7.04 Powering up your helicopter

Let’s code your helicopter to start up when your laptop is clicked.

Let’s start by broadcasting a start message when the laptop is clicked. You’ll need to create a new message called start.

This code broadcasts a message to all other sprites. If you test this code, you’ll see that nothing happens yet! This is because you’ve not coded the helicopter to respond to the message.

Click on your helicopter sprite and add a When I receive block. Any code attached to this block will be run when it receives the ‘start’ message from the laptop.

If you click your helicopter’s ‘Costumes’ tab, you’ll notice that it has 2 costumes with slightly different propellers.

You can use the 2 costumes to animate the helicopter. Add this code, so that the helicopter changes costumes forever once it receives the ‘start’ message.

Test your code by clicking your laptop sprite. Does your helicopter’s propeller animate?