Setup
Keep your Scratch project tab open all week. Open in a new tab so you don’t leave the course.
a free Scratch account and a saved blank project
where Scratch lives and how to save your work
a workspace that's ready for the rest of the week
Before campers touch their laptops, show the whole room:
- Open Scratch in a new tab. Point at the Create button.
- Show the editor — sprite pane (bottom right), stage (top right), code area (left), block palette (far left).
- Sign in or create a free account. Save a blank project named "Fish Food — Coach Demo."
- Make it clear: campers must save with the same name pattern every day. "Fish Food — First Last."
The big idea
The whole course uses one tool: Scratch. It runs in your browser. You don't install anything. You sign in once, and Scratch saves your work to your account so you can come back to it the next day.
Today is small but important. By the end of setup, every camper has a Scratch account, a blank project saved with their name, and a feel for where the buttons live. The actual building starts in Stage 1.
- Scratch
- the free website where we build the game
- account
- your spot on Scratch so your project is saved
- project
- the game we are building, saved as one file in your account
- editor
- the screen where you drag blocks to build your game
- sprite
- a character or object that lives on the stage
- stage
- the area where the game is played
Build it
Step 1 — Open Scratch and create an account
Click the Scratch button at the top of this page. It opens scratch.mit.edu in a new tab.
In the top-right corner you'll see two buttons: Join Scratch and Sign in.
- If your camp gave you a username and password, click Sign in and use those.
- If you don't have one, click Join Scratch and follow the steps. You'll need a username, a password, and a grown-up's email address. Your username can be anything that's not already taken — it doesn't have to be your real name.
Once you're signed in, your username shows up in the top-right corner. That means Scratch will save your work.
Step 2 — Create a new project
Click Create in the top menu. A new project opens.
You'll see a friendly orange cat in the middle of a white stage. That's Sprite1, also called Scratch Cat. Every brand-new Scratch project starts with this cat.
Don't worry — we won't keep the cat. In Stage 1 we'll replace it with a fish.
Step 3 — Name your project and save it
At the top of the editor, find the project name field. It probably says "Untitled-N" or "My Project."
Click on it and rename it to:
Fish Food — First Last
Use your real name. "Fish Food — Alex Chen." That way coaches can find your project easily during the week.
Then click File → Save Now at the top. (Scratch also auto-saves, but pressing Save Now is the safe move.)
Step 4 — Find the four panels
The Scratch editor has four main panels. Touch each one with your mouse so you know where it is:
- Block palette (far left) — the rainbow of colored blocks you drag from. Categories are Motion, Looks, Sound, Events, Control, Sensing, Operators, Variables, My Blocks.
- Code area (middle) — where you snap blocks together to build your scripts.
- Stage (top right) — where the game plays. Click the green flag to run; click the red stop sign to stop.
- Sprite pane (bottom right) — the list of every sprite (character/object) in your game. Right now there's just Scratch Cat (Sprite1).
You'll be using all four panels every day. Knowing where they are is half the battle.
Understand it
The Scratch account is what makes today work for the whole week. Without an account, your project disappears every time you close the tab. With an account, your project waits for you in My Stuff — you can open it on any computer with a browser. By Friday, the same project will have grown into a finished game. That growing-over-time is only possible because of the account.
The project name matters more than it sounds. Camps usually have 10–20 kids all building Fish Food at the same time, so coaches need to be able to glance at a list and find yours. "Fish Food — Alex Chen" sorts cleanly. "my game lol" does not.
The four-panel layout is the same in every Scratch project, every year, on every computer. Once you know the layout, you can sit at any computer with Scratch and start building immediately. That's why we touch each panel in Step 4 — building the muscle memory before code starts.
Test your setup
- You are signed in to Scratch — your username appears in the top-right.
- You created a new project from the Create button.
- Your project is named Fish Food — First Last (with your real name).
- You clicked File → Save Now at least once.
- You can point to all four panels: block palette, code area, stage, sprite pane.
- Design check. Close the tab on purpose. Reopen Scratch, sign in, click My Stuff, and find your project. Open it. Your work is still there.
If it breaks
- Scratch won't let me create an account. Your camp may have an age policy that needs a parent's email. Ask a coach — they may have a pre-made class account for you.
- I forgot my password. Use the Forgot password? link on the sign-in page. If your camp made the account, ask the coach.
- I clicked Create but I see a blank gray page. Refresh the tab. Some browsers need a moment. If it's still blank, ask a coach to try a different browser (Chrome and Firefox work best).
- My project name has weird characters in it. Stick to letters, numbers, spaces, and dashes. Avoid emoji or symbols — they sometimes confuse the auto-save.
- I closed the tab and now I can't find my project. Go back to scratch.mit.edu, sign in, click your username in the top-right, choose My Stuff. Your project should be there. If it's not, you may not have saved — ask a coach.
The single biggest setup failure is account creation for under-13 kids. Scratch requires a parent's email for new accounts. If your camp has a registration form, pre-create the accounts before camp starts and hand each camper a slip with username + password. This saves 20 minutes per kid.
The second biggest issue: a kid who creates an account but never signs in — they're working in a guest project that disappears at the end of the day. Walk the room before Stage 1 starts and confirm every laptop shows a username in the top-right corner.
The "where do I save my project" question is moot in Scratch — the account is the save. But the project name matters. Coaches should glance at the sprite list during stage transitions and confirm everyone's project is named correctly.
If your camp can't use Scratch's official site (some schools block it), the alternative is to use Scratch offline (downloaded), but everything else in this course assumes the web version.