Alex’s Love of Experimentation Drives His Love of Coding

Twelve-year-old Alex adores science, so it’s no surprise he’s brought that love of experimentation to coding with Tynker! In his free time, this coder from Florida plays sports like football or soccer, plays Xbox, and reads Harry Potter. “I’m on the last one,” he said, “but I haven’t finished it yet!”

Alex is only in 7th grade but already has two cool ideas for his future career – he wants to be a doctor or an actor, so, in his words, “If I have time and it doesn’t interfere with my schedule for anything else, I usually join my school plays.” We were lucky enough to chat with Alex about his awesome projects and learn a lot about him, his goals for the future, and why he loves to code!

What do you want to be when you grow up? I might want to be a doctor or maybe an actor.

What’s your favorite subject in school? It has to be science. I like how science is about experimenting and stuff. I like it better than other classes because it’s more fun – you get to do experiments, and you can see an example instead of just being told stuff!

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? I was really excited because none of my projects got featured before, but I put quite a bit of work into this one!

How did you get introduced to Tynker? Well, our school usually gives middle schoolers iPads and they had Tynker on there. I decided to try coding, and it was really fun! I’ve been coding for probably a year.

How do you get inspiration for your projects? I usually think of games I like to play or topics I enjoy! I usually make a project about that, hoping that other people would enjoy that also.

How do creativity and coding fit together for you? I really enjoy how I’m able to just do anything! I can code what I want to code.

Why do you like to code? Well, I like at the end when it all just comes together – how I can make something.

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? Probably the one that got featured.

“Overwatch ultimates 1”  Check out more of Alex’s projects here!

What are you planning to make next? I’m going to be working on a second version of the featured one.

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I have a cousin who wants to be a coder when he grows up. I go and show him because I want to get his feedback for what I can do better.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? I really just like the work it takes to get everything in the right place at the right time. It’s like experimenting, to see what happens if I do certain things.

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? Yeah, usually! Sometimes I like to see what they make. I see the project, and if there’s something I don’t know how to do, I just look at the code like, “that’s how you do that.”

How do you think learning coding now might help you in the future? Well, maybe teaching others to code a bit or helping others. Who knows, maybe sometime I’ll code in the future!

Do you think other kids should try coding? Definitely! It’s a fun experience – I wouldn’t want them to miss out on it. I’d want them to at least try.

What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? I would say, don’t try to code everything and then keep playing and then change everything! Go step by step and be careful. If something doesn’t go right, go back into the code and go over everything to see if you got it right.

Alex’s mother, Nedjey, is “very proud” of Alex and his newfound coding abilities! She eloquently told us why she’s excited Alex is learning to code: “He is applying his love of discovery of different things to a totally different discipline, which is coding. It’s a good habit to have when experimenting with things and going to new frontiers to feed that curiosity.”

Of CS skills, Nedjey said, “It’s a worthwhile skill to have. It’s something that’s transferrable – it opens up a lot of skills in the future for you.” Tynker is a great way to learn those skills, because “it’s not just about putting the words and the code together behind the scenes, but also making sure that they have a vision. Linking the arts to the technology is a good connection for their brain.”

Nedjey closed with, “I know some of Alex’s friends code, so it would be awesome to see them collaborate on something outside of school.” That’s your cue, Alex! We can’t wait to see what you come up with next, with your friends or on your own.