{"id":22639,"date":"2020-12-08T15:38:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T23:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tynker.com\/blog\/?p=22639"},"modified":"2023-03-07T17:44:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T01:44:05","slug":"featured-maker-lights-camera-action-tessa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tynker.com\/blog\/featured-maker-lights-camera-action-tessa\/","title":{"rendered":"Featured Maker: Lights! Camera! Action! Tessa!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>With Tynker\u2019s Holiday Code Jam in full swing, we wanted to continue to introduce you to some of the winners of this year\u2019s Summer Code Jam! Read on, and then check out more about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tynker.com\/hour-of-code\/#\/codejam\">Holiday Code Jam<\/a>!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s time to meet our newest Featured Maker, Code Jam Winner Tessa, a fourth-grader from Des Moines, Iowa. Tessa\u2019s greatest passion is acting. She loves getting involved with community theatre and loves being on stage. But there\u2019s no playing pretend when it comes to Tessa\u2019s awesome coding skills! It must run in the family, because her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tynker.com\/blog\/tynker-summer-code-jam-winner-joey-the-future-rocket-scientist\/\">big brother Joey<\/a> was a Code Jam winner too! Let\u2019s find out more about Tessa.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Tynker Questions:<\/em><\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How did you get introduced to Tynker and how long have you been coding? <\/strong>I\u2019ve been coding for a couple months or so, but how I got introduced was my older brother, Joey, he got introduced to it because of our technology teacher.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How did you learn how to use Tynker when you were first starting out? <\/strong>Joey helped me a lot. He\u2019s like, \u201cThis is how you do this, and this is how you do that.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How have your coding skills improved since you started using Tynker?<\/strong> They got better, because I didn\u2019t code a lot before. I spend more time coding, so it wasn&#8217;t just \u201cok you get 10 minutes,\u201d I had more time to code.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Creativity Questions:<\/em><\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured?<\/strong> I was at my grandpa\u2019s camp in Michigan and my mom walked over to me and handed me the phone and then when I read it I was super excited because I won! Joey was excited too. He was really happy! He said he was proud and he hugged me.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How do you get inspiration for your projects?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess it&#8217;s like, lots of my inspirations are like looking at the community projects, looking at them thinking, \u201cthat would be a cool idea to make\u201d so I make my own version of that. Sometimes I look at the code too.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why do you like to code? <\/strong>It\u2019s just fun! It\u2019s fun to create your own games &#8211; you get to look at all these other games, it\u2019s really fun. It\u2019s exciting to know that you can create your own game.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What is your favorite way to use code? Do you have a favorite code block? <\/strong>Doing art with it. I like creating stuff with it, like making a rainbow or something. Probably the broadcast button because I like it that when you broadcast something it\u2019s able to go for another whole actor and stuff.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What do you do with a project when you\u2019re done with it? Do you debug it? Show it to someone? Publish it?<\/strong> I show it to someone and then I publish it. Depending on what they say, like it\u2019s good or something or like it needs a little bit more work, depending on what they say.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the best thing about Tynker?<\/strong> It\u2019s really fun and I think I already said this before but you get to make your own games which is also really fun. When I look at the Tynker community projects it\u2019s inspiration.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Is there anything we should change or add to Tynker? <\/strong>Maybe add some more blocks, like really cool blocks.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How do you think learning to code has prepared you for the future?<\/strong> It&#8217;s helping me when I code and stuff I can code stuff like going to school and stuff, so it could prepare me for school.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Do you think other kids should try coding? Why\u2019s that? <\/strong>Yes definitely! It helps them learn and stuff. They can spend more time learning.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? <\/strong>Start with really simple stuff and then make your way to really advanced stuff until eventually they\u2019ll be winning millions and millions!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bonus: What\u2019s a fun fact about you? <\/strong>I like acting a lot. I already said that but I really like acting, being on stage and stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also got a chance to speak with Tessa\u2019s mom, Mary, who is so proud that her daughter is following in her son\u2019s footsteps. \u201cWhen she found out that Joey won, she had her own pretty spectacular project too. And Joey won and she found out she didn&#8217;t, so the first thing she did was say, \u2018Congratulations, Joey. I&#8217;m so proud of you!\u2019\u201d&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mary knew that Tessa was sad not to have won as well, but was impressed that her daughter put up a brave face throughout the whole next week. \u201cThe day he was interviewing with you, she was like, \u2018Oh, don&#8217;t forget your interview is tonight. I&#8217;m so excited for you.\u2019 That&#8217;s just her, she&#8217;s just so supportive. And so now I&#8217;m just really happy that she won on her own terms!\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mary is supportive of her kids, but tells us Tynker makes it so easy for her since it\u2019s self-guided, and Joey\u2019s been a great source of help for Tessa too. \u201cI\u2019m super proud of them. Coronavirus came on. They had nothing else to do. So they decided this is going to be where they spend some of their time. We tried to limit screen time until the coronavirus happened. And then suddenly, there were so many screens, so at least they&#8217;re using it in an academic nature. Something that helps them think things through rather than just sitting there.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We want to thank Tessa and her family for sitting down with us and letting us share in their celebration! Happy coding!<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With Tynker\u2019s Holiday Code Jam in full swing, we wanted to continue to introduce you to some of the winners of this year\u2019s Summer Code Jam! Read on, and then check out more about the Holiday Code Jam! It\u2019s time to meet our newest Featured Maker, Code Jam Winner Tessa, a fourth-grader from Des Moines, Iowa. Tessa\u2019s greatest passion is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22640,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[510,12,54],"tags":[441],"class_list":["post-22639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-block-coding","category-ideas-and-tips","category-featured-makers","tag-featured-maker"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Featured Maker: Lights! Camera! Action! 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