Thirty-five campers left a teenager's coding camps more interested in programming

Thirty-five campers across two camps averages about 17 or 18 to a group, though the split between the two is not reported ^[23]. One person designed the curriculum, taught both camps and co-designed the study with Kumar ^[25]. She has been running camps since 2023 ^[12]. No camp in the study was taught by an adult instructor, and nothing in the design compares a youth-designed camp with a professionally designed one ^[26].

Kumar said the project grew out of what she and Kharuna were already seeing. "The participants consistently seemed to be getting something meaningful out of the experience, and we had a hunch that the positive impact of the camps might be tied to the fact that the person teaching the camps was close in age to the participants," Kumar said ^[11].

Campers described the activities as engaging and fun, particularly compared with school-based coding classes ^[7]. That comparison is retrospective, and it comes from children who chose to spend part of their summer at a library coding camp ^[3]. The camps ran hands-on projects, and campers said making games helped them apply what they learned, while Kharuna's support made complex concepts more relatable ^[8]. Curriculum format and instructor age move together in this design ^[26].

What the study reports is interest, engagement and satisfaction, all of it self-reported ^[6][7]. There is no coding assessment, so nothing here shows whether campers can write Python they could not write before, and there is no later follow-up, so the interest change is measured as the camp ends ^[27].

Several campers called Kharuna a role model and said her leadership inspired them to pursue leadership opportunities themselves ^[9]. Kumar reads that as near-peer identification, and she states it with a hedge in place. "It's more than kids teaching kids; it's the idea that seeing someone close in age succeed in computing may help younger students imagine themselves doing it, too," she said ^[14]. Her unhedged claim is narrower: "We're seeing that children can learn programming from other young people," Kumar said ^[13]. She said the findings suggest youth-led learning may be a promising way to encourage more children to explore computing ^[15].

Kharuna's teaching began in eighth grade, after a STEM conference she attended with her mother ^[17]. "I watched older girls build robots, create apps and talk about technology with so much confidence and thought maybe I can do that too," she said ^[18]. She also said this: "I started teaching myself to code but quickly realized that it would be a lot more fun if I could learn alongside other kids" ^[19]. That summer she invited a group of students to her basement and built an eight-week coding camp ^[20]. Two local libraries later opened their doors, giving her space and students beyond her immediate community ^[21].