Click'd (CodeGirls #1)
Tamara Ireland Stone
For my daughter, Lauren.
And for the real Ms. Slade, my sixth-grade teacher, who consistently told the girls in her class that they could do anything and be anything. I’m sure I’m not the only one who believed her.
Allie tightened her grip on her phone as she stepped out from behind the curtain and walked to the center of the stage. She looked out into the Fuller University Auditorium. The room was packed with people, and all but three of them were complete strangers.
Speak clearly, she silently reminded herself. Smile. Relax. Do it exactly the way you’ve practiced.
Allie looked down and spotted her parents in the front row. Her mom waved. Her dad gave her a thumbs-up.
Sitting next to her mom was her middle school computer science teacher, Ms. Slade. She had helped Allie get into the highly selective CodeGirls summer camp by working with her on her application, essay, and sample game. Allie smiled at her and mouthed the words Thank you. Ms. Slade smiled back as she brought her palms together.
Then the lights dimmed and a spotlight shined down, warm on Allie’s skin, blinding her. She was relieved that she could no longer see Ms. Slade. It helped her keep her mind off the real reason her favorite teacher was sitting in the audience.
Allie realized she was fidgeting with her phone, so she tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans and forced herself to stand taller.
She took a deep breath.
And then she began.
“On the first morning here at CodeGirls Camp, our instructor told us we had a whole summer to create any kind of app or game we wanted. Anything. Something just for fun. Something that would solve a real-life problem. It was entirely up to us. I loved that.” Allie leaned forward and brought one hand to the side of her mouth, like she was telling them a big secret. “That hardly ever happens to seventh graders in real life, you know.”
The audience laughed.
“But I admit,” Allie continued, “on that first morning, I wasn’t sure I was ready for that kind of challenge. I was waaay too busy being terrified. Because I didn’t know a single person.”
Allie began pacing the stage. Her legs were shaky and she hoped the audience couldn’t tell.
“I kept looking around the room at these girls—nineteen total strangers I’d be spending my whole summer with—and wondering who they were. Did we like the same music? Did we read the same books? Did they have sisters or brothers? Where were they from? I knew we had one thing in common—we were coders—but everything beyond that was a total mystery.”
She glanced over to the side of the stage and relaxed a little when she saw her friend Courtney hiding behind the curtain, wearing a huge grin and nodding encouragingly.
Allie returned to the center of the stage. “And that’s when the idea hit me. Why not an app that could help you make new friends? You know, something to tell you who you clicked with.” As she said the word “clicked,” she snapped her fingers.
Allie pulled her phone from her pocket and waved it in the air. “For my summer project, I created a game called Click’d.” She loved the name. She thought it was a catchy way to describe what the app did.
The logo zoomed open on the huge projection screen behind her, and Allie glanced over her shoulder. She beamed every time she saw it; she couldn’t help herself. She loved the soft blue background and the white, pencil-thin swirls that formed two stick figures with their arms around each other.
“Let me demonstrate how it works. This auditorium seats two hundred and twenty people. I assume most of you don’t know each other,” she said jokingly, and beyond the glare, she could see people looking around and shaking their heads.
“What if I told you there was one person in this room right now who had more in common with you than with anyone else?” Allie held her finger up in front of her. “One person who, statistically speaking, you have more in common with than anyone else. Of course, you could leave this room and never know who that person is, but…” Allie leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees, and crinkled her nose. “Wouldn’t it be more fun to find out?”
Allie waved her phone in the air. “We’re going to use that audience-polling app you installed, so, everyone, please pull out your phones and play along.”
That was the cue for the stage crew to raise the houselights. Now she could see the audience much better, which meant she couldn’t help glancing down at Ms. Slade again. It looked like she was taking notes, but at least she was smiling.
For her nineteen fellow CodeGirls, the presentation was a celebration of all the hard work they’d done that summer—but for Allie, it was that and more. Ms. Slade was a mentor for Games for Good, an annual teen coding competition run by Spyglass Games. Allie hadn’t even considered applying for the contest at first, but once Click’d started getting attention at camp, she thought she might have a shot. She’d already sent Ms. Slade the code, but she had to nail this presentation if she was going to fill the last remaining spot in the competition.
Allie took a deep breath and looked back at the rest of the audience, scanning the room. “Ready, everyone?” she asked as the screen behind her filled with four scenic photographs. “Which do you prefer: the ocean, the forest, the desert, or the mountains? Select A, B, C, or D.”
She advanced the slide.
“Now pick a favorite dessert.” The screen displayed four new images: a bowl of ice cream, a slice of cake, a candy bar, and a piece of apple pie.
Allie looked down at her screen. She could see the data collecting in the app she’d built specifically for this demonstration. It used the same algorithm as Click’d, taking all the information the audience entered and immediately matching people with overlapping interests.
“Let’s do some more so we have lots of information to work with,” Allie said, and she flipped through seven additional slides, asking the audience to pick a favorite superhero, car, breakfast cereal, word, sculpture, color, and houseplant.
“When you’re done with the quiz, Click’d figures out how you scored against each person, but it doesn’t immediately tell you who your top friends are, because that wouldn’t be as fun,” she said with a wink. “Instead, Click’d uses sounds, lights, and clues to help you find your top ten friends.”
As she walked across the stage, she noticed her legs weren’t shaking anymore. She pressed a few more buttons on her phone.
“I’m shortcutting things since this is a demo.”