At just 15 years old, Lacey, a CodeWizardsHQ high school student, has already shown an impressive talent for coding, sparked by an early curiosity about how her favorite video game worked. This curiosity quickly grew into a deep passion for programming, which has been further developed through her coding education and an engaging hobby, robotics. As we delve into Lacey’s journey, her story is not just about coding but about how a young mind can transform curiosity into substantial skills and achievements.
The Spark of Interest
Lacey remembers when she was first inspired to learn to code. “I saw Five Nights at Freddy’s, and thought it was really cool. I decided that I wanted to be a game developer. I just really thought it would be fun.”
Lacey’s dad recognized the importance of encouraging his daughter’s interest in coding. “You want to foster those interests whenever you can when they happen; otherwise, they might go away before you know it. When she started expressing interest in that type of thing, I decided that it was time to try and find something that would foster that learning.”
An online search led Lacey’s dad to CodeWizardsHQ. That was four years and thirteen classes ago. Today, Lacey is immersed in her fourteenth CodeWizards class, Object Relational Mapping. In Object-Relational Mapping (ORM), students are taught to utilize ORM libraries to facilitate interactions with databases.
Projects and Progress
Lacey has achieved quite a bit during her tenure at CodeWizards, but her dad was impressed with her learning from the start. “Early on, she was showing us her projects and what she was able to do with different graphics and countdown timers, making rockets lift off, and things like that. It was exciting to see, because she was pretty young when she did that, and it was kind of impressive.”
Throughout her time in the program, Lacey has completed countless projects, with a particular fondness for those that allowed her to explore her creativity and technical skills. Her favorite projects have included a Paintball Game middle school project and a meme generator that she created in CodeWizards high school APIs and Databases class. Lacey remarked that she enjoys working with databases and learning how they interact with websites.
Integrating Coding With Robotics
Lacey’s coding skills have been further applied and expanded in the realm of robotics, where she not only participates but excels. Her involvement in robotics competitions has allowed her to integrate her coding skills with hands-on engineering tasks, contributing significantly to her team. Lacey contributes to her team in other ways as well, making marketing materials and a logo and participating in a judged speaking presentation. Her work helped earn her team the Impact Award. The Impact Award is the most prestigious award in FIRST Robotics. It honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the mission of FIRST.
When Lacey’s robotics team ascended to the World Championship in Texas this year, Lacey took a little CodeWizards with her. Lacey leveraged code from the CodeWizardsHQ Paintball Game. She developed a new game to be played by participants during downtime at the competition. “I used some of the code from the Paintball Project to make a game that was based on last year’s challenge,” Lacey explained. This ability to repurpose and adapt her coding knowledge highlights the creative and practical applications of her skills. People from all over the world were playing her video game on her laptop, which started with a CodeWizards project.
Beyond Coding
Lacey’s interests and talents extend beyond the digital screen. She is an avid reader with a love for languages, currently enjoying French while also learning Italian. She is looking forward to camp this summer and engaging in activities like horseback riding. Lacey is also busy taking care of two new miniature Australian shepherd puppies, Rosie and Berry.
Looking Ahead
As Lacey looks to the future, her path remains open. While she is uncertain about the specific direction her career might take, one thing is clear: coding will be a significant part of her life. “I don’t know yet, but I know that I am definitely going be doing robotics for a long while,” she asserts, indicating her intent to continue exploring the possibilities that coding and technology present.
CodeWizardsHQ is proud to shine a light on Lacey, an exceptional student, both in and out of the coding classroom, and we are thrilled that she continues to be part of our coding family. It seems that her instructor, Tyler Crocker, agrees.
Lacey is a motivated individual and a wonder to have in class. She will often do extra work to find new ways to alter our projects to suit her needs. Lacey could be described as a “technical Loki” of sorts, so often, these “improvements” are unexpected but fun. In class she is not afraid to answer questions and, better yet, get them wrong. The idea that “failure is a step towards success” is hard to teach but not lost on Lacey. I can’t wait to see where Lacey’s path leads in the future!
Tyler Crocker, CodeWizardsHQ Instructor
