Which version of Scratch to use?

While you can use any version of Scratch, if you have a Raspberry Pi 4, we recommend using Scratch 3. Follow the instructions on the next page to get Scratch 3 on your Pi 4.

If you have an older Pi however such as a Pi 3 or older, you may not be able to run Scratch 3 because of the memory requirements of the program.

You can however run Scratch 2 which still has Raspberry Pi GPIO functionality, so skip to the section "Scratch 2" to find out how.

How to open Scratch 2 on the Pi

Once you are in the Raspbian desktop, you will open up Scratch 2 which comes preinstalled on the Pi.

To Open Scratch 2:

Click the Raspberry Pi icon on the top left of the desktop, then Programming>Scratch2

And that's it! Scratch is ready to go!

Adding the Pi Plugin

Open the More Blocks panel, click Add an Extension, and select Pi GPIO. You should then see two new blocks appear:

You can use these two purple blocks to control output pins or read input pins by entering the pin number into the field, or using a variable containing the pin number.

Next up, putting the spiffy new blocks to work.