make_something

You do not need a computer to start

The most common reason a child does not start coding is that the family thinks a laptop has to be bought first. It does not. The phone already in the house runs real Python, in the browser, with nothing installed and nothing paid for.

This is the result you are aiming for, produced on a phone-sized screen:

what the phone prints back

A mountain for Ada * *** ***** ******* ********* | === Code Execution Successful ===

How to do it, on the phone you already have

Open the browser on the phone. Safari, Chrome, whichever is there. You do not install anything.
Search for an online Python compiler. There are several free ones. They give you a box to type code into and a Run button. We tested this on the free editor at programiz.com, which has a Run button built for phone screens, and the program below ran correctly on it.
Type or paste the program in, then press Run. Your mountain appears underneath.
Change the 5 to a 12 and press Run again. That is the whole idea of programming, done on a phone, for nothing.

The program to paste in

This is the same program as our first Python project, and it was chosen for this page because it only prints. Nothing to download, no files to find afterwards, which is exactly what makes it work on a phone.

name = "Ada"
size = 5

print("A mountain for", name)
print()

for row in range(1, size + 1):
    spaces = " " * (size - row)
    stars = "*" * (row * 2 - 1)
    print(spaces + stars)

print(" " * (size - 1) + "|")

Use the copy button rather than typing it out on a phone keyboard. The spaces at the start of the three indented lines are the part that goes wrong most often.

What a phone will and will not do

We would rather tell you the limits up front than have a child hit them and assume they did something wrong.

What works

Anything that prints. Loops, variables, text, maths, patterns, quizzes, working out answers. That covers most of what a beginner does in their first few months, and it is the part where the ideas live.

What does not, in a browser

Programs that reach out to another website or save a file onto the device generally will not work in a phone browser editor. We tried our own dog photo project in one and it produced no result at all, while a plain printing program ran instantly in the same editor a moment later. So that is the project's limit, not the child's.

If you want the full thing on a phone

There are proper Python apps for phones, and they can save files and use the internet the way a laptop does. On Android the common one is Pydroid 3. On iPhone there is a free open source app called a-Shell which includes Python. We have not tested those ourselves, so treat them as a direction to look in rather than a recommendation, and check what they cost before installing.

what_we_actually_tested

We ran the program above in a free browser editor at a phone-sized screen and it printed the mountain correctly. We could not test it on a physical phone, so if the buttons sit somewhere different on yours, that is why. The Python itself is the same Python either way.

for_the_adult_in_the_room

If your child asks for a laptop before they have written a single line, this page is the cheaper first step. Let them do a few of these in a browser, for nothing, and see whether the interest survives contact with the actual work. If it does, then a machine is a reasonable thing to buy, and you will be buying it for a child who already knows they want it.

We are not a school and we sell nothing, so we have no reason to tell you to spend money.

All the things you can make

your_progress

Read this one? Tick it off.

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