Coding for Kids
Sebastian Sees the Endless Possibilities of Coding!
Meet Sebastian, an amazing programmer who even codes during lunch with his friends! When 10-year-old Sebastian’s not in school (he’s in the 4th grade in Encinitas, California) or coding with Tynker, he’s playing sports like lacrosse, swimming with the swim team, and biking around with his neighborhood friends.
Sebastian really impressed us with both his projects and determination! He told us, “My favorite book is about processing. I get together with a couple friends on Friday with our coding teacher, then we’ll do processing. I’m working on a game in Tynker and a 3rd person game on the processor.” We were lucky to get a chance to talk with him and learn more about why he loves to code!
Do you have an idea of what you want to be when you grow up? I want to be an Olympic swimmer, and I’d like to code cool games.
What’s your favorite subject in school? My favorite subject in school is honestly coding. I have a coding class!
How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? I was very excited because I’ve never been featured before! It was awesome because it’s my first year doing Tynker.
How did you get introduced to Tynker? I got introduced to Tynker this year because our teacher was doing this group in the morning for an hour and 30 minutes. She wanted us to start with Tynker so we could start learning how to code, and I liked it a lot. I code with my friends a little bit after school, and then I do a little bit at my house.
How did you learn how to use Tynker when you were first starting out? My friend had been doing Tynker at his house for a long time, so he taught me how to do touch location, clone startup, on start, repeat forever, if then, and all those. Then I just started figuring it out by putting random code together and seeing if it worked.
Did you use any Tynker courses or tutorials to learn to code? Yeah, I finished every single course! My favorite was probably the bonus levels on the dragon one. The bonus level ones like Flappy Dragon.
How do you get inspiration for your projects? I get inspiration for my projects by making remakes of games that exist or just random things I think of that I want to make! For example, my game Block World, that one I was just thinking about this little guy who tells you how to do stuff, and then you go into a cave and get little rocks and wood from a forest and you can build stuff!
Block World
How do you use your creativity when you code? I like to use my creativity to make fun games that entertain other people!
Why do you like to code? I like to code because coding is fun and it makes you think!
What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? I really like two projects; Block World and Slithered Out IO. I like them both because they got featured and because they’re fun! On my Slithered Out IO you can get really big and eat these little things and then go to the store to buy this skin I named All American or something funny like that. In Block World it’s fun because you can build little cities. It didn’t take that long to make because I had my friends help me figure out how to do things like making something go faster and use less code to do the same thing.
SLITHER.IO
Is there anything you’re planning to make next or currently working on? I’m currently working on a game that is, I think, kind of different. I started with one of the projects like the solar system projects, then I deleted most of the planets except for Venus, Uranus, Neptune, and Mars. There’s no Earth and there’s the sun. You’re in this spaceship and you fly around and a UFO blows it up and you’re a little astronaut in space, then you tap on a planet to go to it but I added a spaceship that will come down on your landing so you can’t do anything, it’s just a little clip of a movie thingie, it comes down and then it lands and I think it’s cool! I haven’t finished it yet but I’m almost done with it.
What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? First I’ll show it to my friends and my parents and then I like to publish it!
What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? Probably that I can make absolutely anything! I can make something fly, like a flying taco cat – even though that’s not real.
Do you ever Tynker with your friends? We like to work together! If you need help cloning something or making something move, we ask for help.
Do you look at the Tynker community projects? I like looking at the recently featured ones, and I always like this game called the Impossible Quiz.
How do you think learning coding now may help you in the future? I’ll already know how to do Tynker pretty well, so then if I do Tynker in a while I’ll be better at it.
Do you think other kids should try coding? Yes! It’s really fun and they can think outside the box and just make anything that they can think of!
What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? When they start, look on the Tynker community on How-To, because there are a lot of how-to videos and games on it. That’s how I learned how to use one actor touch change. I also learned how to use stamp on it.
We also chatted with Sebastian’s mom, Lisy, to get her input on coding! She told us, “I think it’s awesome! I’ll be honest, I don’t let a lot of tech into the house, but when coding started for him, he just gravitated to it and really loved it.” Sebastian’s teacher told Lisy that he’d been reading coding manuals in class! As she tells it, “I was all for him going all out with it at school, enjoying it, and having fun.” Talking about Sebastian’s group of friends, she said, “they’ve been together since Kinder and they’ve bonded and they love the coding! They really love it.”
Sebastian hasn’t been coding for long but is already creating amazing games! His mom touched on this, saying, “I’m really proud of him because he’s done a lot in a short amount of time – especially because we don’t have a lot of tech in the house.”
“When he brings home his Tynker projects now I let him work on them after he’s played and all that. I like Tynker because he gets to create – he’s not just playing a game all day.”
She supports Sebastian with his coding by giving him space to create! In her words, “I’m just here for when he asks me to be involved! My first thing is always safety, so as long as it’s safe, I’m okay with it. He likes to show me his projects and I always think they’re really creative and different, so I like that.”
Lisy made a great point about the importance of coding. “Coding is the future! Technology is here, it’s now, it’s changing every day and they are just so far ahead of us adults, so I just think it’s the way of their futures.”
When asked how coding benefits kids, she said, “They think outside of the box! They turn all their what-ifs into their little realities. It definitely helps them with math and tech skills, so I think it’s pretty neat.”
Thanks for chatting with us, Sebastian and Lisy! We look forward to checking your space game, and everything else you come up with next. Keep coding!
