Keira Combines All Her Hobbies to Create Awesome Games!

Keira was a dream interviewee – before we even began asking questions, she excitedly told us, “I really like Tynker because I like to draw, I like to sing, I like to ride my scooter – and you can program almost anything in Tynker!” Because she’s homeschooled, Keira learns all year round! She’s currently in 5th (and 6th!) grades. She’s eleven year old and lives, learns, and codes in O’Fallen, Illinois.

It’s evident Keira is a vibrant girl with a lot of cool hobbies, so we’re honored she chooses to spend time coding with Tynker! During the 6 months she’s been using Tynker, she’s created a lot of great projects. Some of our favorites include an iPhone simulator, a creative remake of Minecraft, and a fun adventure game. Read on to learn more about Keira and play with the projects she’s created!

What do you want to be when you grow up? I’m going to become a knee doctor, that way I can help my mom and grandma’s knees.

What’s your favorite subject in school? Right now it’s science because one time I did an experiment where I put a regular chicken egg inside of vinegar. The acid ate up the shell and it became kind of squishy!

How did you get introduced to Tynker? Well, I’ve always wanted to code, but all of the coding languages were kind of hard because I couldn’t remember all the commands. Then my mom found this app on my iPad and said, “Hey Kira, why don’t you try this one out?” So that’s how I got introduced to Tynker. I used tutorials, and I’ve gotten the hang of it now! I love that you can draw and make whatever you want because I love to draw!

What is your favorite thing you’ve made? Right now it’s the Martian adventure game! The way the story goes is that you escape from Mars in your spaceship. Then your spaceship crashes into a tree, so you have to get different supplies from different people. You talk to them and see if they can help you. I’ve gotten to the part where I go to a workshop and the owner of the workshop has been turned into a troll by a witch! The player has to help find a cure for the troll, and when they find the cure for the troll he will help fix the spaceship. At the end, I’m planning on doing a huge boss battle with a bunch of Martians.

Try out Martian Adventure for yourself – it’s loads of fun!

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? Yes, I do. I like how different people make different creations and how creative they are! I like the different drawings and how they draw cats or dogs. I like this one game called Anime Face Maker – it’s really cool because I get to make my own anime face.

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it?  I usually run the game over and over again to see if I want to fix anything before I completely publish it. Then I look at how many views and likes it gets because on my other games I haven’t gotten that many likes.

How do you think learning coding now will help you in the future? I think it’ll help me a lot! When I grow up I want to make a game like Minecraft, except a bunch of cats running around! You’ll get to purr and play with yarn and stuff like normal cats do, but it’s going to be little pixels like Minecraft is.

Why do you like to code? I like to code because there’s a bunch of different creative stuff! I get to learn how to use different functions and I get to create my own functions in the game. I can make the actors do different things – instead of walk, I can make them sprint, so that’s very cool.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yes! I think definitely other kids should try coding because it’s super fun, you get to make whatever you want, and it’s just awesome!

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? Well, I think the easiest way to start with Tynker is to do all the tutorials, then once you get a hang of Tynker you’re all set to code! I think you’ll make a lot of cool games with Tynker.

For Keira’s mother, Heather, coding “opens up a whole new world! Everything is going toward computer-based everything, so everyone needs a foundation in coding.”

She loves that Kiera has been learning to code with Tynker, saying, “She has just taken on so much and it’s amazing.” Kiera’s projects really are amazing – she hasn’t been coding for long but has accomplished a lot already! Heather went on to tell us, “She has some disabilities physically, so this is what she’s been doing in her downtime because she can’t really run and play that way, so it’s a good outlet.”

Thanks for speaking with us, Keira and Heather! We’re so glad coding is a great new hobby for you, Keira, and can’t wait to see what you come up with next.