From rookie
to pro in
minutes!
SCRATCH HACKS are quick and simple video tutorials that aim to take the fear factor out of coding by answering the most common questions that arise among new Scratchers. Developed by Atomec Studios using insights gathered from hundreds of hours of classroom instruction, these byte-size videos anticipate the areas where new students frequently get tripped up and offer elegant solutions and shortcuts that will save hours of frustration. Topics covered include not just coding, but digital art, animation, storytelling skills and much more.
Basic movement (no math)
Mr. T demonstrates a simple drag-and-drop technique for moving sprites precisely across the screen that doesn’t involve any typing or math whatsoever.
Making sprites wait their turn
Controlling digital stories using “Wait” blocks seems like a great idea, until you discover that one small change can mess up your whole project. Mr. T has a more bulletproof way to control timing.
Multitasking in Scratch
If Scratch always executes commands one at a time, how do you get it to do two things at once? Mr. T has an easy solution to this problem that frequently confuses new Scratchers.
Create new poses for sprites
Scratch sprites often have only one or two costumes to choose from, but fortunately many of these graphics are designed to be taken apart and repositioned into brand new poses.
Why is my sprite upside down?
New Scratchers are sometimes puzzled by the way sprites flip upside down when you try to turn them to face left. Mr. T explains the problem and demonstrates two ways to fix the problem.
Syncing audio with actions
There are two options for playing back audio in Scratch, and if you choose the wrong one you’ll end up with all kinds of baffling behaviors like stuttering or broken timing. Mr. T explains.
Remove white backgrounds
The Internet offers millions of images you can add to your Scratch project, but many of them contain white or checkerboard backgrounds that mess up your project. Here are some easy solutions.
Amp up speech bubbles with audio
Scratch’s built-in speech bubbles allow you to create fun, comic book-style stories, but if you’re looking to put a more high-tech spin on your project, try adding some voice acting. Mr. T explains how to synchronize audio with speech bubbles and other actions.
Intro to graphic effects
Scratch’s powerful graphic effects functions can dramatically change the look of your sprites without the need to create new costumes. Mr. T shows you a few techniques for using this powerful block.
Automate it with custom blocks
If you need your sprites to perform the same actions over and over again, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Mr. T shows you the basics of how to automate actions like walking and jumping so they can be executed with a single block.
Fixing laggy movement
It’s natural for new Scratchers to grab for a hat block to detect keypresses in their game projects, but this can lead to frustrating keyboard lag. In this short tutorial, Mr. T demonstrates a more efficient way to move.
Animation for non-coders
If you love drawing and animation but don’t want to mess with coding, try frame animation. This simple technique lets you create animated flipbooks in Scratch with as few as 5 blocks of code.
Draw like a pro!
Most kids learn to create art using pencils, crayons and brushes, but using those same tools to draw freehand in Scratch almost always leads to disappointing results. Mr. T has a better technique to show you.
Power up with variables
New Scratchers quickly learn how to use the rectangular variable blocks to keep score and do other tasks. But the real power of variables lies in the often overlooked orange bubbles that you can insert into your project to dynamically change speed, size, jump height and other attributes.
Shooting at stuff
As much as we all enjoy non-violent games, sometimes gamers just need to shoot stuff. In this short Scratch Hacks tutorial, Mr. T explains how to create cloned projectiles for your games and how to point them in the right direction.
Explosions & collisions
After teaching you how to shoot projectiles in the last episode, Mr. T demonstrates how to blow up your targets with animated explosions. It turns out it’s a little trickier than it looks, especially when cloned projectiles are shooting cloned enemies.
List magic
Magic 8-Ball is a fun toy that responds to your questions with random, wacky answers. It’s also a perfect way to demonstrate the power of lists, the special Scratch variables that allow you to cram multiple pieces of information (thousands of them!) into a single variable.
Create AMAZING thumbnails
If your Scratch projects aren’t getting the views they deserve, you might need to up your thumbnail game. In this short Scratch Hacks tutorial, Mr. T and his alien companion Scrog explain a few simple steps for designing and coding catchy title pages in Scratch.
Give your sprite a voice
Mr. T demonstrates some simple sound editing techniques you can use to modify your voice and bring your characters to life in Scratch. We’ll be practicing with PXL (pronounced ‘Pixel’), Atomec Studios’ adorable robot mascot.
Guided Missiles
Building on our prior tutorial on creating projectiles in Scratch (Hack #15), Mr. T demonstrates how to power up your missiles with self-guiding technology. Learn a simple trick to spawn clones from every side of the screen with just 5 blocks of code. Create multi-stage missiles that lock onto the enemy and put on a burst of speed before exploding.
Add a new dimension with Parallax
If you don’t already use gradients in your Scratch art work, you’re missing a big opportunity to add realism and drama to your sprites. In this short Scratch Hacks tutorial, Mr. T demonstrates the right way (and some very, very wrong ways) to use this powerful art tool.
Throw shade with gradients
A lot of scratchers have either never touched the gradient tool before, or don’t know how to use it properly. In this tutorial video, Mr.T explains how to properly add shade to your sprites.
Scrolling Backgrounds
Breaking out of Scratch’s 480-pixel screen is on the wishlist of most new coders, but the math can seem a little tricky until it’s explained properly. In this short tutorial, Mr. T walks you through the process of sliding background tiles around to create the illusion of an infinite background.
Connecting Scratch Backgrounds
Getting your backgrounds to scroll across the screen can open up much bigger game worlds, but it takes a little planning to make your images connect seamlessly so they look like one continuous environment. In this short tutorial, Mr. T explains how to plan, set up and tweak a perfect scrolling background.
Animating with Onion Skins in Scratch
It turns out the most useful animation tool for Scratch is the one the developers DIDN’T include in their software. Onion skins are a powerful tool for visualizing your characters’ movements, but to use this superpower in Scratch you’re going to need to install some 3rd-party software.
EPIC Buttons
Keyboard commands can be useful, but if you’re making sophisticated Scratch projects with options and menus, you need to master the art of coding buttons. In this short Scratch Hacks tutorial, Mr. T unpacks a few of the coding techniques you need to build a modern user interface.
Smooth Motion in Scratch
It’s easy to move sprites around by changing their (x,y) coordinates, but if you want your games to FEEL fun to play, you need to teach your sprites to accelerate and decelerate the way they do in the real world. In this short Scratch Hacks tutorial, Mr. T demonstrates a few simple techniques for smoothing out movement and making it a little more natural.
Glitch effects in Scratch
If you want to give your projects a gritty, hacker-style vibe, toss in a glitch effect! It’s easy with help from photomosh.com, an amazing website that lets you a visual effects to photos and video clips and see the results in real time. In this short Scratch Hacks tutorial, Mr. T walks you through the steps of glitching a logo image, importing it into Scratch and adding the code you need to make it work.
Lip Sync Animation in Scratch
Bring your sprites to life by giving them moving lip animations and synchronizing the action to a song or spoken audio. In this short Scratch Hacks tutorial, Mr. T rolls out his lip sync toolkit, a Scratch project that includes all the lip poses you need to accurately simulate speech and a special custom block you can use to fine-tune the timing of your animation.
Top 3 Noob Mistakes in Scratch
There are lots of ways things can go wrong when you first learn how to code in Scratch, and after teaching hundreds of introductory Scratch classes, Mr. T has seen all of them. “It’s amazing how often the same little problems come up during the first lesson,” says the veteran tech teacher. “The list goes on and on, but there are three that come up so often that I try to mention them in every lesson.”