Hello, here is the beginning of the in-depth project where we choose a skill we are interested in, and we find a mentor to teach us. I’ll be learning about coding, how it’s used and what its’s used for. Coding has many languages to pursue but I’m going to be learning how to code in python, as it is one of the most common, easier to understand, and my mentor has the most experience with it. The details of my learning include different areas of coding such as data structures, basic functions, strings, integers, and bools.
Why coding?
Why coding? Coding is something that I’ve always wanted to learn, but never found the time to. It seems interesting, it’s like the secret world behind all the programs I use daily, and it would be cool to be able to create those myself. To add to that, the final project will be based on a game I used to play on a piece of grid paper, which was somehow never available. So, I would always have to print more, and every time I would wish I could just play it online, but there was no program to do so. Which is why I’m very passionate about this final project. In-depth is also an opportunity to learn something which could prove useful in the future. Those are the reason why I wanted to do coding as my in-depth topic.
My mentor
My in-depth mentor is my mother, she is a professional software engineer, and deeply experienced in the field. The main reason I couldn’t choose anyone outside my family was the ongoing pandemic. The plan is for my mother to teach me the process of coding programs and, but the basic functions of the language I would learn in my own time by watching tutorials such as linked at the bottom of this post. It would then be easier for my mentor to teach me the real process of coding.
Final project
My final project is something I’m very passionate about and wish to see completed. I will not describe my project in detail, but here is a basic rundown. I will write a program for a game; this game will be set on a grid where your character starts out on a square in any location. Then you proceed to use controls such as up, down, left, or right to move through the grid and unlock new squares and items. Then at some point you reach the end and finish the game.
The plan for creating the final project
The idea is to create a simple version of this game, without any visuals but with a program. Then once it works, add complexity and visuals. And for the final few weeks, just debug as apparently this is one of the longest processes. My mentor should not help me with this program, unless she is teaching me, or there is an error I can’t fix in a certain amount of time. This way I can learn how it’s like to go through the process of coding an entire program almost completely on my own. This will help me be creative, problem-solve, and feel relieved if I successfully accomplished and made progress in the project.