Gibson Gives Encouraging Advice to Fellow Programmers!

This week’s Featured Maker is successful on the ice – and on Tynker! Eleven-year-old Gibson is in 7th grade and loves playing video games, Minecraft, and hockey. He’s created some excellent projects and even coded a winning project during this summer’s Code-A-Thon! We spoke with Gibson to learn a bit more about him and why he loves coding with Tynker.

What’s your favorite subject in school? My favorite subject is science because you get to learn about the world! We get to learn about problems and sometimes get to do hands-on experiments, which I think is always fun.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I kinda want to be in the NHL for hockey. I’ve been playing half my life.

How did you get introduced to Tynker? My dad found the website and he’s a coder himself, so he wanted to get me into coding. He made it one of my chores, too! Every day I do half an hour of it. I really like it. It’s good to start off learning code.

What’s your favorite course or game in Tynker? I really like Goblin Quest. It’s fun, and sometimes it can get a little hard, but you get through it!

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? I like the ability to switch from blocks to Javascript or Python.

How’d you find out about the Code-A-Thon? My dad told me that you guys were going to start that this summer.

What is your favorite thing you’ve made? I’m working on one that’s a work in progress. I’m making this project called “Ask Around.” There are different actors you click on and they talk to you.

Gibson’s project “Ask Around”

What inspires you to code? I like video games, and I want to be able to make my own!

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? I’d tell them, don’t neglect coding until you’ve tried it. You can have a lot of fun with it, and if you don’t know how to do it, keep trying! Take some courses! Use Tynker!

Jason, Gibson’s dad, thinks learning to code is very important and has facilitated his son’s use of Tynker. He told us, “I don’t handhold. I say ‘Hey, get this thing done in a week, that’s your challenge’ – but if he has questions he can come to me.” When asked what benefits coding has for Gibson, Jason answered, “I’m a software developer so I’d say the biggest benefit is teaching him grit – you have to keep trying to figure out how to do what it is you want to do. Thinking like a software developer is a very iterative process, and it makes you really deconstruct things and think an issue through.” For Jason, programming helps prepare Gibson for the future. “I like how it teaches you basic software development ideas and problem-solving ideas. I think that’s really important. Software development jobs are the jobs of the future.”

We couldn’t agree more! Thanks for speaking with us, Gibson and Jason. We can’t wait for everyone to see your “Ask Around” project, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you come up with next! Happy Tynkering!