What is a Sprite in Scratch?

What is a Sprite?

• Sprites — are the actors or main characters of a Scratch project.
• The default sprite is an orange cat, but sprites can be anything, such as another animal such as a puppy, or even a piece of fruit, like a watermelon.
• Choosing a Sprite is one of the first steps when kids begin coding in Scratch.
• Sprites are displayed on the background, referred to as the stage, where they perform actions, animations, and become the players in all the fun games kids design in Scratch.

All About Sprites:

• They were initially designed to help graphics load faster in video games, by allowing characters to move across the screen, independent of the background.
• They can perform an action and their movement is triggered by a set of instructions, by an action, by another player, or they can work independently.
• Scratch has a library of sprites with categories, making it easy to choose the sprite you’re looking for.
• They can either use a sprite from the sprite library, upload your own sprite to Scratch, such as a photo.
• You can design your own sprites, by altering the sprites already in the Scratch library, changing their color or size.
• You can even draw your own sprites, using vector drawing tools, where your only limited by your own imagination.
• Sprites can wear costumes, which can be designed or uploaded to Scratch.

Sprites are easy to learn how to work with for beginning coders, and that is why they are used in Scratch. There can be unlimited numbers of different Sprites in Scratch.

Learn to Code with us at Code Ninjas Ladera Ranch! We teach coding to kids 5–14 years old , in a self-paced, supportive, and individualized manner. We are located the small community of Ladera Ranch, in Orange County, California.

To learn Scratch at home, kids can simply go https://scratch.mit.edu/ideas and create a free account to get started.

Written by Serafina Benjamin, a freelance writer and content strategist. You can see more of her work here on medium.com, on her blog serafinahikes.com, and published in several magazines.