Welcome to my third In-Depth blog post.

 

What went well during lessons?

Our lessons have been structured so that I learn all the technical functions and mechanics of python and coding in general from the internet in my own time. This is done so that I give my mom time to work, and our lessons can be as productive and flowy as possible. This went rather smoothly so far; we’ve only had a few times where I didn’t understand a function and my mentor had to explain it to me. Before moving on to learning about what I will need to complete the final project, we still had to cover some basics in a practical session. Which we managed to do quickly, and not only that, but I was also interested and engaged throughout the entire lesson. Completing the basics in practical sessions meant we could move onto learning about the concepts I need to learn for the project. We’ve had one lesson so far learning about these concepts, and it’s been very interesting. I am really looking forward to completing this project, I think we’re both very passionate about it.

 

Were you listening to each other?

I tried to learn python before a couple years back and it didn’t really work out. The reason it didn’t work out, was because my mentor and I weren’t really listening to each other. Or rather, we were listening to each other, but we weren’t remembering what the other person was saying. But I think I have managed to overcome this problem during my lessons with my mentor this time. In retrospect, during the first lesson, I wasn’t paying much attention, and that’s why I can’t recall much of it. But it the later lessons, I paid close attention and asked questions. My mentor was also listening and answered the questions with nearly as much interest as myself. I think the main contributions to our good communication is that we have a shared motive: both of us want to see the project done. Also, that I have already learned the basics, and we can focus on the interesting parts I wanted to learn from the beginning, rather than the boring basics.

 

Were you candid and open in conversation?

Because we were listening to each other so well, I asked a lot of questions out of interest. A factor could also be that my mentor is my mom, so its easy to ask questions because I wouldn’t be afraid that my question is unnecessary. Still, whenever I had a question, I didn’t hold back to ask it because I was genuinely curious. Even my mentor was open in conversation as well, constantly asking questions about how the final project was going to work and what I wanted to work on next.

 

Progress

So far, I’ve learned the basics, and done a practical session with my mentor to learn more about them. My mentor also gave me a few examples and strategies about efficient code writing. In the last lesson, we’ve started talking about the project and how databases work. Because the project is a game that will run in a 2D world, a database will be necessary to store the information. We’ve also started talking about how we are going to program individual cells (where the player can move in and out of), and how they will store items and have walls on the sides. There is a screenshot below which shows what the basic idea for that is going to be so far.