Maze Master: Help Your Character Escape!

In this lesson, you'll guide your students through creating and navigating a maze in Scratch Jr. They'll learn to edit the background to design their maze, place their character, and use movement blocks to navigate. Extend the challenge by encouraging more complex mazes. Conclude with students sharing their creations.

Learning Goals Learning Outcomes Teacher Notes

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1 Introduction
2 Mazes
3 Designing Your First Maze
4 Placing the Character
5 Coding the Maze Solution
Challenge
Quiz

1 - Introduction

2 - Mazes

Start by explaining to your students that a maze is simply a puzzle made up of a set of confusing paths or turns.

Then, give them a chance to share their own understanding: "Can anyone tell me in their own words what a maze is? What's the point of a maze?"

Listen to their answers, and then guide the conversation to these key ideas: A maze is like a special puzzle path with walls! When you start a maze, you have to follow the lines and try to find the only way to get from the beginning to the end without hitting any of the dead ends or walls.

Think of it like being lost in a big cornfield or trying to find your way through a giant toy store. A maze is designed to be tricky and make you stop and think about which way to turn. Today, you're going to be the designers who build those tricky paths right inside Scratch Jr.!

3 - Designing Your First Maze

Now that you know what a maze is, let's become the designers! The first step is to use the Background Editor in Scratch Jr. to draw the path for your character.

Accessing the Background Editor

Select the Icon: Show your students how to select the background icon (the small landscape picture) just above the stage area.
Choose to Edit: Guide them to choose the "edit" option (the paintbrush icon) usually found in the top right corner of the background selection screen. This takes them into the drawing studio.

Creating the Simple Maze

In the editor, we'll draw a simple barrier to start:

Draw the Barrier: Instruct the students to select a drawing tool (like the line tool) and draw a single, thick, horizontal line across the middle of the screen. This line will act as the wall or barrier that the character must navigate around.
Mark the Start: Encourage them to use the pencil or brush tool to mark a starting point for their character by drawing a small "X" on the path on one side of the line.
Mark the Target: On the opposite side of the barrier, have them draw a small "O" to represent the target or finish line.

4 - Placing the Character

Position the Character: Have the students tap on their character and drag it directly onto the "X" on the screen to indicate the starting position.

Exit the Editor: Tap the checkmark icon to save the background and return to the coding screen.

The stage is set! Now you're ready to code the solution to your own maze.

5 - Coding the Maze Solution

Now that you've drawn the path, it's time to code the solution and guide your character around the barrier you created!

Since this is a simple maze (just a straight line barrier), you'll only need a few movement blocks to solve it.

Building the Sequence

Start the Code: Instruct the students to drag the green flag block into the coding area to begin the program.
Move to the Barrier: Add a "move forward" block (blue right arrow) to move the character close to the line.
Go Around the Barrier: Now, the character needs to go over or under the line. Since we want them to move around it, they'll need:
- A "move up" block (blue up arrow) to move above the line.
- A "move forward" block to move across the line.
- A "move down" block (blue down arrow) to get back onto the ground level.
Finish the Maze: Finally, add another "move forward" block to move the character to the "O" finish line.

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Copyright Notice
This lesson is copyright of Coding Ireland 2017 - 2025. Unauthorised use, copying or distribution is not allowed.

Your Answer or Description of Your Work

Project URL This can be a link to your project (e.g. a Scratch, Microbit, Arcade or CodePen URL link).

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Click on the Share button in the project editor.
Click on the Copy Link button.
Click on the Copy Link link. This will save the URL of your project page into your clipboard.

To get the URL link of your Microbit project:

Click on the button in the project editor.
Click on the Publish Project button.
Click on the Copy button. This will save the URL of your project page into your clipboard.

To get the URL link of your Arcade project:

Click on the button in the project editor.
Click on the Publish Project button.
Click on the Copy button. This will save the URL of your project page into your clipboard.

To get the URL link of your CodePen project:

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Open your project in the editor.
Click on the Save button at the top of the editor.
Copy the link from the address bar in your web browser (e.g. https://codepen.io/Jane-Smith/pen/gOVXxBQ)

Maze Master: Help Your Character Escape!