Coding is Connor’s Passion!

Fourteen-year-old Connor is in 9th grade and lives in Maine. His hobbies include drawing, playing video games, and coding. We’ve really been impressed by his projects and the enthusiastic response they’ve received from the Tynker community, so we wanted to speak with him to learn more about what inspires him to code!

What’s your favorite subject in school? Computer science. We learn about internet privacy and how computers work – it’s an introductory class, but I like it.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I just want to code. It’s a huge passion. I want to code, I want to model for people, and I want to model for myself. I want to make money from that.

How did you get introduced to Tynker? I saw a coding app called Hopscotch, so I checked that one out. That one turned out to be too easy. Then I saw Tynker, and after a long while of coding, I found out how to make games really easily.

What is your favorite thing you’ve made? I can’t really say. I like them all a lot. I think the one I like the most would be the game I made called “Sister.”

What inspires you to create games? When I first played Minecraft and Pokemon, they inspired me to make my own games. Then I got more into weirder games like Undertale and I’ve always wanted to make one. I’m obsessed.

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? Yeah, they’re really cool. There’s one that I like called Blue Ball Adventures.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? Probably the fact that you can do anything you want. I like how the team checks out your game to make sure it’s appropriate.

Are you working on anything currently? There’s a game that’s sort of based off of Atari called Orange Adventures. It’s a little orange cube and you go and do puzzles. For the first puzzle, you just have to maneuver around a couple things. The second one, you have to go unlock a door. I’m also working on a game called Night Shift. I’ve uploaded pictures and stuff onto it.

What’s something you want to make but don’t know how to yet? I’d have to say a good Undertale game.

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I review it to make sure there’s no bugs, I have other people play it before I publish it, then I make sure it’s 100% appropriate so it fits in with the community guidelines. I usually show them to my friends, every now and then my dad too.

Why do you like to code? I like to code because I think it’s simple and a good way to just cancel out everyday life.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yeah. It’s a very good experience and it’s definitely something worth doing.

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? Probably explore all the blocks before you start making your games.

Connor’s dad David thinks it’s great Connor is coding. He told us, “I think it’s very good for him and hopefully it will teach him logic and how to approach things logically.”

We couldn’t agree more! Thanks for chatting with us, Connor and David. We’re looking forward to seeing more of your projects in the Tynker Community. Keep Tynkering!