With Coding, Julian Makes His Own Rules

Julian is a 4th grader from San Francisco whose awesome dragon game caught our eye. Read on to learn how he learned to code and why he loves making games!

What are your hobbies? My hobbies are playing basketball, playing in the garden, playing inside, and reading. That’s my biggest hobby. Also coding and piano.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Maybe someone who makes robots. That fly around. In space!

How did you get introduced to coding? At school, we did Hour of Code and I thought it was really fun, so I told Mommy and Daddy and they downloaded a bunch of things so I could do more coding.

What’s your favorite project that you’ve made? I think it’s my dragon game.

Do you ever look at the Tynker community? Yeah, I get ideas from there because they have really good ideas.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? Making physics using the Physics Engine.

What are you planning to make? I’m planning to make this game about an alien kitty. It’s going to be an alien and he’s going to do stuff on an alien planet.

Why do you like to code? Because you can create your own things and you don’t have to follow other people’s rules. Sometimes other people’s rules are weird.

Do you think other kids should learn to code? Yeah, because it’s really fun. It’s kind of hard at the start, but if you can read, it’s really easy.

What advice would you give for kids just getting started with Tynker? You shouldn’t stop trying after your first try. At my first try, I was frustrated. I was trying to make something move, but I didn’t wait any seconds, so it just popped away, and I did too many steps.

Julian’s “The Flying Penguin Game” works best when you open it through the Tynker app on a mobile device. Not all features are supported on computers.

Julian’s parents Michael and Emily both work in the tech industry in Silicon Valley, so they understand the importance of kids learning to code. They see coding not only as a useful skill, but as a creative outlet: “It’s the language of creativity. [My kids] actually don’t have a lot of screen time, and the only time we allow them to have screen time is if they’re doing something creative. They’re very driven to not just watch things, but do something creative.” When Julian’s teacher introduced Python to his class after he’d already done a lot of coding with Tynker, she noticed that Julian seemed to catch on really quickly. Emily says, “I feel like Tynker really helped him understand the logic behind the code, so he was able to learn [Python] much faster.”

Thanks so much for talking to us, Julian! We loved playing your projects and hearing about what inspires you to code.

Looking for more fun? Try out Julian’s newest game, where you’re a cat who needs to dodge cars and catch mice!