MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Hi.
My name is Mamie Rheingold, and I
will be your host for this issue of Google Developers Live.
And today we're focusing on DIY.org.
DIY.org is a site, and a community
where kids can learn new skills and share what they've learned.
And each member gets a portfolio where they can show off
all the skills that they've learned.
Everything from beekeeping and dancing,
to astronomy and filmmaking, and rapid prototyping.
And today, I am joined by four different DIYers
from around the world, all tuning in
through Google Hangout.
And they've all earned programming-related badges.
So we want to learn more about how they learned to program,
and how people like you guys can help.
So first, I want to turn it over to Diana, from DIY,
to tell us a little bit more about DIY.
DIANA WATTANAPONGSAKOM: Yeah, so DIY, as you said,
is an online community where kids
can learn different skills.
And what's really awesome about it
is that we see this sort of community sort of dynamically
growing by themselves.
Kids are basically teaching themselves these skills,
and collaborating with other members,
in the variety communities in ways
through creating their own websites,
or starting DIY newspapers, and collaborating with one another
to complete projects, and earn skills that they've sometimes
never even heard of before.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Cool, and so let's
turn it over to the DIYers themselves.
I'd love for you guys to each introduce yourself.
ZACH: I'll start then.
Hi my name is Zach.
I'm a DIYer, both on the site and I also work for DIY.
So I think that's cool.
So I'm 16.
My favorite programming skill, I mean I've done a lot.
And I'm just kind of testing when working.
But definitely I like the front-end developer
and back-end developer.
Those are kind of my favorites.
Of my non-programmer ones, [? variety ?] and all that,
the photographer one is one that's really fun to do.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Great.
Zoe?
ZOE: Hi.
I'm Zoe.
I'm eight years old.
And my favorite DIY skill that's not related to programming
is meme hacker.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Meme hacker?
Do you know-- what kind of programming do you know?
ZOE: I program mostly in Python.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Cool.
Awesome.
ZOE: Also in HTML.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Oh man, front-end and back-end.
Cool.
Eli, will you introduce yourself?
ELI: Hello, my name is Eli Cujo, and I'm on DIY and stuff.
And I really like the open sourcer DIY school,
because really like the whole community
aspect of coding and stuff like that.
And DIY as an open source community
has helped me, as well as other open source.
So open source is a very good learning resource for me,
in helping me learn a lot of stuff about coding.
And then my other skill that I like that's not part of coding
is the ornithologist skill.
I really like that skill.
It's about birds and stuff.
And I really like birds and bird watching and nature and stuff.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Nice.
And last but not least, Ginny, will you introduce yourself?
GINNY: Hi, I'm Ginny.
I'm 11 years old.
And I've earned Newb, I think that's about it.
But my favorite skill that isn't programming is animator.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Whoa, cool.
That's awesome!
You guys have done so many things.
I love it!
So just to learn a little bit more about DIY,
and why you guys love it so much, Eli,
will you share with us your favorite thing about DIY?
ELI: Yeah, my favorite thing about DIY
is that it's, as I said before, it's like an open community
that you could learn so many things from other people.
You could teach other people things,
like there's no-- it's a learning experience as well
as a fun one.
A lot of times experiences can be educational and fun,
but one is higher than the other.
But I like how DIY is exactly 50%.
It's really nice how you learn a lot,
and you also have tons of fun at the same time.
It's very-- I like it a lot.
That's my favorite thing, the education and the fun balance.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Yeah, and it seem super collaborative, too.
I noticed you can comment on projects, and fork projects.
ELI: Yeah, it's really there's lots of-- you don't just
post something and then it's just there.
You can comment on it and fork it,
which means that people, if they have the same idea as you,
they could share it with you.
They can show their idea as well as yours.
And then there's favoriting, and then there's
you can get featured, as well, which
is you're featured on the home page.
And it's like a community, it's a very nice community.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Cool.
And since we want to learn more about how you guys started
to learn programming, Ginny, tell us more.
So you've earned the Newb badge.
So why did you start?
Why did you decide to earn that skill?
GINNY: Well, three days after Christmas,
I dropped all my Christmas presents, and went and followed
this link from the Newb skill, which was to MIT's programming
website, Scratch.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Oh, cool!
GINNY: It's a programming site for kids.
It really got me started.
And then I got into Khan Academy after that.
And from there I learned JavaScript.
And I'm getting a little bit into HTML.
I'm really interested in that.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: This is all since Christmas?
GINNY: Yes.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Whoa.
GINNY: Not since this Christmas.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: OK, I was going to say,
that would be crazy speed.
That's awesome!
So you've been coding for a year now?
GINNY: Yes.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Really cool.
And then, and so Zoe, you're eight,
and I've heard that you've known that you have wanted
to be a programmer since you were five.
So I'd love to learn more about what
inspired you to want to become a programmer
and what do you want to do with these skills when you grow up.
ZOE: Well, my parents introduced me to Khan Academy,
and my favorite part of that was the coding.
So then she introduced me to another website for coding.
And then I started learning Python from a book.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Whoa, cool.
Have you made anything with Python or any of the code
that you've learned?
ZOE: Not much yet, though.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: OK.
Well, you've got an early start.
I feel good about your future as a programmer.
You've got a lot of years ahead of you.
And Zach, so you're here and you've actually
grown up to be a programmer as a teenager.
So I want to hear more about that.
What's it like to actually be a programmer for DIY?
And you're still in high school, right?
ZACH: Yeah, I'm in high school.
I mean it's good.
Yeah, I've always been kind of a fan of teenagers
getting out and doing more than the average part-time job,
which I guess is what has led me to DIY.
And so I started about a year and a half ago, I guess.
I mean, when I started I definitely was not that good.
I mean I thought I was, but, hey.
And it's just been a really great ride.
I mean all the people I work with are great.
And they're great at mentoring, and just overall good people.
And I've learned so much and I've done-- I've got to speak
and I've got to do so many things because of programming,
which I think that's cool.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Yeah, I'm excited to see your project
later on.
Cool.
And so when you're just starting,
so I want to learn more about how you guys actually
learned how to program.
So Ginny, will you start to tell us about how you learned?
You mentioned Scratch and Khan Academy, earlier.
GINNY: Well, I just went into Scratch,
followed some of their tutorials.
And soon I was figuring a lot of things out on my own.
My first project was just this picture of a ninja,
and if you pressed different buttons on the keyboard,
then he would change poses.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Nice.
Fighting ninja.
GINNY: From there I progressed so much,
in the first couple of weeks.
And I just took off, and I was making a lot of things
from generators to platformers.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Cool.
And Eli, will you share with us more about how
you started to learn how to program?
ELI: When I was younger, when I was eight, I started,
I got into-- I read a lot, and I really
want to start a website about book reviews.
It was sort of like a dream or whatever,
and I researched a little bit and I figured out
that I could actually do this, somehow.
And I used a couple of small software.
And I used HTML mostly, and I sort of
started creating my website.
At first it started out with just a blank background
and then a couple of bodies of text.
But then eventually, as I learned more and more
through the internet, my website progressed.
And of course, it's not published or anything
because it was just sort of a page thing.
It wasn't on the internet.
But that's how I got into coding,
was I wanted to have this website.
And I researched and I just found out
that, oh, it's actually possible.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Cool.
And then how have you progressed through your learning
through DIY?
ELI: Oh, well with DIY, like as I said before,
I just knew just HTML, just the basics.
But then when I went on DIY, the skills
like a back-end dev and front-end dev,
introduced me to other types of code, and how those codes work.
Like Raptor, how it's back-end dev and stuff.
And CSS, and that really helps with spicing up
my HTML and stuff.
I learned different codes that could help me out
through my website making, and other stuff.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Cool.
Yeah, cool.
And so most of our listeners are grownups,
and so I want them to walk away knowing
how they can go help kids like you to program.
So Zoe, have there been any adults
that have helped you along the way and anything that
made it super helpful, or not helpful
for you learn how to program?
ZOE: Yes, my dad has helped me with Python,
and taught me how to make it so you can, it asks you a question
and you can type an answer, and it will give you a result.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Cool.
Yeah, it's so magical when it actually responds.
Is there anything that your dad has
done that's made it easier to learn how to code?
ZOE: Well, he gave me the book about Python.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Super helpful.
What book is that?
ZOE: It's "Python for Kids."
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Cool.
Sounds like an appropriate book for you.
Cool.
Awesome.
I would love to actually see a demo.
So Zach, will you share the coolest thing
that you've created with code?
ZACH: Yeah, totally.
So let me just pull it up.
So, this kind of started off as a joke project.
It's called dogescript.
So if you've ever seen the doge meme on the internet,
which is quickly becoming very overused, but it's still funny.
I kind of started this as a joke.
Basically I was like, what if there
is a programming language that was based on the doge meme,
and would compile to JavaScript, how-- all this copy script,
and type script.
And so, I kind of did it one night as a joke.
And then this is what happened.
A lot of people started contributing.
Well, someone else had posted it on Hacker News.
And it just kind of blew up.
So a lot of people found it, and it became this-- well,
so many people were really into it.
It's just cool.
It's on GitHub, so like open source MIT license.
And people they've contributed so many things, poll requests
and I mean there's 15 contributors for what's
completely a joke language.
But it's a good joke language, but at the same time
you could actually program things,
and people have, which is really funny to see.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: The beauty of the internet.
Love it.
And the Wowser.
That's great.
Cool.
Well, this has been super fun for me.
Before we sign off, is there any last advice anyone
wants to share to the Google Developers
out there that are tuning in?
ZACH: I would say, when you're trying
to get kids and teenagers interested,
don't over-force it on them.
So many people tried to really force it.
If a kid or teenager doesn't like it, they don't like it.
And move on to something else they're passionate about.
That's kind of basic advice I can give.
I mean, that's for anything, but really for programming, it's
definitely true.
MAMIE RHEINGOLD: Yeah, love that.
And go help kids learn what they're passionate about.
Thank you, guys.
This has been super fun.
And Google Developers out there, I
hope you've been inspired by these young kids who already
know how to code, and you're excited about going
out and helping more kids in your community
learn how to code.
There are some great resources that they mentioned.
And also remember to check out DIY.org.