Student Spotlight: Charles B.

Meet Charles! He’s all about building games with his coding skills and loves sharing his passion with friends and family. We’re thrilled to have had him as a CodeWizardsHQ student for the past two years.

Charles comes from a STEM family (his mom has a PhD in genetics and his dad has a PhD in biomedical sciences) and has been interested in engineering for a long time, but his interest in coding started when he discovered Scratch and started playing around with it. Then he was exposed to coding outside of Scratch through a summer camp through a local university, which led his parents to start looking for coding classes for Charles outside of summer.

“He really enjoyed the coding there and we tried to find a course that could really build on that,” says Charles’s dad, Brad. “I think Charles really got interested in coding because he’s been doing engineering for a long time, ever since he got his first LEGO system.”

Coding as a Group Activity

What has been the most fun for Charles in his coding journey so far is learning how to build his own games. Not only does he share his games and projects with his parents every week, but he’s built games for his friends, too.

“After I started getting to the point where i could make games, my friends started asking for me to make some for them,” Charles says. “The virtual reality ones were their favorites.”

Brad shared that Charles’s coding classes have really become a group event thanks to his excitement for sharing what he’s learned.

“His friends will come over into his room and he’ll be showing off the games that he’s developed for them, so it’s really a social event with all the kids in the neighborhood and that’s kind of fun to watch,” he says. “My birthday present one year was a video game that he created with CodeWizards.”

While coding might seem like a solitary activity to most people, Charles not only involves his friends from his neighborhood, he has also made friends in his CodeWizardsHQ classes.

“I like coding with friends and stuff. You can make friends in class,” he says, noting that he has a few CWHQ classmates who he talks to outside of class.

When he’s not busy building games, Charles enjoys playing chess and swimming. He’s also been playing bass guitar for the past two years.

Coding has also become a family activity now that Charles’s younger sister started with CodeWizardsHQ, starting with Scratch in our elementary school program.

The Importance of Great Teachers

While Charles got interested in coding because of his desire to become a mechanical engineer, and he loves building games and making new friends, his other favorite things about CodeWizardsHQ are the teachers.

“I really like the instructors. They’re really easy to get along with and they can be very helpful.”

Charles’s dad is thrilled to see his son’s passion for coding and is happy to help him continue his coding journey as long as he wants.

“My job is just to support him in every way I can and he really enjoys coding, so I will continue with CodeWizards as much as possible.”

Charles’s teacher, Lynn, loved having him in class for his enthusiasm for coding and his unique sense of humor. Here’s what she had to say about Charles:

Charles has got a great sense of humor. He’s perfect at delivering a quick, witty quip to elicit a laugh break during a long working silence. Often in the middle of class, I’ll catch him making custom changes to the project. He uploads his own images, and edits the design to suit his chosen theme of the day, hmm … Star Wars perhaps? As always, he also layers in his humor.
Lynn, CodeWizardsHQ Teacher