[rahimnathwani]

I'm curious how you got started and got hooked?

My son (7yo) likes 'Scratch Jr' (iPad app) but he's mainly using it like a drawing app. He likes to create characters and then animate them a bit. He's not using any of the more advanced features like making one character moved when bumped by another.

I'd like to think he'd enjoy Scratch, but I'm not sure how to introduce it to him in a way that he might find interesting.

Do you recall what the first few things you did were?

[dnsge]

Truthfully, I can't remember what my first projects looked like. I started, I created projects using the downloadable Scratch 1.4 application and didn't begin uploading projects to the public website until I was (apparently) already doing complicated things.

Going back to look at my first uploaded project on my first account, I implemented a "programing language" [sic]: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/10165000/ which is obviously not a beginner's project.

However, what I expect inspired me to create this project and keep creating was exploring the public projects that other users were uploading. For example, scrolling through my projects, I see several "Operating System" simulators that were inspired by others (operating systems were all the rage on Scratch).

Because you can "See Inside" every public Scratch project, it's easy to see something you like (e.g. a game, an animation) and make your own while heavily borrowing ideas and code from others. I was fortunate that my parents allowed me mostly-unrestricted access to a desktop computer where I was able to explore and create on my own.