Here’s a project that sings and dances! It’s based on the sample project that you can see if you start Scratch and then go to File menu > Open… > Examples > Names > Tamara.

As you pause your cursor over a letter, it bounces and makes a colored trail. The trail changes colors and appears at a slightly different location each time, but it’s always just below the letter. At the same time, the letter sings a note.

Can you figure out how to create this project? Here are some hints:

Hints!

1.
There are 5 sprites — one sprite for each letter of the author’s name (Terry). Each sprite’s script is quite similar to the others.

2.
Each sprite begins in the same way when the green flag is clicked:

• It lifts the pen up.
• It moves to its place on screen.
• It clears the screen of any lines previously drawn by the pen.
• It puts the pen down.

3.
What command makes a sprite spring into action when it is clicked? (Hint! This command isn’t placed beneath when green flag is clicked. Instead, it begins a new section of the script. Look within the control commands to find a command that activates a sprite when it is clicked!)

4.
Each sprite draws colored lines when it is clicked. The number of lines, their colors, sizes, and locations change a little each time a line is drawn. To achieve this variation, we use the pick random command. pick random selects a random number from within a range of numbers. For example, here’s a command that makes the pen glide to a different x: and y: location each time it draws:

You can use this same idea to change the pen size, pen color, and even the number of times that the letter draws lines. Can you figure out how?

5.
To make the sound occur at the same moment that you touch a letter, broadcast a message and then receive it within the same script, like this:

. . .

Here are all the commands for a sprite named t. Can you assemble them into a working script?

. . .

Have fun!