Project: Run, Scratch Cat, Run!

Hello! Hope you have had some fun with last week's project, also our very first project to have user interaction via the microphone. You may also have read the tutorial on programming falling objects. This week, we will explore interaction with the keyboard. We will see how to program a character to run and jump. The final program is below. Use the left and right arrow keys to control Scratch Cat. Hitting the spacebar will make it jump.

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Once you have downloaded the project file you will notice that the script is short! There are really just two main behaviours we want to program and they are: Running and Jumping. Let's begin:

Step 1: Program Scratch Cat to run left and right

Let's start with a new program. We have the default Scratch Cat and a blank Stage. We paint a black strip on Stage with the Paint Editor. That's our floor.

Click the Scratch Cat sprite and put in these blocks of code:

Code to move Scratch Cat left and right with the arrow keys

The go to x.. and y.. block merely places Scratch Cat at coordinates (0, -80) at the very start. The more interesting bits lie in the forever loop block. What it says is "forever (or always) look out for the left and right arrow key presses". If the right arrow key is pressed, then "make Scratch Cat face right and move it Cat 10 steps forward". Similarly, if the left arrow key is pressed, then Scratch Cat should face left and move 10 steps to the left.

Run the script now and you should be able to move the cat left and right with the arrow keys, as if it is skating. That is not what we want. We want it to look like it is running. We will fix this later after we have programmed it to jump.

Currently, notice that Scratch Cat stops as soon as it reaches the left or right edge of the stage. We will add in a script to "roll up" the screen such that when Scratch cat reaches the right edge it continues to the left edge and vice versa:

Makes sure that Scratch Cats "rolls over" from edge to edge

Run the script, move Scratch Cat to an edge and watch the difference.

Now, on to the next step:

Step 2: Program Scratch Cat to Jump

Jumping essentially involves falling. Think about it. As soon as our feet leave the ground, we are already acted upon by gravity. The reason we are able to leave the ground is because the force we muster in our jump is greater than that of gravity. Nevertheless, due to gravity, our velocity decreases all the time as soon as we jump. Here is how we will translate this in Scratch: We add in the code for falling first. Refer to the tutorial on programming a falling object in Scratch for a better understanding of this script.

Blocks added into the script above to simulate fall

The blocks above says that if Scratch Cat is on the ground, we set its falling velocity to 0.5 to cancel out the work by gravity. this makes sure that it lands on the ground, and not through it. Now we slip in a couple of blocks to make it jump:

Blocks for jumping

With these blocks, when we hit the spacebar the cat jumps as its y position is changed by the jump velocity of 10.

The only thing missing now are the running legs. We will do this by alternating the costumes. Note that we only want Scratch to move its legs while running on the ground and not while its jumping in the air, so we slip in controls for this in the if y position < -80 block (i.e. if it is on the ground):

Blocks to change costumes, giving the impressing of running

And we are done. This is the final script for keyboard interaction, after adding in all the code that we have discussed:

Final script to make Scratch Cat run and jump with the keyboard

There you go! You have just programmed Scratch Cat to run and jump with keyboard controls. Congrats!
Note: if you have downloaded my project you will notice that I have used variables to store my values. If "variables" sound alien, you may go without them for now. We will have a tutorial about them soon.