Mia is Passionate About Her Artistic Projects!

Meet Mia, an eight-year-old from Minnesota with endless ideas – plus the coding and art skills to bring them to life. She plans on being an artist when she grows up, and sometimes she even uses coding to practice art. Mia’s mom Lisa told us that Mia often writes down ideas in a notebook, then collaborates with a friend to figure out how to put them into code!

When she’s not coding or at school, Mia is doing Taekwondo or playing outside with her friends. We caught up with her to find out why she loves to code and get the inside scoop on her current and future projects!

What do you want to be when you grow up? An artist maybe – I’m not sure!

What’s your favorite subject in school? In school I like doing math.

Why do you like to code? I just think it’s really fun! You can use the different pieces to make different things happen.

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? Let’s say, if I was sitting on my bed I probably would’ve rolled out of my bed!

“She was excited!” her mom added.

How do creativity and coding fit together for you? I think of something that I like to do, then I put it into my coding. Like I made a “how-to-draw,” but I don’t think I’ve published it yet. I was also making a bunch of dinosaurs that were going back and forth on the screen with cheerful music.

How do you get inspiration for your projects? Usually by either other people’s projects, or things that I like to do, or things that I see. Crazy Face is a project that I have, and it has different eyes and mouths and noses that you can move to different locations on the face. There’s hats and stuff, and you can make your own face. I also made Crazy Face Extreme, which has the head, then there is a bunch of different eyes, clothing, shoes, and hair – stuff like that. My featured project is called Coloring World, and if you pressed the cloud, it would change colors from white to yellow, to orange, to purple.

“Crazy Face” Check out more of Mia’s projects here!

What are you planning to make next? I would say another crazy face one. I would make it so you could change the color of the head. I’m making a moonlight tilt, where when you tilt the screen a person jumps. The theme is in the sky so if you fall off the brick then the game stops. You have to jump from brick to brick, and there’s also going to be a dinosaur chasing you.

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? I would say my first project, the Crazy Face. I like all the different things that you can move to different locations – like there’s a smile, a frowny face (but you can use it as a unibrow!).

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I start chasing my brother and say, “Do you like this project?” If he does then I will publish it. He likes to play the games that I make.

How did you get introduced to Tynker? Zoe was the one who showed me Tynker. We are neighbors, and we’ve been neighbors for about six years. She invited me over to her house, and she was doing something on her iPad, and I asked: “Hey what are you doing?” She showed me and I was like “Wow that’s really cool.” Zoe helped me start with the Crazy Face, and I was like “Hurrah! Hurrah!” Then I started making more projects.

How did you learn how to use Tynker? With Zoe’s help!

“Touch him!” 

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? My favorite Tynker feature is the next costume block because you can make as many different costumes as you want. There are endless possibilities! The first time you did it, you could do a smiley face, then the next time you pressed it, it would be a frowny face because of the next costume block.

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? Yes, I look at them once each time I do Tynker.

How do you think learning coding now will help you in the future? If I’m looking for a job to make money and I get a coder job, then I would kind of know what to do and how to do it.

“Coloring World” 

Do you think other kids should try coding? Indeed. It’s just a really good app that everyone should have if they want to do anything with coding later!

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? I would say, “What do you want to make?” Then I could say, “This block does this if you want to use that block to help you.”

Lisa thinks that it’s good for Mia to have the experience of learning to code. She and her husband both have coding experience, but “didn’t learn until much later in life, so it’s neat to be able to pick it up at a much younger age.” As kids learn to code, Lisa has observed that “it seems like not only will they have a better understanding, but also they can go a lot further with it.”

When asked about Tynker, Lisa said, “It seems like it’s pretty easy for her to just jump in and do things, which is great. I think that is very positive about it.”

She continued with “I think it’s good for her to learn about this early, as far as being able to solve her own problems, to know that it doesn’t have to be where she can’t do something. She’s a girl and she’s young, but that doesn’t stop her from being able to do things.”

Mia has her parents’ support as she learns to code, both at school and at home! Lisa told us, “We hear about the projects that they do at school. They have time in the curriculum where they add coding in. They have the Hour of Code after school that we let her go to, and we volunteer and help the kids at that. In her free time, after she has her homework and chores done, we let her play for a little bit on the computer, doing her own creativity.”

Thanks for chatting with us, Mia and Lisa! It was great to hear how Tynker is such a creative outlet for Mia. We can’t wait to see what you come up with next, Mia – happy coding!