Artist Elena Brings Creativity Into Coding!

Ten-year-old Elena is in 5th grade and lives in Lansing, Michigan. Her hobbies include drawing, fashion design, and playing the piano. We’ve loved playing her projects, and wanted to get to know her better!

What’s your favorite subject in school? Art.

What do you want to be when you grow up? A fashion designer, but if not that, maybe a singer. I like how you can express yourself with style. You can be really creative through fashion.

How did you get introduced to Tynker? I started browsing on the app store for a free app that I could do that involved coding and I found Tynker!

How long have you been using Tynker? Maybe like a couple months now.

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? Yes, a lot. I have a ton of favorites. I like that I can see other people’s creations.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? That’s hard. You can draw your own characters and stuff. You don’t have to use one the program gives you – you can be more creative that way.

Is there anything you’re working on currently? Every day I try to do new experiments. Often I don’t like what I make, so I just start over and keep experimenting until I like what I see and what I’ve done.

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I review it. I basically look over it, then I publish it, and I just kind of cross my fingers that it will get featured.

What is your favorite thing you’ve made? I liked my smoothie maker a lot. I was hungry at the time, and I really felt like drawing and doing something. I guess those three topics combined together into my smoothie maker.

Why do you like to code? It’s fun!

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? I would tell them about the different blocks. You can use multiple blocks, you can put them together. If there’s a combination that they need to know, I could tell it to them so they could make it work.

When asked how he feels about Elena learning to code, her dad Josh said, “To say I like it doesn’t sound good enough. I am impressed she has the opportunity to learn how to code.” He told us, “I love that there’s an app where she can do that – that makes it ground-level, user friendly, and encourages kids to get into it. I think it’s pretty neat.” Like Elena, Josh thinks the creative aspect of coding is important. He said, “It’s an interesting concept – how you can incorporate drawings and creativity with the world of coding.”

We couldn’t agree more. Thanks for speaking with us, Elena and Josh! We’re really inspired by your projects, Elena, and can’t wait to see more!