We love helping kids progress from the coding basics towards more advanced projects and concepts. Today, we are featuring one of those students, Mason a 7th grader from San Francisco.

Let’s hear from him about his project (view with subtitles on Instagram):

Advance When Ready

First students need to learn how to code effectively. There are plenty of fun projects they can make along the way, but a multi-month project is more of a year two goal. This is distinct from a second year at a summer camp where actual learning may not be as intensive. Year two of a sharp middle school student working weekly with Breakout Mentors.

Mason’s project is well past knowing how to code. For his gin rummy AI, Mason had to delve into more advanced computer science concepts, starting with object-oriented programming. Basic “artificial intelligence” can start out as a decision tree: what would happen if I discarded this card, would my hand be better or worse? How far ahead can I look with nesting these decisions A->B->C? There are some neat algorithms to try like minimax.

This is a great way for more advanced students to push into computer science: as needed to make an exciting project, not just learning a concept because the teacher said.

Pushing Towards Data Science and Machine Learning

Breakout Mentors has invested heavily in our resources for artificial intelligence and machine learning. This is one area of computer science that is changing fast, is very exciting, and enables impressive projects.

However, it’s also possible to use tools like IBM Watson with only a basic understanding of their inner workings. Although achieving an exciting outcome is important, it is not our sole objective. We start at the beginning, actually writing some of the algorithms and using the industry tools. This gives us a base of understanding, without going too far into college level mathematics like linear algebra, but giving some exposure to the basics.

This is only a fit for high school students who have been coding for a couple of years. If your son or daughter is curious about learning what it would be like working with a mentor for this, here is one of our resources for linear regression.

Get Started Now

We are currently accepting new students and have a limited number of slots available. Schedule a phone call with Breakout Mentors Founder Brian Skinner.