Lara Uses Tynker to Bring Her Toys to Life!

Eight-year-old Lara from Australia uses Tynker in a unique way – to bring her toys to life! Lara loves all things STEAM; she wants to be a scientist or science teacher, makes her own art for her projects, and really enjoys math and computer science!

She’s in Year 3 this year, and when asked about her hobbies, Lara said, “I like to write stories and draw pictures and play with my chickens. I really like animals and I also like doing arts and crafts. I like penguins and bunny rabbits.”

We spoke to Lara about her goals, projects, and coding tips for other kids!

What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a scientist or a science teacher.

What’s your favorite subject in school? I like science and maths. I like figuring things out and trying things to see what they do! I like experiments.

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? I felt really happy and excited!

How did you learn how to use Tynker? I looked at the “see code” of lots of projects and saw what the blocks did, and so I got ideas for my projects to make them more fun.

How do you get inspiration for your projects? I like playing with my toys and making my toys do all sorts of things in my projects! I like making stories and I like making tests.

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? I went onto the community and found out you can make your own projects! I go to the community to think of ideas and see what other people have created before I make a project.

How do creativity and coding fit together for you? You can make your own characters do your own things! You can make them all do things at different times.

Why do you like to code? I like trying to make games! I like making stuff and playing other people’s creations too.

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? I like Cat Test and all my LEGO games!

“Cat Test” – see more of Lara’s projects here

What are you planning to make next? I’m working on a Choose Your Own Adventure. I just started learning about how you can make things go on a different path and then come back together later on.

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I usually look at it to make sure nothing’s wrong, I like to make sure everything’s working and doing what it’s supposed to do, and then I publish it.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? I like playing games and I like that I can code my own game and that’s mostly it! I like to make games.

“Get a Goal”

Do your friends Tynker? One time my friend and I coded one about my fluffy toys!

How do you think learning coding now might help you in the future? It would help me if I wanted to make games!

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yes! It’s fun to share and make them and draw your characters. I like drawing my characters and putting photos of my toys.

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? Look at the community for ideas and how to make the projects! Then they can start off by going onto the blank template, putting an “on start” button, doing all the work, and seeing what they do.

Lara’s dad, Will, thinks that “with the world changing so rapidly and quickly, [coding skills] will be required going forward.” For Will, Tynker is “sort of an extension from maths.” He said, “I like the fact that it makes it fun for them.

Will is a chemist and has done a lot of math himself, so he “can see the benefit of linking maths and coding together.” He said that Tynker is “a much-simplified version than doing straight out code, and it becomes very easy for lots of different kids to understand. It’s very logical. It’s quite good – I think the developers did a good job to make it such that it’s fun while it’s learning.”

Will continued, saying, “At school, it can be boring in terms of the way in which they learn. But the way in which Tynker uses a very simple way of coding, it is still teaching them a lot of the basics!”

He noted that Lara impressively taught a friend to code! “Another one of Lara’s classmates had a sleepover and didn’t have experience using Tynker,” he said, “so Lara was teaching her how to do coding with it. So it’s really a peer-to-peer thing – it’s not as if they need an adult to do the teaching.”

It’s great to hear that Lara is taking the initiative to teach her friends to code! Thanks for chatting with us, Lara and Will – we look forward to seeing what Lara dreams up next!