Coding for Kids
Meet our newest Featured Maker, 6th grader Shiloh from South Africa! One of her favorite subjects in school is art because she likes to express her creativity. And when she gets older, she’d like a career as a digital artist and programmer. Awesome! Shiloh recently spoke with us about her experience coding with Tynker—coding for kids!
How did you get introduced to Tynker—coding for kids?
One day I came back from my friend’s house and my brother told me that we can make Minecraft Mods with Tynker. I’ve been coding for about two years, three years.
How did you learn to use Tynker?
When I first started to program, I started to mess around with Minecraft, and then I started to take the actual lessons and get the hang of it.
What’s your favorite course?
My favorite Tynker course is Turing’s Tower.
Have your coding skills improved since you started using Tynker?
Quite a bit.
How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured?
I didn’t really know that my project was featured until my brother told me, and then I started to get excited.
What’s the favorite project you’ve made so far?
I like the project that I published quite recently. I just really liked how the artwork turned out.
How do you get inspiration for your projects?
At the start of the year, I started to program a lot. And then I saw lots of popular Tynker’ers making projects, and I wanted to do that also. And then I started to publish art projects.
Why do you like to code?
I like to code because you can basically do anything you want.
What’s your favorite way to use code?
I think my favorite code block is the glide block. I haven’t really published any projects using that. But I really like to have fun with that block.
What do you do with a project when you’re done with it?
I just keep it. I don’t really publish that much. I do publish but only my favorite projects.
What are you planning to make next?
I want to do a project showing how much I’ve improved over the last year with lots of pictures. Animation, probably.
What’s the best thing about Tynker—coding for kids?
I like the community and the courses. They’re very fun.
Has learning to code has prepared you for the future?
My dad always says that if I become a programmer, I can be very successful. So, I basically program every day.
Do you think other kids should try coding?
Yeah, definitely. I’ve actually talked to a bunch of my friends and they would like to code.
What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker—coding for kids?
I would definitely give them advice to use the repeat block and forever loop because I never did that in my projects.
What are some of your hobbies?
I like to draw. I like to game and, well, read. And also swimming.
Bonus: What’s a fun fact about you?
I really like dinosaurs.
Parent Questions
Shiloh’s father, Francois, spoke with us about his daughter learning to code with Tynker—coding for kids:
Obviously, I’m ecstatic. Because in South Africa, you know, we have eleven official languages. Only one of them is universal. That’s English. And it was my take for my kids that if they knew two languages, English and coding, that they’d be able to be have a more global footprint. And I then started to research platforms that could teach them in a nice, fun way. And I stumbled across Tynker.
I strongly encouraged them that if they want to play Minecraft, they need to spend an hour a day coding. And they’ve been super diligent to the point where they actually enjoy doing it. My son Levi isn’t as creative and artsy as Shiloh, but he’s into Python and more of the analytical side.
I’m super excited for the opportunities that it creates for kids in the future. If they can get this under their belt, the ultimate goal for me would be for them to have an app in the app store before they leave school so they can learn how to generate passive income.
So I’m seeing it very much as a business opportunity to teach them a commerce of creating a product, finding a need, developing it, putting it to market, and seeing what works and what doesn’t. The platform that you guys have put together is wonderful. I think it’s excellent value for money
Thank you!
We want to thank Shiloh and her father for taking the time to speak with us about coding with Tynker. We can’t wait to see what she creates next – HAPPY CODING!
