Noah Creates Amazing Games with Code!

Meet Noah, an 8-year-old from British Columbia, Canada, who has an incredible passion for coding. He is in the fourth grade and loves building with LEGOs, playing Minecraft, and, most importantly, being goofy! Reading is also a big part of Noah’s life – Garfield comics are some of his favorites.

Noah aspires to become an engineer or a coder when he grows up; math is his favorite subject in school and comes easily to him, so these career paths would suit him perfectly! He also has an affinity for taking apart and building things (to the point that, when Noah was younger, his parents had to hide the screwdrivers from him!).

We had a chance to speak with Noah and his mom, Chantelle, about Noah’s experience coding with Tynker. Read on to learn all about Noah and why he loves to code!

How did you get introduced to Tynker? I found it and wanted to try it out because I wanted to try coding. I just continued to use it!

How did you learn how to use Tynker when you were first starting out? I made it all on my own – all the coding and stuff!

Chantelle: “One way we’d do it was that we’d find a project with similar features or something like that, and we’d learn how they did it.”

How have your coding skills improved since you started using Tynker? Really good I think. I don’t really know how though.

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

Why do you like to code? Because I like to and I don’t know why. Maybe because of school and because I can make my own games.

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? The Flying Bird one and My Singing Monsters.

“Flying Bird 4.4”

What are you planning to make next? I want to learn how to use variables to make a coin bank for my My singing monsters. I want to try and make it so that you can like make your own skin and make your own island and stuff.

“MSM (My Singing Monsters)”

What’s your favorite thing you can do in Tynker? Everything!

What’s the coolest thing in your game? The coolest thing that I would add to my game is a coin bank!

We also sat down with Chantelle, Noah’s mom, and found out what she thinks about Noah’s learning to code and what that may mean for him and his future. “I was blown away with how much you can do with that app,” she said. “I was super proud and amazed by what he could do.”

Noah has Tourette’s Syndrome, but it clearly doesn’t slow him down! His mom mentioned that coding has actually helped him in some areas where TS can create difficulty. “It’s really nice because sometimes he can get into areas of hyperfocus and get stuck on one thing for a while, and [coding] is a really good outlet for that.” Chantelle has also noticed that coding (and debugging!) helps Noah practice patience. “One thing about kids with TS is that they get really frustrated and can’t really control their reactions, so it’s fantastic that it’s giving him little ways to be frustrated properly.” It’s great to hear that learning to code has such a positive impact on Noah!

We were excited to learn that Noah isn’t just putting his coding knowledge to use by creating projects – he also teaches his mom to code! It helps him find the problems in his code as he walks her through it. “He teaches me how to use it! I think that’s the best thing for him, because when I think he’s getting frustrated I just ask him, ‘Ok, show me how to do it,’ and then he can find the problem.”

Chantelle wants Noah to have a good job that he’s passionate about in the future, and she notes that technology is going to play a more and more significant role in everyone’s lives. She told us, “If he gets into something like programming as a hobby as a kid, it’ll be more likely that he’ll want to do it in the future.”

We agree – it’s great that Noah is starting young, and we’re sure that his coding background will help him succeed in whatever career he ends up in. Thanks for chatting with us, Noah and Chantelle! We loved learning more about you and your projects, Noah, and look forward to seeing what you come up with in the future. Happy Tynkering!