Scratch Programming Demo: Garden Box

Here is my first Scratch program, besides the Getting Started Tutorial.  Given that Rutland is known for it’s local foods, with the Farmers Market, RAFFL, the Vermont Farmers Food Center, and community gardens, I thought I would follow that theme.

Here is my Garden Box Scratch program.

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/20595810/

Just click on a vegetable or flower to see a message.  Then click inside a square in the 3×3 garden box to plant the chosen veggie or flower.  Turn up your computer speakers to hear a musical note when each plant is placed in the garden box.

It’s just a simple way to visualize a garden or learn about Square Foot Gardening with raised beds.

Plus, it was a way to learn Scratch programming, including using variables, messaging, conditional logic, and object-level code for each sprite.  Each image of a vegetable or flower is a sprite.  When a veggie or flower is planted, the sprite is “cloned”, which is another programming concept.  The object-level code is carried over into the newly created sprite.

I will demonstrate this little Scratch program Saturday at the Rutland Free Library.

I will also have some sprites ready for you to use to create your own Scratch program.  I found that creating the sprites was more time-consuming than the programming, but then again, I am not a graphic artist!