Highhill Homeschool: Create Your Own Video Games

Scratch is computer programming language created to help kids learn computer programming skills. It's free! There are some excellent tutorials available on youtube that provide lessons and ideas for using Scratch.

In this tutorial, users learn to create if statements which are tied to keyboard strokes. My kids had an assignment to watch the video and then create a program which employed the skills in the tutorial.

My daughter created Falling Ball Competition. It's a two person game. When the falling balls reach the corresponding balls at the bottom of the screen the competitors press a key on the keyboard to earn a point. If the keyboard key is pressed before or after the balls are in contact the competitor loses a point. The player with the highest score after 48 balls fall is the winner. The pink balls are controlled with the keys a,s,d and f. The purple balls are controlled with the keys h,j,k and l. To try the game click on the Falling Ball Competition link above.