Julien Draws Inspiration From His World!

Julien is our Featured Maker from Montréal and is twelve years old! When he is not in his advanced courses at school, he likes to play the piano, video games, draw, ski, bike, and of course code! His favorite drawings are composed of his own made-up characters called “Les Dimensionneurs!”

When he grows up, Julien wants to create video games for everyone and design the characters in the game as well. Julien graced us with an interview to better understand why he loves to code!

How did you get introduced to Tynker and how long have you been coding? I heard the name Tynker last year at my school. I have been coding for a couple of years. I took a summer camp in a polytechnical school here, and that was the first time I learned how to do it.

How did you learn how to use Tynker when you were first starting out? My teacher taught us about Tynker, but I always spend a lot of time on it and discovered it on my own!

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? Very, very proud and happy! Everyday I look at my project to see the views and the likes. At school, we had to present our project to the class and some of my friends liked my project!

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? My favorite project is this featured one! I like how it’s a little photo booth and it takes a picture of you!

“Fly Tynker Edition 1.0”

Where did you get the idea for your favorite project? I was thinking a couple months ago about this game, but when I started to learn what my teacher taught me, I was finally able to do it. I’m not sure how long it took me, but it was a long time, over a couple weeks.

How do you get inspiration for your projects? When I can relax and have the time to think, I can get my ideas.

Why do you like to code? Even before I knew how to code, I was always thinking of what I can create or do next. Once I learned coding, I was really happy to use coding to make my ideas real.

What is your favorite way to use code? For the code blocks, I really like Tynker. With Tynker, there are more possibilities and you can code offline. But writing code, writing it on the keyboard, I like Python.

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? If it’s a big project I’ll share it on the community. The less cool projects, I don’t publish.

What are you planning to make next? I am working on my next project and I think it’s going to be a better project! It’s a game where there’s a lot of mini-games and you have to play them and win to save the world!

What’s the best thing about Tynker? I really like the augmented reality blocks because we can make funny photo booths!

How do you think learning to code has prepared you for the future? If I would like to create great games, I’ll know how to code!

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yes, for all those who like computers and everything, it’s a great thing to learn, but it’s not for everybody.

What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? To the beginners, you should think to push the rearrange blocks frequently, because it’s better to click and rearrange blocks a lot to understand what you want to do and to focus on simple projects in the beginning and all the little Tynker features. Start out with changing appearances and movements.

David, Julien’s dad, told us how he’s happy that Julien’s learning how to code: “I feel that it’s pretty cool because it’s something that we had no idea what it was before Julien started to learn it. It’s fun to see him learn all this by himself and it’s very cool to see all the things he can make with that. We are very proud of him because it’s something that motivates him a lot at school.”  

Julien shares his tech skills with others: “It makes him very popular with his friends, especially the ones who have problems with their technological devices! Everyone that needs help fixing something, they ask Julien. And it helps to organize his ideas, like I said, he’s a dreamer, but sometimes he is going in all the directions at the same time and coding is the opposite of that, in coding, you need to be organized, which is a big thing for coding with him.” And Julien’s dad feels coding will help his son in the future as well: “I think all of this that he’s learning in coding will be very important for him in the future, because he starts life with knowledge that all kids don’t have and knowledge that we didn’t have at the same age. He’s doing it for fun, but he really wants to work in the coding business and video games in the future. He also talks about working in graphic design and technological stuff. So, yes, it’s such an advantage to learn coding.”

We agree that Julien is off to a great start to a successful future! Thank you, Julien and David, for speaking with us! Happy coding!