Children learned how to code and program games in Summer Coding Club, held at C.H. Booth Library between Monday, July 27 and Thursday, August 20.

Designed for students entering grades five through eight, this year's Summer Coding Club was split into three-day sessions in a four-week runtime,. The first two weeks focused on Scratch, a visual, block-based coding language in which people drag and drop blocks to create code. Students used Scratch to make their own fun and interactive games, with some even adding sound effects to make their game stand out.

The second two weeks focused on Python, a simple text-based coding language used by beginners and professionals. Since Python is a text-based coding language, this meant students had to type out code rather than use drag and drop blocks like in Scratch. They used Python to learn introductory computer science topics, including maps, loops, conditionals, and booleans.

These differences do not make Scratch less of a programming language compared to Python, according to Newtown High School (NHS) student Henry Lynch, who helped run the club. He said that line of thinking is a misconception, as Scratch is still a real language that helps people learn the fundamentals of programming.

"It is very much a simpler, more basic style of programming that mostly serves as a 'jumping off' block for people to get more into programming," Henry said.

The main difference between the two, he said, is that Scratch "holds your hand a lot more, [while] Python doesn't as much."

Scratch compounds programming prompts into blocks, which makes it easier to use compared to Python, where people have to type those prompts in themselves. Henry called the latter case sensitive; everything someone types is included in the program. While this makes it more difficult, it also allows people to do a lot more with the program.

Henry ran the Python portion of the club with fellow NHS student Brody Paulsen. Together, they watched kids develop text adventure games, similar to the old-school text adventure games of the 1990s. One student worked on a game that prompts the player for a riddle. If they get the riddle correct, the game recognizes that and responds accordingly.

This is far from Henry's first time leading Summer Coding Club at C.H. Booth Library. He previously helped his sister, Virginia Lynch, with two one-week sessions of a summer coding workshop back in 2024. They returned to host it again the following year, under the new name Summer Coding Club.

Virginia started NHS Computer Science Honor Society in 2024, while she was still a high school student. She also started a coding club at NHS that same year, which provides coding lessons to Middle Gate Elementary School students. The goal for both clubs was to give students of all ages more challenging computer science education.

Virginia returned to teach the Scratch portion of Summer Coding Club this year.

Paulsen took a coding class at NHS last year and enjoyed it a lot, which led him to join the school's Computer Science Honor Society. When Henry prompted people to help with Summer Coding Club at C.H. Booth Library, Paulsen thought it would be a lot of fun.

Both Henry and Paulsen learned a lot running the club that they did not think they would have learned otherwise. Summer Coding Club is not just trying to teach kids how to problem-solve by themselves, but it is also trying to teach them the art of problem-solving, according to Henry.

He added, "[People] have knowledge of how they would problem-solve in real life, but with computers, it's an entirely different medium where we're going step-by-step through each specific action and process. In real life, it's kind of more abstract than in programming."

Paulsen said he learned how many things can go wrong with programming, and how people always have to look out for potential issues.

"I often forget that when I started learning my first programming language, it was a learning curve," Paulsen said.

Teaching kids how to get over that learning curve and continue coding, despite whatever challenges they may face, was another goal of the club.

Henry said people have this conception of programming as a very complex, detail-oriented, almost insurmountable task.

"But in reality, if you just break it down into its simpler steps, it's really manageable for just about anyone," Henry said.

Paulsen said it can take time to learn how to code a game, but if people dedicate themselves to learning slowly over time, it can make a big difference.

"You can have a lot more fun with coding if you just start and keep going," Paulsen said.

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.