Robots and Physical Computing

Scratch 3 was launched on 2nd January 2019, so I wanted to know would Webcams still work with Scratch 3 as it did with Scratch 2. For example, in a previous post  Scratch, webcams, cats and explosions  the cat (Scratch) moved across the screen and a button burst when the object moved in the camera onto it.  Can the same thing be done in Scratch 3? The short answer is yes, but it is done slightly differently. The first change the video capture is not there in the blocks automatically; but is an extension that needs to be added. First, you need to add the extension blocks for video sensing. Go to the little icon at the bottom left of the screen (as shown below) this takes you to the extensions menu. Next, find the Video Sensing option and selected. The webcam, if enabled, with start automatically. A video sensing set of blocks is now in the list of block options.  The rest is very similar to doing this in Scratch 2. Moving ...

I have to admit I do enjoy playing with Scratch. I heard you can connect a webcam to Scratch and though there might be quite a lot of set-up. I was wrong, it is was very easy just one block really. So in this very short post, I share my (very simple) code. Getting Scratch the Cat to follow my finger left or right. I am intrigued to see what else can be done. Code is at  https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/263334488/   All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon