No computer code too hard for these girls

About a dozen girls sit on the floor, laptops open and at the ready.

Nine-year-old Leonora Mogin is showing off her afternoon’s work on her computer: a little maze game.

As she navigates a small icon through the paths, one of the other girls pipes up: ‘‘but her game’s impossible!’’

Someone else proudly adds she made it most of the way through Leonora’s maze.

About a dozen girls gather every Tuesday afternoon in the Clyde Quay School library for CodeCamp, learning how to design and build their own games from the ground up.

Leonora has just finished her four-weeklong Scratch maze project, a project she said was ‘‘very confusing and hard’’ – not just for her but for people playing it too.

But she doesn’t mind; she ‘‘really likes’’ coding and coming along to class.

‘‘You just get to do some coding without any distractions. More girls should do it. Everybody should be able to do it, not just specific people.’’

CodeCamp is a programme for those aged 7 to 12. It teaches children about coding, app development and robotics both after school and during holidays.

Instructor Ash Beaumont said it wasn’t just the practical coding skills they were learning, they were picking up teamwork and communication skills too.

Beaumont studies in the STEM field at Victoria University and knows firsthand how often guys outnumber girls in classes.

She’s often one of only two or three women in her class and wants to make a difference with young girls.

‘‘It’s such a male-dominated thing,’’ she said. ‘‘I think that’s our focus, getting girls in and making sure they’re not intimidated.’’

The girls in this class have been coming along for about nine weeks and have been set to work on three different projects, culminating in creating their own mazes.

At the end of the session, the girls gather to talk through what they have done that day, what worked and what didn’t and what they’d like to do next time.

CodeCamp founder Peter Duncan said the programmes started about two years ago and had ‘‘exploded’’ in popularity – now, they teach about 160 children across Wellington how to code.

‘‘I’m aware that this is, obviously, the future and this is the language they have to learn to get ahead.’’

Year 5 Clyde Quay School student Leonora Mogin, 9, shows off the finished maze she made at CodeCamp. Inset: Sadie Donaldson, 11, left and Lillian Hillyer Magoffin, 11, also attend CodeCamp to learn how to build computer games from scratch.