Hannah’s Creativity is Limitless!

Meet Hannah, a fifth grader from Kansas who loves drawing (she told us she usually draws people) and discovering underground video games. Her plans for the future include a career as a doctor, and she loves to dye her hair fun colors – next up is blue!

We’ve been blown away by Hannah’s projects, especially considering this is her first year learning to code! Read on to see what we discovered about Hannah and her experience with Tynker.

What’s your favorite subject in school? I have to say right now it’s science. It’s not very math-like, there’s not a lot of equations in it, and I’m pretty good at it.

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? I went screaming! But not out loud. I was at school.

How did you get introduced to Tynker? Around the beginning of the year we were told to download it and explore with it because we had some free time, so after a few months I made the game and it just kind of went from there.

How long have you been coding? This is my first year!

How did you learn how to use Tynker when you were first starting out? I went through all the tutorials that they give you.

Did you use any Tynker courses or tutorials to learn to code? Yes, both. I liked the animation one.

How do you get inspiration for your projects? I play a lot of the other games! One time I saw this one game, it was the burger and fries battle game, and it sparked a fish thing for me.

How do you use your creativity when you code? I mainly put it into the drawings because I feel like that just makes it come to life. I also put it into the dialogue in the story.

“Mia’s Room Decoration”  Check out more of Hannah’s projects here!

Why do you like to code? I can just let my creativity flow! I can play what I’ve made and I’m proud of it.

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? I’ve really only made two, and I’d have to say Fish Tank Frenzy. I like the story and the characters behind it.

Is there anything you’re planning to make next or currently working on? I’m currently working on one!

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I usually run through them, make sure there are no glitches, and then if I like it a lot I’ll publish it.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? I like that if you don’t know how a block works, you can always ask that little Tynker guy over there.

Do you ever Tynker with your friends? Not entirely, no, but I’ll help my friends if they don’t know how to do something.

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? Most definitely, yeah! I play them quite a lot.

How do you think learning coding now may help you in the future? I feel like if my doctor job doesn’t come through I’ll always have coding! I know coding is becoming a big part of this world because there’s so much advancement in technology – quite a bit of it, actually.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yeah, actually. It’s fun and it lets me be imaginative! Once you make the creations you’re proud of yourself, and if you ever publish them and get a like on it, it’ll instantly blow your mind.

What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? Do the online courses because it’ll help you a lot, and try to play other people’s games and if you want to learn how to do something they did. You can always try to redesign their game – because you can look at the code and you can always do that – but never claim it as your own!

When asked what she thinks of Hannah learning to code, her mom Michele told us, “I’m actually really impressed by the whole program and the skills that she has picked up! I think that the website is built really well, and I know that she’s really proud of the programs that she’s been able to write, so I think it’s been a great asset for her to have this available.”

In Michele’s eyes, the transformation from player to maker has been great for Hannah. “She is on it quite a bit; I find that she does more productive things now that she is involved in Tynker than just sitting and playing video games in her bedroom. She’ll be in there coding or looking at what other kids are doing – investigating more than just sitting and playing games.”

What skills does learning to code help build? For Michele, problem-solving is the most notable skill built. She believes that “it’s important for all, women especially, to be involved in science and technology and engineering – and I think coding is one of those fields.”

Looking to the future, Michele sees lots of opportunities to use programming! “Because of the way we are evolving as a society, it’s in everything we do, from the devices we talk on every day to the computers that we work on. Having the ability to understand how to program is an essential function in almost every job if you work on a computer.”

Thanks for chatting with us, Hannah and Michele! It was great to learn more about why you love to code, Hannah, and so fun to meet the person behind the projects. Keep coding!