You never know where inspiration will strike.

Peter is a 13 year-old boy in 8th grade at the Chinese American International School in San Francisco. He started with a coding mentor back in September and right away started making exciting games.

In December he was in the holiday spirit and created a game using Christmas and Hanukkah colors.

Breakout, the One Player Pong

Breakout Mentors is named after a computer game that is fun to code. In fact, it is the first game Breakout Mentors Founder Brian Skinner made in Stanford’s introductory Java class!

Our kids working with mentors love creating it as well. Play Peter’s holiday themed game (if viewing in email, go here) and check out his Python code:

Kids Add Their Own Creative Features

The color scheme isn’t the only unique twist in Peter’s project. Did you notice the game actually starts with TWO balls?

For a novice coder, two balls might take twice as much code. However, when taking advantage of more abstract programming concepts like object-oriented and list data structures, the true power of coding is revealed.

In fact – Peter can add a THIRD ball with just one line of code!

Project-Based Learning

Peter’s mentor is a Computer Science student at UC Berkeley. Our mentors help the student create fun projects and maintain the perfect difficulty.

The hard part of learning to code is not simply a concept like storing information in a list. It is knowing why and how you use that concept to achieve the desired result.

Breakout Mentors believes this personalized approach is the most effective ways for kids to learn to code. There is no limit to how far kids can go with the help of a mentor – continually learning the next thing, challenged at the right pace, and deepening their love of coding year-round.

If you are curious how a mentor would benefit your son or daughter, please schedule a time for a short phone call.