Young and old participated in this year’s international Scratch Day event hosted by Introtech at the Weltevreden Methodist Church.
Dieter Lander, co-founder of Introtech, explained this event, held on 14 May, was one of 500 held all over the world, where children are introduced to computer programming.
“Computers are really stupid machines, they can just count really fast but we make computers do amazing things through programming,” said Lander. “Programming is like baking. You follow a recipe, which you need to follow in the right order. It is like building a machine to do something for you and that machine is software,” Lander added.
Essentially, the Scratch way of programming is using recipes or strings of commands, which is the basic theory of programming languages. However, Scratch is more visual and easier to use as there is no way of copying down a code incorrectly, as every part of the recipe is created in separate blocks.
There are over a 100 different code blocks, which are grouped into different categories such as motion, control, looks, sound and events. Code recipes that were experimented with included making a character move to a beat or making it talk.
The invite for the event was initially sent out to children in grades 4 to 6 as this is the age group where children are the most interested and receptive to Scratch teachings, but children as young as seven and even adults enjoyed playing around with the software.
“Computers are the future so it is important for the children to start now. My children have already been exposed to a programming app called Hopscotch and now I want them to get to know Scratch because it is on the computer,” said mother, Kuraysha Ismail, who brought her children, nieces and nephews to the event.
Details: Dieter Lander, info@introtech.co.za or 082 885 7298.
Related stories:
