About MotionPals
MotionPals is a block-animation studio for ages 6–8 — the ScratchJr urge to make a character come alive, with no accounts and nothing to buy. You snap blocks in a row to write a little program, press Run, and watch Zip the robot do exactly what you snapped, in the order you snapped it.
There are four kinds of block:
- Move — ◀️ ▶️ 🔼 🔽 walk Zip a step, or 🔄 spin it around.
- Look — 🔍 grow bigger or 🔎 shrink smaller.
- Say — 💬 pop up a word (“hi” · “wow” · “boop” · “hop” · “zoom” · “yay”).
- Repeat — 🔁 Repeat all does the whole dance again a few times; Repeat these wraps just the last few blocks. This is a loop — the big idea that a program can do a lot with a little.
When you like your dance, MotionPals turns it into a little cartridge code (it starts with MP-). Copy it onto paper or into a message to share with a friend — or paste their code in to load it and remix it. Nothing is ever sent to a server; the code is just your program written down.
Two ways to say “which way”
In MotionPals the arrows are screen arrows: ▶️ always moves Zip to the right of the screen, whichever way Zip is facing. Spin only turns Zip’s face. Some of our other apps (SaySoTots, PathPals) use turn and step instead: “turn right” changes which way the robot faces, and “step” goes forward the way it is facing. Both are real ways programs describe movement, and children meet both. It helps to say out loud which one you are playing.
Be Zip, on the floor. Tape a 5 × 5 grid on the floor. One child is Zip and stands in the middle; another reads the printed picture cards one at a time. Zip moves one square for each arrow, and only spins in place for 🔄. Swap roles. Then try the turn-and-step version: Zip only steps forward, and “turn right” turns Zip’s body.
- 🤖 Zip — the robot who does exactly what your blocks say, in order.
- 🔧 Cog — the mender who asks what block comes next — and never tells you. Cog asks you a challenge but never tells you the answer — figuring it out is the fun part.
Honest note for grown-ups: MotionPals is a first, playful feel for sequence and repetition — the roots of coding (CSTA 1A-AP). It is a taste, not a claim of any particular outcome. Everything runs on this device; there are no accounts, no ads, and nothing a child does leaves the device.