Step Into Lilly’s World Through Tynker!

Step Into Lilly’s World Through Tynker!

Meet Featured Maker Lilly, a self-proclaimed dog whisperer who lives in Florida and will be starting 4th grade in the fall! Lilly, who just turned 9, loves art and wants to become a veterinarian. As a vet, Lilly wants to use coding to present her future colleagues with intricate slideshows demonstrating the procedures she will perform.

Lilly has been coding for a year, and she likes that it allows her to share her imagination with the world. When Lilly isn’t coding, she is drawing (her favorite things to draw include hair, shoes, and fashion!). We were lucky enough to speak with Lilly and get to know her a lot better!

What do you want to be when you grow up? A vet. I don’t have any dogs, but I want to get one!

What’s your favorite subject in school? Art, because I get to draw cool stuff and make art projects.

How did you get introduced to Tynker? I saw the app and it looked interesting, so I asked my mom if I could download the app and liked it better than the other ones I tried.

How did you learn how to use Tynker when you were first starting out? At first, I was just doing the drawing, but then I saw the little bar where you can make the characters move and speak and change the background, so I tried that. At first, I thought it was really tricky, so I just did the drawing, but then I tried it, and now I do that too.

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? I was in the mood where I can jump up into the sky and eat all the clouds in the world!

Where do you get the idea for your featured project? I was just at someone’s house and I was thinking of camping and monsters, so I was thinking, how about I just make a camping and monsters project and then publish it!

“My Project 1” Check out more of Lilly’s projects here!

Why do you like to code? I like sharing my imagination with other people.

What is your favorite way to use code? Drawing. Ever since I was 3, I have been drawing. I like to draw shoes, faces, and outfits. I have this spiral hair-do that I like to draw and it’s really cool!

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? Well first I publish it, and then I show it to my mom.

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? My featured project, because I like the fact that I can come up with that great imagination.

What are you planning to make next? I want to do a movie about dragons. There’s this little girl named Molly and she has blond hair, and one day she was going to sleep when she woke and her window was all bright, but she opened it and she got sucked into the moon, then she saw a big land of dragons.

What’s your favorite thing you can do in Tynker? I like that you can create your own characters and create photos and put them into your project.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yeah, because once they start doing it, I don’t think they can stop!

What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? I would say this is a really fun experience and I hope you have a very really fun experience doing this too.

When we asked Lilly’s mom, LèAndrea, her thoughts on Lilly learning to code, she replied, “I think it’s really cool! With all the technology that we have now, I think it’s important for kids to learn how to use those tools – it’s an important skill. Because she likes to draw and create things, it’s just another way that she can engage in that. She can actually create things online in a safe space with Tynker.”

LèAndrea says that coding “has allowed Lilly to continue her element of creating but on another platform, and it has encouraged her to use her imagination to do things. She has always been verbal, but now she can take that and code it and add a story and make it come to life.

Lilly is very active with Tynker – she even shows other kids how to use the app! “She’ll be sitting doing it somewhere,” LèAndrea said, “and other parents might see, and I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, she’s doing Tynker,’ and she’ll show another kid how to use it.” LèAndrea thinks it’s great that Lilly is sharing the app with others, and she hopes that there will be a way for parents to easily spread the word to each other’s families.

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us, Lilly and LèAndrea! We can’t wait to see your next Tynker project, Lilly!