Scratch on the Raspberry Pi

Scratch is a graphical block based programming language. It's designed for children as it allows them to learn programming without needing to memorise the correct words or syntax. It is also useful for those wanting to get started with programming or wanting to try graphics programing.

In this video explain about how well Scratch runs on the Raspberry Pi. This is prompted by a recent workshop I held where I came across some problems. This is going to discuss how different versions of the Raspberry Pi work with Scratch as well as a look at the difference with the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS, released in 2023 based on Debian Bookworm.

If you are looking for tutorials see learning Scratch programming.

Problems with 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS on Raspberry Pi 5

The problems I encountered running Scratch 3 on a Raspberry Pi 5 appear to be down to an issue when using 16KB pages. This is explained in the article below, which also includes a temporary workaround.

• Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm - Scratch issue

To use Scratch 3 with the 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS edit the config.txt file to set the kernel to 8KByte pages
kernel=kernel8.img

Hopefully a more permanent solution will be found soon.

Space Asteroids

Also see my space asteroids game for an example of physical computing using Scratch 3.

• Space Asteroids physical computing game - Scratch 3 Raspberry Pi