage 5 of Packman

‘Prize’
reappears
 What you need to decide
• To decide on a maze background grid.
• To decide on the sprite as the explorer.
• To plan the ‘prizes’ – the sprites and the points
for each.
• To plan for how long a prize would disappear.
• To decide if the background will change to a new
level or will the grid alter randomly.
 Design a background
• The background must
have one colour that
the sprite cannot
cross (blue in the
example.)
• The passage ways
must be broad
enough to take the
sprite.
 Replace the Cat
1. Delete the cat sprite.
2. Choose a new sprite
– use the central
button under the
stage. I called it the
explorer.
3. Resize the sprite to
make it small
enough to follow the
passages.
Step 1
Step 2 Step 3
 Get the Sprite to Move
• Use the starting code
as below – make sure
all directions work.
 Keep the Sprite on Track
• Stop the sprite moving over the
background by …
• … checking if it has moved too far.
• If so, move back 5
 Add a “Prize”
• Add a “prize” – a banana.
• Place it in a passageway.
• There should be a forever
loop
• The script should hide the
banana if it is touching the
explorer.
• Remember to save your
Scratch program.
 Score Grabbing a Prize
• There are 2 parts
• A variable to store the score

• The score needs to increase when the

prize is grabbed.
 Restore the Prize
• The banana needs to reappear and at a
random time makes a difference.
• Use the pick random 1 to 10
from Numbers
• Put it inside a wait.
• Decide on the longest
and shortest waits
• Remember to save your Scratch program.
 Introduce another Prize
• Introduce other sprites as prizes.
• Resize and add the correct script to each.

• Choose where each is to go, what effect it

will have on the score, how quickly each
should reappear.
• Remember to save your Scratch program.
 Make your code efficient
• The script to stop the sprite going onto the
grid might be more efficient.
• Do you have this section only once?

• Are there any other parts to be improved?

 Further ideas
• Does the score set to zero for each game?
• Is there a time limit or a target score?
• Further sprites could be added to block/unblock
sections of the grid.
• This could make the game change as it is
played.
• There could be different levels with the
background changing after a time.
• There could be tunnels which move the player to
a new maze background …