• What is their name?
• Where do they live?
• Are they happy? serious? funny? shy? friendly?

Start a new Scratch project, and delete the cat sprite so that your project is empty. You can find the online Scratch editor at jumpto.cc/scratch-new.

Choose one of these character sprites, and add them to your project:

Choose a backdrop that fits your chatbot’s personality. Here’s an example, although yours doesn’t have to look like this:

Click on your chatbot character, and add this code:

    when this sprite clicked
    ask [Hey! What's your name?] and wait
    say [What a lovely name!] for (2) secs

Click your chatbot to test it out. After you are asked your name, type it into the box along the bottom of the stage, and click the tick (or press return).

Your chatbot simply replies “What a lovely name!” every time. You can personalise your chatbot’s reply, by making use of the user’s answer. Change the chatbot’s code, so that it looks like this:

    when this sprite clicked
    ask [Hey! What's your name?] and wait
    say <join [Hi] (answer)> for (2) secs

To create the last block, you’ll need to first drag on a green join block, and drag it on to the say block.

You can then change the text “hello” to say “Hi”, and drag the light blue answer block (from the ‘Sensing’ section) onto the text “world”.

Test out this new program. Does it work as you expected? Can you fix any problems that you can see? (Hint: you can try adding in a space somewhere!)

It may be that you want to store the user’s name in a variable, so that you can use it again later. Create a new variable called ‘name’. If you’ve forgotten how to do this, the previous ‘Balloons’ project will help you.

Once you’ve created your new variable, make sure that your chatbot’s code looks like this:

    when this sprite clicked
    ask [Hey! What's your name?] and wait
    set [name v] to (answer)
    say <join [Hi ] (name)> for (2) secs

If you test your program again, you’ll notice that the answer is stored in the ‘name’ variable, and is shown in the top-left of the stage.

If you’d rather not see the variable on your stage, you can click the tick next to the variable name in the ‘Scripts’ tab to hide it.

Let’s get your chatbot to ask the user a question which has a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Here’s an example, but you can change the question if you like:

    when this sprite clicked
    ask [Hey! What's your name?] and wait
    set [name v] to (answer)
    say <join [Hi ] (name)> for (2) secs
    ask <join [Are you OK ] (name)> and wait
    if ((answer)=[yes]) then
        say [That's great to hear!] for (2) secs
    end

Notice that now you’ve stored the user’s name in a variable, you can use it as much as you like.

To test this program properly, you’ll need to test it twice - once typing ‘no’ as your answer, and once typing ‘yes’. You should only get a response from your chatbot if you answer ‘yes’.

The trouble with your chatbot is that it doesn’t give a reply if the user answers ‘no’. You can fix this, by changing the if block to an if/else block, so that your code now looks like this:

    when this sprite clicked
    ask [Hey! What's your name?] and wait
    set [name v] to (answer)
    say <join [Hi ] (name)> for (2) secs
    ask <join [Are you OK ] (name)> and wait
    if ((answer)=[yes]) then
        say [That's great to hear!] for (2) secs
    else
        say [Oh no!] for (2) secs
    end

If you test your code, you’ll now see that you get a response when you answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Your chatbot should reply with “That’s great to hear!” when you answer ‘yes’, but will reply with “Oh no!” if you type anything other than yes (else means ‘otherwise’).

You can put any code inside an if or else block, not just code to make your chatbot speak. For example, you can change the chatbot’s costume to match the response.

If you have a look at your chatbot’s costumes, you may see that there is more than one. (If not, you can always add more yourself!)

You can use these costumes as part of your chatbot’s response, by using this code:

    when this sprite clicked
    switch costume to [nano-a v]
    ask [Hey! What's your name?] and wait
    set [name v] to (answer)
    say <join [Hi ] (name)> for (2) secs
    ask <join [Are you OK ] (name)> and wait
    if ((answer)=[yes]) then
        switch costume to [nano-c v]
        say [That's great to hear!] for (2) secs
    else
        switch costume to [nano-d v]
        say [Oh no!] for (2) secs
    end

Test out your program, and you should see your chatbot’s face change depending on the answer you give.

Add another backdrop to your stage, and make sure that it has a useful name (for example ‘bedroom2’).

You can now program your chatbot to change location, by adding this code to your chatbot:

    ask [I'm going home, do you want to come with me?] and wait
    if ((answer) = [yes]) then
        switch backdrop to [bedroom2 v]
    end

You also need to make sure that your chatbot is outside when you start talking to it. Add this block to the top of your chatbot code:

Test your program, and answer ‘yes’ when asked if you want to go home. You should see that the chatbot’s location has changed.

Does your chatbot change location if you type ‘no’? What about if you type ‘I’m not sure’?