The future looks bright with Featured Makers like William learning how to code! The 14-year-old comes from California, where he likes to hang out and talk with his friends and to code, especially with his younger brother.<\/span><\/p>\n William, who is entering 10th grade, enjoys math and acting \u2013 he even works the lighting backstage at his school\u2019s theater! When we sat down to talk with him about his hobbies and his experience coding with Tynker, William had a lot to say. Read on to learn about what motivates William to code!<\/span><\/p>\n How did you get introduced to Tynker? <\/b>On my school iPad they have an app you can download called Tynker! I downloaded that one or two years ago and that\u2019s pretty much how.<\/span><\/p>\n How did you learn how to use Tynker when you were first starting out?<\/b> I kind of just figured it out on my own by playing people\u2019s projects mostly. My brother introduced me to some of the courses, but I only played most of one and just coded based off that.<\/span><\/p>\n How have your coding skills improved since you started using Tynker? <\/b>I used to only be able to change people\u2019s code, and now I can do things like create my own games. It feels pretty cool \u2013 on one project I now have 99,000 views!<\/span><\/p>\n How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? <\/b>I didn\u2019t know it was featured until I got the notification \u2013 it felt pretty cool that I got noticed!<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s your favorite project that you\u2019ve made so far? <\/b>My favorite is probably when I fix someone else\u2019s code! It was a Flappy Bird-based game, and every time you would lose the game would have to be completely restarted. I fixed it so the tubes or whatever now worked, and when you die you get to respawn.<\/span><\/p>\n How do you get inspiration for your projects? <\/b>Well, I\u2019ve seen people do slot games and one game, you have to go around and do different jobs to get money or whatever. They have a slot game in that and based off that is how I created that one game. <\/span><\/p>\n Why do you like to code? <\/b>It\u2019s fun and you can do a lot of things with it!<\/span><\/p>\n What do you do with a project when you\u2019re done with it? <\/b>I publish it right away, and <\/span>then later I\u2019ll do fixes and edit it a bunch randomly. Also, while I\u2019m making it, if I find bugs, I\u2019ll re-edit a bunch of code and then I\u2019ll try it again. For every little thing I do \u2013 when I add a new actor or I set a new code block \u2013 I\u2019ll run it and then I\u2019ll try to see if that worked. If it didn\u2019t, I\u2019ll completely rewrite it again and try it again! <\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s your favorite thing you can do in Tynker? <\/b>Probably edit other people\u2019s code and kind of fix it and play some of other people\u2019s games. I\u2019ll even change the code enough to win it automatically!<\/span><\/p>\n How do you think learning to code has prepared you for the future? <\/b>It helps with problem-solving!<\/span><\/p>\n Do you think other kids should try coding? <\/b>Yes! My younger brother especially. He mostly just edits other people\u2019s code just to win whatever game he\u2019s playing. He was trying to complete a project recently that was similar to one of mine, and I was helping him out with the gravity setting stuff. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? <\/b>You should probably try your project quite a few times before submitting it.<\/span><\/p>\n William\u2019s mom, Bethann, loves that William and his younger brother are coding! \u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity,\u201d she says. \u201cOur local library had a coding class and they had different levels. He wanted to be in the advanced level before he knew how to do it, so Tynker was good for him to work up to where he wanted to be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Bethann supports her children and sees the many different ways that coding helps them. \u201cI support them by letting them do it for as long as they\u2019re allowed to,\u201d she explained. \u201cWhen they\u2019re in projects, I ask them questions about how they did certain things, so it\u2019s not like, \u2018Here\u2019s a game to play,\u2019 but more like \u2018What exactly is it that you\u2019re doing?\u2019\u201d<\/span> Keeping in mind that the future will require a lot of technological knowledge, Bethann is confident that her kids will be able to adapt to the workforce when the time comes. \u201cEspecially with the world today, they\u2019re going to need to learn how to use [coding] in real life. It\u2019s better to learn it now than wait until you\u2019re in the work world and say, \u2018Yeah, I don\u2019t know how to do any of that.\u2019\u201d We agree \u2013 there\u2019s no better way to prepare our kids for future success than to ensure they\u2019re familiar with computer science!<\/span><\/p>\n Thank you so much to William and Bethann for taking the time to chat with us. We can\u2019t wait to see what other projects William has up his sleeve. Happy coding!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Learning to Code William\u2019s Way! The future looks bright with Featured Makers like William learning how to code! The 14-year-old comes from California, where he likes to hang out and talk with his friends and to code, especially with his younger brother. William, who is entering 10th grade, enjoys math and acting \u2013 he even works the lighting backstage at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[510,38,54],"tags":[441],"class_list":["post-13278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-block-coding","category-coding-stories","category-featured-makers","tag-featured-maker"],"yoast_head":"\n
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