Gabriel’s Been Coding with Tynker for Four Years!

Gabriel’s Been Coding with Tynker for Four Years!

Gabriel, an eleven-year-old 6th grader from Indiana, loves to code! He’s been learning to code for years – his dad taught him JavaScript and HTML, and he’s been using Tynker since he was just seven.

When we asked him about his hobbies, he told us, “I play Minecraft! I actually own a server, it’s really good. I’ve played guitar since I was six and I play piano now too.” Between his interesting hobbies, extensive programming experience, and incredible projects, we learned a lot when we chatted with him and his mom, Irene! Read on to learn all about Gabriel and his coding journey.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Something that is more realistic than most kids. Something that I can actually be, like an engineer. Just something that will get me a reasonable amount of pay.

Why do you like to code? You can go beyond the bounding box, and you do not have to stick with the normal lines of anything.

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? Pretty excited – I was the second or third one from my class!

How do creativity and coding fit together for you? I like to make something that is not exactly made before. I would not like to just remake stuff. In my opinion, it’s better to just make something new.

How do you get inspiration for your projects? Probably from anything else creative that was new! I would try to improve on it, to try and make something new and creative, so that someone else could improve on that. Not exactly remaking it, but making a version which is better.

“CITY the game”  Check out more of Gabriel’s projects here!

What are you planning to make next? Mars coin. Something that inspired me to make my little game was that there was another game about space that was featured. I realized that it ended too soon, there was only a few things that you got to buy.

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I see what happens.

How did you get introduced to Tynker? My dad is a computer scientist – in my opinion, he’s the best one. I’ve used Tynker since I was seven.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? The texture packs, which are really hard to make without Tynker.

Do you ever Tynker with your friends? Yeah all of them do. One of my friends made the original Omega Flowey whip.

How do you think learning coding now will help you in the future? The future is probably going to have a lot more Python and a lot more programming in general. It will help if you can actually use it. For people that learn how to drive something like a stick shift, that won’t be used in the future so it’s probably not going to be useful. Why not learn something that’s going to be more useful? Also, programming is probably a lot more fun than learning how to drive a stick shift.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Well, most of my friends do, so I can’t recommend for them. I guess so!

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? Read all the commands before doing anything!

Gabriel’s mom Irene told us that Gabriel has been interested in computer science for quite a while! “His dad is a computer scientist, so he was started pretty young. He began projects and coding and it was pretty natural.”

When asked why coding is important for kids, Irene told us, “I think it should be part of the curriculum – computers are ubiquitous and coding is something everyone should know how to do.” We couldn’t agree more! Irene continued, saying, “In many fields, it is becoming more important and maybe a requirement of those fields. Having the basics in coding and interacting with a computer in that way is a good thing.”

We were impressed to hear that Gabriel is usually only interested in “games that allow him to code, or change the game and design elements of his own. He’s not going to play a game for very long if he can’t modify something of it or make it his own.”

It’s great to hear that Gabriel is so excited about and immersed in the world of making! Thanks for chatting with us, Gabriel and Irene. We can’t wait to see what you come up with next!