Coding for Kids
Meet our newest Featured Maker, 6th grader Liam from Pennsylvania! When he grows up, he’d like to be an architect or engineer. Cool! As for now, he likes playing football and video games. He also likes to animate. Liam recently spoke with us about his experience coding with Tynker:
How did you hear about Tynker?
I got introduced to Tynker through our school.
How did you learn to use Tynker?
I kind of knew how to read the code because I used Scratch once or twice, although I prefer Tynker. And I eventually figured out how to do all this stuff.
Have your coding skills improved since you started using Tynker?
My first project was just a color line that would go across the screen really fast. And since then, I made the Mario project which got me featured. And I’ve also made a bunch of other really complex projects that I spent hours, maybe even weeks on, that have been a lot better than my first project.
How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured?
I was like, I couldn’t even because I spent so long on it, probably a month. That was the first time I actually majorly used physics in one of my projects. And I was going through and like testing everything, and I was trying to figure out what everything did. And the first third of my work was just me trying to figure out what the different blocks of code did because I’ve never used that section of Tynker before.
What’s your favorite project you’ve made so far?
A Stickman game. It’s based off of the series of games called Henry Stickman. And when you play there’s different paths, and you can click on a different thing and it does something that leads to you either succeeding or failing. And I went through about 30 or 40 different choices on this little stick man. I just like it a lot more than the others.
How long did it take you to make?
This was one of my later projects so it only took me about three weeks.
How do you get inspiration for your projects?
I’ve just been kind of thinking about what would be challenging to make but also fun once I finished it. But, like the earlier projects, I go through the community and I’d be like, okay, what is something that someone has done and I can spin off a version of it?
Why do you like to code?
Because I think of it as kind of like a puzzle. And I just like building it, piece by piece. Just putting everything together and once it’s finished, it’s satisfying to complete.
What’s your favorite way to use code?
I don’t really have one. There’s so many.
What do you do with your projects?
Whenever I finish a project, I usually publish it and then see if people have at least gone and seen it. And then I decide if it’s worth going back and fixing it and making it better.
What are you planning to make next?
I’m currently working on this project for school, a physics-based adventure game. I’m planning on making several stages, like enemies and traps we have to go through. I’m still trying to figure out how I can combine physics with the cloning part of Tynker because I just thought it’d be cool to use cloning in a project.
What’s the best thing about Tynker?
The fact that you can do so many things with it like Minecraft modding is different. The fact that you can do JavaScript on the website. It’s really easy to do if you’re just starting. I just went on Tynker and self-taught myself.
And the fact that there’s the community, which is like really, like, really awesome because I find a lot of my ideas in the community. I just find a lot of things with Tinker really great.
Has learning to code prepared you for the future?
I think that it has prepared me because it’s helped me realize what I like and what I want to do when I’m older, and I think that it can help me in a lot of different scenarios and might even become like a job of mine or maybe even a side hobby.
Do you think other kids should try coding?
Yes, absolutely. Even if you don’t think you’ll like it. I think you should at least try it.
What’s your favorite subject in school?
I like math a lot. I just like numbers.
Bonus: What’s a fun fact about you?
I’m the oldest of five kids, and I still manage to have time to do extra fun stuff.
Parent Questions
Liam’s mother, Alicia, spoke with us about her son learning to code with Tynker:
It’s super exciting for me and his dad because neither of us are into computers. We love seeing all the creative things he does and projects he comes up with and, you know, we think he’s great.
How do you support Liam’s coding endeavors?
We realized he had an aptitude for it and was actually really interested in pursuing it. We think it helps him a lot. So, of course, in school if they ever give the choice to pursue different projects he’s always choosing coding stuff so, you know, we support whatever he wants to do. It’s just pretty awesome that there’s some sort of job waiting for anybody who wants to do computer stuff.
What benefits do you think coding has for him?
Definitely organization, which I don’t think people would think a lot about, but I mean, you have to be pretty organized to code. You have to keep everything kind of in order. Kind of having goals as far as an idea and then following through, like making the steps to get to where he wants to be. So, yeah, I think it’s been really helpful in a lot of ways.
Do you feel that he’s better prepared for the future?
I mean, 100% definitely. It’s really awesome that he’s had all these opportunities and that Tynker has been there to start all this for him. It gives him something that kind of his own thing.
Thank you!
We want to thank Liam and his mother for taking the time to speak with us about coding with Tynker. We can’t wait to see what he creates next – HAPPY CODING!
