Meet Zach! He is a CodeWizardsHQ student who goes above and beyond to create exceptional coding projects. His work both in and out of the classroom and his enthusiasm for helping other students with programming have made him an excellent choice for our monthly Student Spotlight.
From Minecraft to Coding
Zach’s passion for coding initially stemmed from an interest in Minecraft.
“When I was playing Minecraft, I was messing around with something called Command Blocks. They’re basically things that allow you to code in the game. They execute special code that can do everything from summoning creatures to building structures.”
Zach became interested in furthering his Minecraft modding skills and his mom saw the potential for a beneficial activity that would interest her son. She looked for coding instruction opportunities and found CodeWizardsHQ.
“I really liked the program setup and the idea of a real-world project at the end of the program. It’s been a great experience for Zach. He gets good feedback from his teacher. He loves it. He always takes his projects and then builds on them after he turns in his homework.”
Going the Extra Mile
CodeWizardsHQ students are encouraged to customize their coding projects. It helps to motivate and inspire them. Zack often surpasses project expectations with his work. One of his favorite projects has been a Paint app that he created in the Fundamentals of Web Development Class. The app uses HTML/CSS to make a coloring website. Zach described some of his customizations.
“I added a few extra features. The example project had only 200 pixels and mine had over 10,000. I also added a button that would fill the canvas with a specific color, and I added the option to add custom colors.”
At just 13, Zach is already nearing the end of his third high school course at CodeWizardsHQ and he is already making good use of his newly acquired skills to create projects outside of class. He has made a program called Wisdombot using HTML/CSS and JavaScript. Wisdombot interacts with the user with stories, emojis, quotes, and fortunes. Zach recently made a war card game using Python too.
Zach’s favorite languages are HTML/CSS and JavaScript. He prefers them over Python because of the visual customization that those languages allow. He’s looking forward to expanding his knowledge of his favorite languages and hopes to pursue a career in web or game development.
School and Hobbies
Outside of coding, Zach’s favorite subject in school is history. He is also involved in a local robotics club. His group is currently working on building a robot for competition that is able to hiccup and throw a ball. He enjoys gaming and plays Minecraft and The Legend of Zelda.
One of Zach’s favorite pastimes is helping other student coders on the CodeWizardsHQ Forum. The Forum is a moderated online community where students can seek help with projects from other students. It helps to foster learning, communication, collaboration, and leadership among students. Zachary likes hanging out on the Forum and helping students who need a little coding assistance.
CodeWizardsHQ is fortunate to have students like Zach as part of our coding family. His dedication to coding and to helping other students have made him a welcome asset in our community. It seems his instructor agrees.
Zach is a great student who always goes well above and beyond what is asked of him. He continues to blow me away with every single assignment, putting his own fun spin on each project. I can’t think of a more deserving person for the spotlight!
Peter, CodeWizardsHQ Instructor