Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice? • Hacker News Board

Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#1

Post by forkandwait » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:40 PM UTC

Hi HNers,

A friend of mine's daughter is interested in tech, 12 years old, a little shy (if that matters), good grades, and a good circle of friends. Her mom wants to foster growth and confidence and all that good stuff. She has been to two two-week camps, one a co-ed disaster, one a girl only success. Anybody got any advice?

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#2

Post by bwackwat » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

Stay simple and buy her a POSIX-compliant C programming book.

She'll have a server running in no time.

:)

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#3

Post by milcron » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:46 PM UTC

She should get her own computer if she doesn't have one already. How about a Raspberry Pi or two?

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#4

Post by ruste » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:48 PM UTC

Give her a linux install disk and maybe a few pointers on how to use it as well as a copy of K&R C. I was about her age when I started!

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#5

Post by boniface316 » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:48 PM UTC

I volunteered to teach 12 year kids on programming. I found out that teaching through Arduino was the best method. The love seeing their product becoming alive.

I would suggest starting with particle photon and do some mini projects.

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#6

Post by beachstartup » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

when i was 12 i spent several hours a day reading RFCs, man pages, and HOWTOs.

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#7

Post by jey » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

Find the thing that excites her and encourage it. Whether that's game programming (clone Mario), web programming (clone Twitter), algorithms (implement sorting, path finding, etc), controlling Karel the Robot[0], or something else.

0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Robot

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#8

Post by hbhakhra » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

With girls, its all about giving them confidence. The rest I would say is normal stuff you do to encourage curiosity and learning for children.

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#9

Post by corysama » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:53 PM UTC

A friend of mine has a daughter who really enjoys http://girlsmakegames.com/

http://makezine.com/ and the http://makerfaire.com/ have done a great job with a community that encourages kids with a variety of interests.

http://www.meetup.com/ is great for finding people in your area who want to geek out together over something in common.

I don't have great book recommendations other than https://www.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-Takahashi/... Read the customer reviews. I'm a greybeard and I enjoyed it and lend it out to my friends. The publishers https://www.nostarch.com/ have lots of similar books.

Re: Ask HN: 12 year old tech savvy girl – books, programs, events, advice?

#10

Post by manglav » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

I've taught many children, and the biggest motivation for them was tangible success. Project based learning combined with a good teacher will do absolute wonders. Eventually, she can show off her projects ( for example, a M & M color sorter) to her friends. Maybe her friends are interested too and that will give them a little encouragement to pursue their interests as well! Let me know if you have any other questions.