Scratch, Media Lab Video

MEDIA LAB VIDEO We take the name "Scratch" from the way that hip-hop disk jockeys scratch with music. They take pieces of music, and combine them together in unexpected and creative ways. We want to let kids be able to mix together media in the same type of way to take graphics and photos and music and sounds and mix them together. We're launching the Scratch software now so that people around the world can download it for free make their own Scratch projects, and then post their projects to share with people around the world. Scratch is trying to bring the high-level computational concepts to anyone. Creating a program is just a matter of snapping graphical blocks together on the screen like putting LEGO bricks together in the world. Rather than just having something change, you can control how it changes So rather than warping a photo, you can say: "As I move the mouse I want it to warp in this way" or "I want it to change colors as I move" or "depending what I do" so it can respond to you dynamically And a lot of programmers know how to do that, but there are not that many accessible tools that really let young people make interactive software, make their own interactions come to life. In Scratch it is easier than in other languages to get parts of other peoples' projects or programs into your own environment. I like the idea of a tool that can be used in schools but suggests to the learner "I can use this autonomously." Our ultimate goal is to bring together a worldwide community of creators who are constantly using Scratch to create new projects, share them with their friends around the world and learn from one another in the process. http://scratch.mit.edu MEDIA LAB VIDEO