Learn how creativity queen Katie expresses herself – both on the stage and through coding!

Ten-year-old actress and coder Katie hails from San Jose, CA. She’s created some great coding projects, so we interviewed her to find out what she’s working on right now and why she loves Tynker!

What are your hobbies? Acting, singing, dancing, and coding. I’m doing my first movie this summer. I’ve played the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, Cruella DeVille in 101 Dalmations, and an Indian in Peter Pan. I’ve done a lot of shows.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a movie star.

How did you get introduced to coding? I got introduced to Tynker in 4th grade. My teacher brought coding to our school and showed us how to do it. I was really interested in it and started making stuff – I thought it was really really fun that I could make my own thing. Every time my teacher would give us options and Tynker was an option, I’d say “Yay!” and choose Tynker.

Do your friends Tynker? Sometimes my teacher tells us to do a project. One time, my teacher called up people who knew how to use Tynker really well, and I got to pick a friend to work with. She really enjoyed doing it with me.

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? Yeah, I like that they give me ideas for stuff I can do. I think, “Ooh that’s kind of clever, I can make something like that.” I like seeing what other people have done because some of it is really good.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? I really enjoy that I can publish my projects and everyone on Tynker can see them, and that I can see how many likes they got.

What is your favorite thing you’ve made? I like my Fruit Ninja project, and the one where you click a bunch of buttons and they make music. I also like my new project that I’m working on – it’s a gymnastic one. You get scored, but I’m not finished with the scoring part yet.

What are you planning to make next? I’m still finishing the gymnastics game, but after that, I’m thinking about creating a game where you’re running and jump over stuff. I’ll probably make a character, and it’ll be animated. To play, maybe the player will hit spacebar to animate jump and run forward. I could make one of the backgrounds in game elements where it moves with you. I’m thinking about doing something like that.

Why do you like to code? Because I really like creating my own things and I really enjoy creating stuff that other people get to see because it’s really awesome. I like that I can make a game that other people can see. I feel really happy about myself when I finish something that was hard. I really enjoy creating anything.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yes, I do, it’s a really good opportunity and a really good thing to know.

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? I would probably tell them to try what I did when I started out. I watched some of Tynker’s videos, which were really cool. The first thing I ever did was learn how to take a code and build off of it. That helped me learn because I could see how it worked, so I’d say looking at other people’s code is a good idea.

Katie’s mom Carolyn thinks it’s phenomenal that Katie is learning to code and she’s excited that her backup career plan is to be a software developer. Carolyn told us that coding functions as a creative outlet for Katie. She is “very creative and expressive,” and loves to write songs and plays. According to Carolyn, coding is another way for Katie to write; it’s “a wonderful format for her to create in, and it’s a natural fusion for her.” Carolyn believes that “software development is creative and a wonderful creative outlet for kids like Katie.”

Thanks for chatting with us, Carolyn and Katie! We love that Tynker enables Katie to express herself in a new way. Katie, we can’t wait to check out your gymnastics and game projects when you’re finished. Keep acting and coding!