Sophomore Jackson Moreland got an early start to programming as he started his journey in second grade. 

Starting with the basic coding program, Scratch, he completed his first project of making characters move with arrow keys. Using that experience, he could fully code six games on his own, along with many other Scratch projects and a bunch of Roblox games.

“I just thought it was cool to make stuff,” Moreland said.

Moreland was mentored by his father who has a career that deals with a bit of coding. His dad was one partial reason Moreland decided to pursue coding.

“My dad, he does simulations for Purdue… like a generator or something,” Moreland said.

Now, Moreland is on the robotics team. Last year, when he joined the Robotics Club, he was very quiet. This year, his skills were very useful to the Robotics Club.

“We had a lead programmer, so we didn’t know what to expect out of him,” Robotics Coach  Joseph Hussey said of Moreland. “He joined this year, he made a 180, and he’s the lead programmer.”

Now that he is the lead programmer, he has been able to take over and use his skills to make the robot move without any controls.

“I don’t know how to code… He does it all on his own,” Mr. Hussey said.

Moreland does not talk about coding or robotics to his friends, but he shares his game links with them. One of his games is very similar to Flappy Bird. His game link is not blocked on Go Guardian, so it serves as the perfect cure for boredom.

“Yeah, that flappy bird game, I was playing it in class… I have it saved on my Chromebook,” Cesar Beltran-Flores said.

Moreland plans to use his skills to become a software designer, programmer, make apps, or make robots. All the extra activities he is doing now will help him achieve his goal. 

“I just like seeing the stuff I do make stuff happen,” Moreland said.