#CodingLabStudents: Winston Ang, 13, St. Andrew’s Secondary School
Today, we are introducing Winston, an aspiring 13-year-old coder who kickstarted his coding journey with us and got into St. Andrew’s Secondary School via DSA with coding, right here at Coding Lab!
Winston started coding at the tender age of 7. The passage of time stands as a testament to his unwavering determination and perseverance throughout the years. It is with great pride that we celebrate his remarkable achievements, as his consistent effort culminated in a well-deserved Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Most Creative) Award in the International Coding Showcase (ICS) 2022!
Read on to learn more about Winston’s coding journey with us at Coding Lab, and gain insight into his future aspirations as a coder!
“If you have the ability to code well, you can code anything you can imagine. And with both ideas and the ability to code, you can change the world!”
Hi Winston! Tell us about yourself. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Hello, I like coding but In my free time, I enjoy reading books and playing board games!
Say hello to Winston, our amazing #CodingLabStudent!
What do your family and friends say when they hear that you code?
My family is very supportive of my coding interest. As for my friends, some of them also learned coding. So we share a lot of our coding experiences.
How did you get started at Coding Lab?
I first started coding when I joined Coding Lab's Scratch holiday class when I was 7. What I enjoyed most about the classes is that the teachers instead of just telling you what to do, they let you explore on your own to see what happens and allow you to learn on your own inside the class. They will also help me whenever I encounter problems and I would like to thank them for their dedication.
What do you like about coding? How has coding positively impacted your life?
Before I learned coding, I could not understand how apps work. After I had a better understanding of coding, I realised that there are many real life applications for coding.
Why do you think coding is so important?
I think learning coding is important because we rely on code a lot. From your mobile phones to simple apps and even Artificial Intelligence (AI), all these things need to be programmed before they are functional. If you observe closely enough, you will realise that most of our daily activities make use of coding. Furthermore, learning to code can hone problem solving and analysis skills, because more than often, you will be forced to think logically and find the errors in your code in order for it to work.
What was the inspiration for your ICS coding project?
I was inspired to create a sleep tracker project as I have trouble managing my sleeping habits. By creating this project, I was hoping to be able to help myself and others who face similar problems.
What is your biggest takeaway from your ICS participation?
My biggest takeaway from ICS is learning about so many different python functions that I had not known of before! When researching for my project, I came across unfamiliar functions such as “webbrowser”. I was really intrigued by all these, and even decided to add some new functions into my own project!
Winston hard at work on his ICS project!
What are some difficulties you faced while learning to code? How did you overcome them?
When I first started learning python, I had difficulty memorising the syntax and the methods, but over time, I got used to using python to make my projects.
What are your future coding aspirations?
I wish to contribute to the coding community. I aspire to become a programmer so that I can create a simple, user-friendly programming language that will help other programmers save time when writing their code!
Any words of advice for beginner coders?
I think that if you are to start learning coding, you need to have the right mindset - to understand that coding is not just a hobby, because if you have the ability to code well, you can code anything you can imagine. And with both ideas and the ability to code, you can change the world.
We are glad that under the guidance of our experienced educators, Winston has benefitted so much from our award-winning curriculum and nurtured critical thinking skills such that he continues to be a self-motivated learner!
We hope that you are inspired by Winston’s words of wisdom and are excited to explore the magical world of coding with us at Coding Lab!
At Coding Lab, we encourage our students to apply their coding skills and give back to society in their own ways. With coding, our students can do so much, from working on websites with a focus on raising awareness to creating fun, educational learning resources! We hope that Winston’s journey has inspired you to take your first steps towards coding so that YOU can also make a difference!
Our #CodingLabStudents blogs feature our ambitious students and their ongoing coding journeys – be it the budding coder or advanced Python Pro, we appreciate each and every single one’s efforts as they progress to greater heights. 🌱
Coding Lab offers an award-winning curriculum specially for ages 5 to 18 – check out our courses to begin your own coding journey today!
Read Next: Coding Lab Student Feature: Jacob Xu, 13, NUS High School, HCIC 2023 Gold Award Winner
(Written by Thinzar)