Logan Uses His Unlimited Tynker Time to Create Awesome Projects!

Logan is a veteran programmer – he’s only eleven but has already been coding for two years! He lives in Galway, Ireland, and loves playing the ukulele or guitar, playing handball, and training to be a clown.

Even though he’s only in 5th grade, Logan already has an idea of what he wants to be when he grows up! “I want to be a video game designer. [I want to] design the background, the story behind the game, so people know what’s going on when they start playing it.”

He told us that “the thing I like to do most is making people laugh. Just seeing people laugh makes me feel really fun. I like making people laugh a lot.” Logan definitely communicates his sense of humor in his fun, artistic projects. Read on to learn more about Logan and his success with Tynker!

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? I was surprised! I was just super surprised and happy.

How did you get introduced to Tynker? When I got a tablet, my dad downloaded Tynker for me, and I’ve gotten really into it.

How did you learn how to use Tynker when you were first starting out? I had an idea of the basics, like how to make actors move around. I played other people’s projects for inspiration, and I often went into their coding and saw what they used. That helped me out a lot!

Did you use any Tynker courses or tutorials to learn to code? I tried Space Cadet, which helped me a lot with starting physics.  

How do you get inspiration for your projects? There’s this one character that I use a lot. He’s just this guy wearing a white hoodie, jeans, black shoes. He just goes on big adventures. My two main characters are mustache guy and the guy in the white hoodie. That’s what most of my projects are based on, like an action game or video. I also draw a lot of comics; last year I was big into doodling. In most of my projects, everything is drawn out.

How do you use your creativity when you code? I go up to my room, and I find one of my plastic figures, and kind of just Tynker what would be a suitable boss or enemy for him to go on an adventure to defeat. I plan the adventure and get coding!

Why do you like to code? Part of it is the satisfaction you get when two programs just click together. Dragging the blocks around, trying to get it in the exact right place – that helps me a lot. I find that Tynker has really easy controls, you read it and you know what it means. So I like that about it, the little programs that you can just click them all together and you instantly know this does that, that does this.

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? It’s called Big Bad Boss Battle. You’re on this cool ship, and there are three dots bouncing around the screen that you have to avoid for 30 seconds. Then the dots change to a different color or a different design, or the background changes as well. On the third one, you get this big dot with a giant mouth that says something evil, from the book of evil catchphrases. And it starts bouncing around for about 10 seconds, then you win.

“Big Bad Boss Battle” Check out more of Logan’s projects here!

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I watch it to make sure that there are no glitches and it all runs smoothly. Check if it turns off by a couple of degrees, and change it around. I mainly publish it right after I finish, and once it’s published I show it to my Mom and Dad.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? I really like that you can explore other people’s projects, because I’d be totally lost without being able to see what other people have been up to. I think it’s great that you can save that project so that you don’t have to keep finding it to know the coding.

“JUDGE V.S NINJA ARMY!!!” 

How do you think learning coding now may help you in the future? I think that it would be great for if I get the storytelling job. In case I write it down for the people who program it and they do something completely different than I’m expecting, I can write down the basic movements, so it’s not completely out of whack.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yeah! I think it’s a really fun experience.

What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? I’d say to keep it appropriate, like don’t just do something totally ballistic – have it make sense. I’d tell them to have fun.

When asked how he feels about his son learning to code, Logan’s dad Chris told us, “I think it’s great!” Logan doesn’t have unlimited screen time, but he has unlimited Tynker time! In Chris’s words, “I think that gave him the time to get really into it, because he didn’t have games as an alternative.”

“When I think of coding,” said Chris, “I think of working through the logic. All children are going to be a lot more computer savvy, and are going to have computers in their life from such an early stage. Even if you don’t go into coding or become a programmer as a profession, you can get an idea of how things work and understand what the code is doing in the applications you use or in the computers you use.”

Chris articulated the idea that a baseline knowledge of coding is important, but kids may end up creating a future career around it, too! “You never know what level of coding he might end up doing. He could take the game design thing and decide, ‘You know what? I want to program my own games.’”

According to Chris, Tynker and the Tynker community have been key to Logan’s coding skills! “He was able to look at tutorials and other projects that are there that are very good – he can boost his skills that way.”

Thanks for chatting with us, Logan and Chris! We can’t wait to see what you make next, Logan – keep coding!