Activities/Turtle Art/Manual

Play with Turtle Art

Play with Turtle Art to draw colorful art patterns using a turtle that accepts instructions for movement.

With visual programming blocks, you can snap together programs by compiling (combining) them in ways to create anything you can imagine.

Turtle Art

What am I learning?

You are learning how to build a set of instructions for a pretend turtle to follow. With repeating instructions and conditional following of the instructions, your pretend turtle can draw shapes and lines over and over again with interesting results.

Why is this important?

You learn to predict what each instruction will cause the turtle to create with line art. It helps you detect patterns, understand the repetition of instructions, and understand following instructions only when a certain condition is met, which is important in computer programming, mathematics, and science.

Getting started

Turtle Art allows you to create drawings using the Logo programming language. You can see what programmers do to make programs by giving the turtle programming commands.

Open Screen

Commands for the turtle

Some basic commands you can give your turtle on the Turtle Tab are :

• Clean: Clears the screen of all pictures and returns the turtle to the center.

• Forward: Moves the turtle forward the number of pixels entered on the attached bar.

• Back: Moves the turtle backward the number of pixels entered on the attached bar.

• Left: Turns the turtles direction left by the angle set by the attached bar.

• Right: Turns the turtles direction right by the angle set by the attached bar.

• Arc: Draws a circle or part of a circle. The angle is what the turtle draws, the radius determines the size of the circle.