I turned Claude Code into a building coach for my 8-year-old son Oliver. He codes in Arduino IDE and PyCharm — real tools, not block-based toys — and talks to stirfry using voice dictation so his hands stay free for wiring and building. It's basically the technical parent looking over his shoulder, except it's always available and endlessly patient.
It's been working way better than I expected. Now I want to see if it works for other kids too.
If your kid rips through kits and wants to build harder stuff, you've probably seen the problem: real tools are hard to learn alone. They get stuck, get frustrated, and drift off to YouTube. Maybe you can help when you're around, but you're not always around. And if you're not technical yourself, the only option is classes. stirfry is the building coach that's always there.
I'm interested
What It Looks Like
These are from real sessions with Oliver. He talks to stirfry using voice dictation, so the spelling and grammar are his. I left them that way on purpose.
Oliver: lets do some hardware stuff today. Give me 10 or more Options.
Coach: Nice, hardware day! Here are your options — you've got all the parts for these: Spy / Stealth: Intruder alarm, IR tripwire, Secret knock lock... Mark Rober Style: Booby trap box, Glitter bomb trigger, Room guardian... Games: Reaction time game, Ultrasonic theremin...
Oliver: One, because I have not used my PIR motion sensor before.
Coach: Cool choice! The intruder alarm is a great first project for the PIR sensor. So before we start building — do you know what a PIR motion sensor does? Like, how it actually detects someone?
Oliver: I think it detects motion so if it sees something it send a signal to the arduino.
Coach: Good question! Digital pin 2. The PIR sensor only sends HIGH or LOW — it's like a yes/no signal. That's digital. Analog pins are for when you need to read a range of values. Quick check — do you remember the difference between digital and analog signals?
Oliver: The difference from analog signals and digital signals is analog it can be at like any... Any value of power in these don't can only be at like no power in the wild or like full power 5 volt in the wild.
Coach: That's exactly right! Analog is like a dimmer switch — any value in between. Digital is like a light switch — either OFF or ON.
...
Oliver: I typed it and I saved it and also the PIR pin you load it as an int but it has to be a constant so it doesn't change.
Coach: That's a really sharp catch! You're absolutely right — the pin number never changes, so it should be const int to protect it. Nice thinking.
Oliver: It works, It is buzzing
Coach: Let's go! You've got a working intruder alarm! Before we move on — try something real quick. Change the 1000 in your tone() line to something way different, like 200 or 5000. Upload it and see how the sound changes.
Oliver: 5,000 is too high for my ears and it really holds, and 200 it's like a little too low So I think we just stay with 1,000 for now.
Coach: Ha yeah, 5000 is painful! Good call sticking with 1000.
...
Oliver: it works it's bedtime for me so we will add the button tomarow
Other kids are building with stirfry too. Here's a snake game Atlas made and an Iron Man boss fight Griffin built — both in Python with stirfry coaching.
How It Works
Your kid opens stirfry in a terminal and just starts talking. They use MacWhisper for dictation — describing what they want to build, answering questions, yelling "it works!" when something clicks. Their hands stay free for wiring and building, which matters a lot at this age.
Oliver picks what he wants to build. He drives the whole session. When he's stuck, stirfry doesn't just hand him the answer — it asks a narrower question or connects it to something he's already done. He figures it out himself most of the time. What surprised me is how fast he started catching things on his own, like noticing a pin variable should be const before anyone told him to.
Everything is built in small chunks — wire one component, write a few lines, test it, see it work, add the next piece. After each chunk, Oliver gets a quick experiment: "Change the frequency to 5000 — what happens?" Takes 30 seconds and gives him real intuition for how things actually work.
The tools are the same ones adults use — Arduino IDE, PyCharm, the terminal. The tools were never the problem. Getting stuck alone in them was. The first time Oliver used a PIR sensor, stirfry walked him through every step. By the third project, he was wiring it himself without being asked.
Behind the scenes, there's a learner profile for your kid — what they know, how they learn best, and what they're excited about. It's used to generate project ideas tailored to them.
Learning style: Builds to learn. Wants to make things.
Standout skills
- Can wire basic circuits (LEDs, buttons, resistors, PIR sensors)
- Understands digital vs analog signals (explained the difference correctly)
- Completed: IR communication between two Arduinos
- Has pygame installed and working in PyCharm
Learning patterns
- Corrects misinformation confidently (told coach the quiz game wasn't his)
- Uses dictation naturally — transcription errors are minor and don't slow him down
- Secret knock lock — Piezo detects your knock pattern, servo unlocks if it matches
- Booby trap box — open it and the buzzer screams + LEDs flash, servo slams it shut
- Dodge game — move a character around the screen, dodge falling objects
- Python controls Arduino — send commands over serial to turn LEDs on/off from your computer
- Remote dashboard — Arduino sensors feed data to a Python pygame display
Oliver building a Pygame project in PyCharm with stirfry coaching alongside. Click to enlarge.
After Every Session
Everything is saved — you can see what your kid built and what they learned. I review every session and tune the coaching specifically for them. Here's what an actual review looks like:
Based on what Oliver demonstrated across both sessions, here are proposed updates to his learner profile:
Arduino skills updated
- + Knows digitalRead, digitalWrite, and Serial Monitor
- + Knows tone()/noTone() — used before, retained with syntax refresher
- + In progress: Intruder alarm (PIR + buzzer + LED working, button next)
Learning patterns updated
- + Successfully uses existing code as templates — duplicated pirPin pattern for ledPin independently
- + Good component knowledge retention — remembered buzzer/tone() across sessions
Want me to apply these changes?
Getting Started
A few families are already trying stirfry. I'm looking for more — kids ages 8-13 who've shown interest in building things and are ready for real tools.
You bring: a computer for your kid — stirfry runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux (if you need one, here's the setup I recommend), a Claude Code subscription ($20/month), and a GitHub account (free).
I bring: free access to stirfry, a Zoom session to set everything up, personally reviewing sessions and tuning the coaching, and a weekly update on what they built and learned. You get a direct line to me for anything.
All I ask: let your kid use it a few times and tell me what's working and what isn't.
About
I'm Jason Bornhorst — dad, engineer, multi-time founder. I've spent my career building products, but this is the first thing I've built where my favorite user lives down the hall. If you want to talk about what your kid is into and whether stirfry might be a good fit, just reach out.
Questions? jbornhorst@stirfry.co