University of Wisconsin-Madison

Homework #1 Due Friday 9/10 Before Class : Explore Scratch Website and Browse Existing Projects

Grading TA: Heng Guo

The purpose of this homework assignment is to familarize yourself with the Scratch website and existing Scratch projects. You'll have the opportunity to see what types of games, interactive art, stories, and simulations others have made using Scratch!

You are welcome to use any computing facilities you have access to for this assignment. The only software that you need is a web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. You can find details here about how to activate your CS account and use the Windows and Mac clusters.

This assignment has four easy steps:

1. Using the web browser of your choice, go the the Scratch website located at http://scratch.mit.edu/. The top of the web page will look something like this.

   

   Signup for a new user account. Your username must use the format: FirstnameLastname.

   Upload a picture of yourself by clicking on the change picture link - we want to know who you are in class!

   

   If you encounter a "picture too large" error, please try to downsize your picture less than 80kb.

2. Find three existing projects that you find interesting in some way. You can select any three projects of your own choosing. We encourage you to look around!

   If you need suggestions for places to start, we recommend browsing through the Featured, Top Viewed, and Top Loved categories.

3. Create a new gallery with a descriptive name similar to "Homework 1". The Scratch website requires that all gallery names are unique, so you will need to find a new name no one else has used yet.

   Place the 3 projects you found in your gallery. In the comments of your Gallery (not in the comments for the individual projects), write one paragraph per project about why picked that project.

   

4. Request to be friends with the Instructor and the Grading TA. (We didn't follow the naming convention that you should follow!) Note that you will see a message "dusseau will be notified"; you must then click on the OK button for the request to be sent (which means you should click on the OK button!)