Introduction to Sensing Blocks

Lesson on Sensing Commands

In this lesson, we will learn about sensing commands with the help of Raj and Arun.

Raj: Hello Arun. You told me that next time we will learn about sensing commands.

Arun: Yes! Sensing commands detect various things. Let’s start with the three Sensing Stack blocks.

Arun: The [ask [What’s your name?] and wait] block shows an input box to type a value that stores in the answer variable.

Arun: The [reset timer] block resets the timer.

Arun: The [set drag mode [draggable v]] block sets the sprite to draggable or not draggable.

Raj: Interesting! What about Boolean blocks?

Arun: There are five Sensing Boolean blocks.

Arun: The [touching [mouse-pointer v]] block checks if the sprite is touching the mouse-pointer or another sprite.

Arun: The touching color [] block checks if the sprite is touching a specific color.

Arun: The color [] is touching [] block checks if a color on the sprite is touching a specific color.

Arun: The [key [space v] pressed?] block checks if the specified key is being pressed.

Arun: The [mouse down?] block checks if the mouse button is down.

Raj: Got it! What about the Reporter blocks?

Arun: There are ten Sensing Reporter blocks.

Arun: The [distance to [mouse-pointer v]] block reports the distance from the sprite to the mouse-pointer or another sprite.

Arun: The [answer] block reports the most recent input with the [ask [What’s your name?] and wait] block.

Arun: The [mouse x] block reports the mouse-pointer’s X position.

Arun: The [mouse y] block reports the mouse-pointer’s Y position.

Arun: The [loudness] block reports how loud the noise is that the microphone is sensing.

Arun: The [timer] block reports how much time has passed since the Scratch program was opened or the timer reset.

Arun: The [([x position v] of [Sprite1 v])] block reports the X position, Y position, direction, costume, size, or volume of the stage or a sprite.

Arun: The [current [year v]] block reports the specified time unit selected.

Arun: The [days since 2000] block reports the number of days since 2000.

Arun: The [username] block reports the username of the user.

Raj: These blocks are amazing! Now we can detect various things in our project.

Arun: Yes! That’s all for this lesson. Next, we will discuss how to use these sensing commands with conditions and loops.

Raj: Looking forward to it!