Jessica Chang - Scratch 2.0 Game Development Hotshot

Sergio van Pul is a game designer and artist interested in making interactive media entertainment. He has built games and interactive applications using Flash ActionScript. He has also worked on web designs and stylesheets, using a basic text/script editor to write raw HTML and CSS, as well as using the Drupal CMS to assemble a website. He is also familiar with visual editing tools such as Photoshop and Premire.

Sergio has worked as a freelance designer and programmer on a variety of projects, many of which involved interaction and education. During this time, he met people from Scratch Web Foundation, a Dutch organization that promotes digital design and programming knowledge in primary education.

Sergio started using Scratch to teach children about programming and game design. Occasionally, he also uses Scratch as a quick and easy prototyping tool to test game interaction concepts. He likes experimenting with the program and building tutorials, examples, and complete game projects. Some of his material was printed and tested during workshop sessions for Scratch Web Foundation. This book is his first official publication.

I'd like to thank the people from Scratch Web Foundation. In particular, I'd like to thank Joek van Montfort and Helen Fermate for working with me and giving me the drive and opportunity to develop engaging Scratch projects. Some of the projects offered in this book started out as little thought experiments and workshops for Scratch Web. I'd also like to thank Jan-Pieter van Seventer, one of my game-design teachers, for notifying me about an interesting workshop assignment for children. This assignment solidified my interest in Scratch as a teaching tool for interactive media education. His brief note set me on the path that eventually led to the publication of this book. Finally, I'd also like to thank my co-author Jessica Chiang for stepping in and taking some of the burden from me of writing a whole book worth of engaging Scratch projects.

Jessica Chiang is a senior software engineer, online educator, and technology enthusiast.

She has worked with a wide range of interesting and cutting-edge technologies including nuclear detector and unmanned aircraft-control system. Not only an inquisitive learner, she also loves to teach in class as well as online through her website (shallwelearn.com) and YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/kookoodoll).

Jessica has self-published an e-book titled Shall We Learn Scratch Programming: E for Everyone . This book has been requested by many schools to supplement their computer science and education curriculum; one such school is Jessica's alma mater, the University of California, San Diego.

I would like to thank my husband Dr. Greg Chen for his loving patience and encouragement during the whole writing process. I also want to thank both of my sons, Matt and Vincent, for being the game beta testers. Finally, I want to thank my parents for fostering in me a spirit of curiosity and adventure. Without them, I would have neither started nor completed this book.

Michael Badger has written several books for Packt Publishing including Beginner's Guide for Scratch 1.4 and Scratch 2.0 . He writes a regular Scratch programming column for Raspberry Pi Geek magazine and frequently facilitates Scratch workshops for both parents and kids. To learn more, visit www.scratchguide.com.

Joshua Madara is a digital and electronic artist living in Seattle, Washington, where he enjoys doing esoteric things with computers. He has introduced Scratch to people of all ages through community centers, makerspaces, and online classes.

Mehul Shukla is one of the PlayStation Mobile specialists in the SCEE R&D Developer Services Team. The Developer Services Team provides front line engineering support for all game developers, large or small, on all PlayStation platforms. On a daily basis he provides technical support and performance advice for developers all over the globe on the PSM community forums.

Mehul has also given technical talks about PlayStationMobile development at a number of Games Industry conferences and academic events.

Mehul joined SCEE R&D straight from University and has a Master's degree in Games Programming and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Systems Engineering.

Mehul has also worked on books titled PlayStation Mobile Development Cookbook and Mobile Game Design Essentials , both published by Packt Publishing.

Joy Suliman is an educator and community facilitator who specializes in creating dynamic learning workshops with a creative technology focus for children and young people. Joy brings together her strong online skills with her diverse experience in learning technology, workshop facilitation, research, professional development training, online collections, regional outreach, and youth work to develop innovative, integrated learning programs, professional development workshops, and community engagement strategies for informal learning settings.

She has worked at Queensland University of Technology, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Arab Council in Australia, ABC local radio, and the University of Wollongong.