Coding for Kids
As the world witnessed during the 2021 summer Olympic Games in Japan, sports have a way of bringing people together. Similarly, week 4 of our Tynker Summer Code Jam, which had the theme My Sports Moment, allowed Tynker users to showcase their creativity and love for their favorite sports, athletes, and teams by creating a variety of amazing coding projects.
Tynker Coders Find Inspiration From Role Models in Sports
One of our winners from Code Jam week 4, Elderly Lizard, created Miracle on Ice, a game based on one of the most famous sporting moments of all time: the Olympic hockey match in 1980, when the underdog US team upset the defending champions, the Soviet Union.
This project impressed our panel of judges right away with its animated introduction that uses cloning and random numbers to create falling snowflakes. Then it launches into a cool guessing game where you slide your player back and forth on the ice to get the puck past the other team and into the goal. This project does a great job of telling the story behind the moment and illustrating the match through its gameplay.
Another winner, Mia Light, highlighted a role model of hers, Chad Le Clos, in her project. It tells the story of how Clos won the 2012 Summer Olympics Men’s 200 meter butterfly, then lets players race against other swimmers in an interactive game.
In this text coding project, Mia Light uses Turtle Graphics to create a stylized top-down animation of the race. Animating with Turtle is no simple feat, and Mia’s project stood out for its level of detail and inspiring story. At the end of the story, this project challenges you to try racing against the Olympians and uses Turtle to listen to your input.
Both Mia Light and Elderly Lizard were inspired by their sports idols to create their projects. In a similar way, their amazing projects might be inspiring to other coders.
Tynker Creators Share Their Own Sports Stories
Code Jam participants also used this year’s challenge to share sports stories from their own lives. For example, week 4 winner Phenonly created a racing game based on a competition held at their school. A great detail is that the game congratulates you for finishing the race no matter what place you get, acknowledging the effort you made to cross the finish line.
For this project, Phenonly recorded energetic voice lines to narrate the story and give instructions on how to play. Then, they used the drawing tool to make a racetrack, custom buttons, and a winner’s podium. The race is recreated as a game, where you’ll need to press the arrow buttons pretty quickly in order to win!
Another winning game, created by Chem Cat, told the story of when Chem Cat learned to kayak with friends. This project’s storytelling and stunning original art help convey the joy that trying new things can bring. Check it out:
Chem Cat did a lot of drawing for this story to represent the different characters in the story, including some fantastic animations for rain and kayakers who endlessly paddle back and forth.
More Incredible Projects
A winning text coding game created by Exceptional Sensation called Basketball Moments has a player aim and shoot a basketball into a hoop. The score system keeps track of how many shots you’ve taken, how many you’ve made, and how many you’ve scored in a row.
You can play for as long or as short as you want to. The way the game is created with no set end time brings back memories of casually shooting hoops with friends at school or home.
This is a very well-programmed physics-based game. The positions of the ball and hoop are randomized on each attempt to keep the gameplay interesting. And, it includes a lot of different messages that show up depending on how many baskets you can make in a row and other details like whether your shot almost made it in or missed entirely.
Basketball Moments focuses on small moments in sports where there is no pressure to compete, no time limit, and you can have fun and improve. Little moments like this can be found when coding as well. Creating a project on your own, experimenting with code, and fixing bugs all help you build your coding skills while allowing you to have fun.
Sharing the Joy of Sports with Code
Here’s another cool project that Summertime completed in honor of their favorite soccer player, Lionel Messi. Summertime uses block coding to tell Messi’s story, describing him as “one of the best soccer players ever.”
However, the project also goes on to explain how Messi overcame adversity as a child who wasn’t growing as fast as other kids his age. Fortunately, FC Barcelona saw potential in him as a soccer player and flew him from Argentina to Spain for growth hormone treatments. He subsequently joined Barcelona’s youth academy and later their professional club, “helping his team win more than two dozen league titles and tournaments.”
Tynker’s Talented Coders
All of our incredible young coders found different ways to express their creativity in this sports prompt. And, their different interpretations showcase the talent and ingenuity that can be found within the Tynker community.
It’s exciting to learn valuable 21st century skills like coding. And, Tynker makes it not only easy but fun, whether they are just beginning block code or trying out real-world coding languages such as Python or JavaScript.
