Inspiring Young People to Learn Python With Mission Encodeable

The Real Python Podcast

Is there someone in your life you’d like to inspire to learn Python? Mission Encodeable is a website designed to teach people to code, built by two high-school students. This week on the show, Anna and Harry Wake talk about creating their site and motivating people to start coding.

We discuss why they decided to build the site. Anna and Harry initially felt that the site would be for other students but soon realized it could be helpful for anyone interested in starting to code in Python. We cover the project-based approach and how they implemented the interactive browser-based tool replit.com.

We talk about learning Python in the classroom and how they found additional books and tutorials to supplement their coding education. Anna and Harry also created a resource hub to help teachers take advantage of the site.

Course Spotlight: Rock, Paper, Scissors With Python: A Command Line Game

In this course, you’ll learn to program rock paper scissors in Python from scratch. You’ll learn how to take in user input, make the computer choose a random action, determine a winner, and split your code into functions.

Topics:

• 00:00:00 – Introduction
• 00:02:17 – Personal backgrounds
• 00:02:51 – What’s the goal for the site?
• 00:03:54 – How did you come up with the idea?
• 00:05:08 – Where have you shared it?
• 00:06:39 – Projects for each level
• 00:09:28 – How has the response been?
• 00:10:10 – Using replit
• 00:12:56 – Sponsor: CData Software
• 00:13:37 – Design of the site and other tools to create it
• 00:15:49 – Learning Python and classes at school
• 00:17:41 – Did remote school inspire more online exploration?
• 00:19:16 – Myths of how kids learn programming
• 00:23:32 – More about projects
• 00:27:57 – Video Course Spotlight
• 00:29:27 – What other areas of Python do you want to explore?
• 00:33:08 – Teachers using the site
• 00:37:11 – What other resources have you used to learn Python?
• 00:38:52 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
• 00:40:01 – What do you want to learn next?
• 00:42:06 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

• Mission Encodeable | Free coding tutorials for young people
• Replit - The collaborative browser based IDE
• Make Your First Python Game: Rock, Paper, Scissors! – Real Python
• Figma: the collaborative interface design tool.
• React – A JavaScript library for building user interfaces
• Coding with Minecraft - Al Sweigart
• The Recursive Book of Recursion - Al Sweigart
• Codewars - Achieve mastery through coding practice and developer mentorship
• Advent of Code 2021
• Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) in Python 3 – Real Python
• Python Arcade
• Craig’n’Dave “Unscripted” - Mission Encodeable - YouTube
• Hello World issue 19 — Hello World
• LearningDust: LearningDust 3.15 - Anna & Harry Wake
• Teaching Python Episode 93: Mission Encodeable
• Mission Encodeable (@missionencode) / Twitter

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

• Grow Your Python Portfolio With 13 Intermediate Project Ideas
• Getting Started With Django: Building a Portfolio App
• Rock, Paper, Scissors With Python: A Command Line Game

Support the podcast & join our community of Pythonistas