Kenisha Takes Game Requests From Friends!

Meet nine-year-old Kenisha, an amazing maker from Dubai who loves coding, drawing, and horseback riding. Fun fact: Kenisha named her little sister after a character from Lion King! She’s in 5th grade and blew us away with her coding skills, so we caught up with her to learn more about her and why she loves to code!

What do you want to be when you grow up? I’m not really sure! Something to do with art or coding.

What’s your favorite subject in school? It mostly depends on what we’re doing. Sometimes it’s science, sometimes it’s art!

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? Proud and encouraged to do more!

How did you get introduced to Tynker? I was looking for a coding app when I found Tynker! I used to have another coding app and it was pretty fun because I made lots of fun games, so I just wanted to do more.

How did you learn how to use Tynker? I explored some buttons and used some blocks that I’d never used before!

How do you get inspiration for your projects? I usually get inspiration from people requesting stuff and sometimes other projects.

How do creativity and coding fit together for you? I mostly draw my coding characters, and then I start to code them.

Why do you like to code? Because I can make anything I want!

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? A game called Lil’ Dragon Pet! It’s about taking care of a dragon, and I’ve been spending a lot of time coding it. I even programmed the dragon to poo after one minute!

Lil’ Dragon Pet

What are you planning to make next? I show my friends my games, so a friend asked me to make her a unicorn game!

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? When I like it I usually publish it, but if I don’t, I’ll work on it for a couple days.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? I love drawing characters, because I rarely use the characters from the character gallery.

How do you think learning coding now might help you in the future? It could help me if I wanted to be a programmer, and sometimes I have to use coding in other things.

Do you think other kids should try coding? It helps them when they’re older, or if they need to do something when they’re bored.

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? Just check some stuff out!

Kenisha’s mom, Tuning, loves that she’s learning to code! When asked why coding is good for her child, she said, “She’s doing something positive! At first when she asked for an iPad I was really against it, thinking she’d just play games for hours. But with this, this coding, she has basically nothing on her iPad – just coding and reading.”

She continued, saying, “It’s really productive, and I really support her with it… Now, when I ask her what her hobbies are, she says ‘coding and drawing,’ and in Tynker she can do both!”

Kenisha’s mom doesn’t have coding experience herself, so she’s super impressed with Kenisha’s success! “When she showed me [her projects], I said, ‘Oh my goodness, how can you do all this stuff!? Kenisha, can you teach me? She wants me to try everything out, but I have no experience at all, nothing to do with coding in my life!’”

Tuning feels that coding builds logic skills and is so glad that Kenisha has the opportunity to learn to code. She told us, “I am so happy – I know that when I was her age there was no way I could learn to code like her. Now, there are these [block coding] apps and kids don’t have to create their own code. So for younger kids like Kenisha, it’s way easier to learn. Then, once she’s older and more experienced, she can create her own!”

We couldn’t have said it better, Tuning! Block-based coding creates a freedom for younger children to learn, and we’re excited to support Kenisha as she continues to develop her skills and eventually shifts to text-based coding. Thanks for speaking with us, Kenisha and Tuning – we can’t wait to see what you create next!