High Schoolers Make Awesome Coders

Flatiron Summer School was an absolute blast. In just two weeks, more than 100 high school students went from little to no coding knowledge to building dynamic web applications in Sinatra—that’s what we teach our adult classes in a month! They took on the exact same material and totally ran with it. We were so impressed with what they accomplished that we wanted to share a few of their apps:

Humans of New York

Ethan built an app that texts users when a new photo is posted to the wildly popular Humans of New York photoblog.

Dress Without Stress

Courtney (who attended with her brother and sister) made a practical apparel app called Dress Without Stress, which provides fashion recommendations based on the weather.

Random Facts

Rishi made a Random Facts app to serve up a new random fact every day. Look, now you know what phosphenes are. And knowledge is power.

Inspirational Quote Generator

Christine was super diligent about blogging her experience in a Tumblr. Her last post is on her final project, a Sinatra app that shares inspirational quotes (and good vibes).

SAT Trainer

Natalie’s app posts a daily SAT question to help her study for the test (which according to her countdown is coming up soon!). It also offers some stress relief in the form of playlists and cute hedgehog GIFS.

Activity Generator

Really, really bored? Zoe Goldstein made an activity generating app that suggests things to do when you can’t think of any yourself—like “paint your nails” or “read a novel.”

We also saw stock market scrapers, Lana Del Rey fan sites, and a whole bunch of animated GIFs, including a surprisingly well-prepared bucket head. It was awesome (and totally inspiring) to see these students express their creativity, intelligence, and incredible senses of humor through code.

What’s Next

Flatiron After School was built using the momentum of the summer program’s huge success. Classes (which start soon!) are designed to allow for flexibility in schedules but also leverage the immersive nature of our teaching methods. Visit the program site for class schedules, pricing information, and more!