Floating Astronaut Using Scratch

I really like coding, and I've always been fascinated with space. So one day, I figured why not let the two worlds collide? Thus began my journey to create a realistic(ish) zero-gravity simulator with Scratch. This project is relatively straightforward, but if you need any troubleshooting just drop me a comment, and I will try to help.

1. Computer. That's it! Make sure you have a Scratch account though.

First you'll need a new design to work on this project with. Once you're logged in to Scratch, you should be on the main home screen. Look to the upper left side, and there will be a button that says create, located right between the Scratch logo and the explore button. Click that, and you will be taken to a new project. Easy!

No, not the fizzy soda! By sprites, I mean characters that you can code to perform all kinds of actions. For this project, we'll need an astronaut. There's a few astronaut sprites in the Sprite library, but if you don't like those you can always head on over to Google images and search up 'astronaut clipart' to find one you like, and then upload it to Scratch. Personally, I thought the 'Ripley' sprite would do just fine, so that's what I used from the Scratch library.

There are many, many space-themed backdrops in Scratch. However, it's just like the sprites. If you don't like them, you can always download your own space backdrop from Google or another website. I chose the 'Nebula' backdrop, located under the 'Space' category.

Now it's time for the fun part: the code! You can pretty much code it however you want, or not at all if you don't want to. I used a few simple lines of code to make him constantly rotate and bounce off of the sides of the backdrop. You can check it out in the images above, and feel free to modify it however you please! Also, for this step I made a bunch of slightly rotated costumes for the Ripley sprite in order to make it look like he's spinning, so if you want to do the same or something different feel free.

Now it's your turn to create! Modify the code, create your own backdrops, design your own sprites. You have free reign over all of Scratch's tools! Again, if you need any help, drop me a comment, and I will try to assist you in any way I can.