For Christopher, Coding Is a Way to Bring Joy to Others

Christopher is a 10-year-old from Cupertino, California who published some amazing projects to the Tynker community, including his own version of the popular Cookie Clicker game and a beautiful animation of the night sky. We asked him to talk to us about how he learned to code and what he loves about coding.

What are your hobbies? I like karate, swimming, and playing on my iPad. And coding too.

What do you want to be when you grow up? A software engineer because I like it as a hobby and it seems really cool.

How did you get introduced to coding? When I was little, like first grade, I did the Hour of Code at school. Then I looked on the app store and I found Tynker. Then I downloaded it and my friend started using it too.

Do you ever look at the Tynker community? Yes, a lot. There’s so many cool games I see in the community.

What are you working on? I’m making a game called Crocodile Dentist. It’s based off a game in real life. You try to tap the teeth of a crocodile, and if you tap a certain one, it will chomp down and you lose. So it’s a multiplayer game.

What’s your favorite thing you’ve made? My Crossy Road game.

Why do you like coding? Because I think it’s fun to use block code. I’m hoping when I get into middle school, I can use Javascript also.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yeah, because I think it’s really fun and you can do crazy things with it like creating games.

Why do you like making games? Because other people can see them and play them. I like giving to other people.

What advice would you give to kids learning to code? I would tell them to have fun and to enjoy it.

Looking for more fun? You can watch Christopher’s Night Sky project and play his version of Cookie Clicker!

Christopher’s father Marcos says it’s important to him that, if Christopher wants to be an engineer, he start preparing now. Marcos regularly tells Christopher, “You need to know what you need to do to become an engineer.” Marcos used to see his kids playing video games all the time, and asked them, “Why are you just playing? Why don’t you try to learn something that you can use later on? Why don’t you try to make a program?” This led to Christopher investing a lot of time in programming, and creating some really amazing projects that Marcos and Christopher’s mother Claudia are really proud of. Claudia says she loves that other people can see what Christopher is creating so that he can brighten their days with his games.

Thanks for talking to us, Christopher! Your games certainly did brighten our day and we love seeing all your new projects in Tynker.