Ask HN: What's good for a 10-year-old coder? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's good for a 10-year-old coder?

5 pointsjph9 comments

Parents and teachers of HN, what's good for a 10 year old coder?

My friend's a mom and wants me to talk with her ten year old kid about coding, computers, and the like. She says the kid likes programming, retro computing, creating in Minecraft, creating first-person fantasy levels, and morse code.

Thanks for ideas, advice, insight, and the like...

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Depending on the 10 year old, but my default recommendation for kids learning to code is to use games as the enticing pathway.

So, with that in mind, I'd suggest using Godot (https://godotengine.org), with the reasoning being:

- small, fast, multiplatform

- python-like scripting

- gentle learning curve (for a serious games engine)

- completely FOSS

There are now thousands of 'how-to' videos available which would take a complete beginner from nothing to a functioning game in a few weeks. A great way to get into coding.

[Edit for formatting.]

Thank you! Godot looks great, and I showed it to him and his dad, and he's intrigued. They're going to try writing a 2D platformer. Much appreciated.

I used to make games a lot as a kid. Most were really just toys. I made this game call Snow Siege which was just two players lobbing snowballs at each other. It's probably similar to Fortnite but 2D. Players would build up forts, and catapult giant snowballs over the enemy walls.

Most of the fun was in building a "physics" engine. Every item had some acceleration and velocity, so it would create this parabola motion when you launch something from a catapult. It was a lot more fun to make than play.

There's also stuff like bullet trajectories. The game making tool we used had a "speed 100" for items shot, but sometimes you want it to go even faster. So we'd use trigonometry to figure out what was the closest item in that bullet's path. Then for more fun, we'd add things like cover, e.g. shooting through low cover meant 50% of bullets went through.

And then AI. So I made a game where you had to raid a base, and a bunch of turrets guarded the entrance. The turrets were tough, had a high rate of fire, long range, but were completely predictable. Then you'd have a team of people who would run out from the woods and fire shots at the turrets, then jump for cover when the turret aimed at them. The AI was fun to figure out, in that the turrets were completely predictable but the team individuals would have some form of randomized personality (aggression, bravery). Some would retreat when wounded, lowering the bravery of others, which might trigger mass retreat. Sometimes the humans won, sometimes the turrets.

Most of these games were not even that fun to play, they were just a whole lot of fun to make. It's about figuring out what happens when I do that? Or how can I improve on this?

Also, yeah, Godot is probably the easiest recommendation for now.

Thank you! I used your suggestion exactly like you wrote it, and he very much liked the physics engine concepts, and the 50% effects. He could see the direct relations with those and Mario Kart. Next time we'll try AI. I greatly appreciate you answering.

Robotics. try something simple first, program a Pi to drive a stepper motor, or a drone thruster, then start breaking/disecting things to get mechanical inspiration and parts.

build an appreciation for how code has real world consequences.

> the kid likes programming, retro computing, creating in Minecraft, creating first-person fantasy levels, and morse code

Sounds like the kid is on top of things already. Just chat with them and see what they want or need.

My kids like coding simple games with

https://code.org/

A 60 hour work week. No more. You don't want to burn them out before puberty.

Honestly? Just more time. Having a peaceful and resourceful home to do that is already very good.

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