Meet Grasshopper, Google’s New App Teaching Coding

Listen up wannabe coders, we have an app that you’re going to love. We all know Google, we all know its variety of products. What you might not have heard about is Google’s ‘Area 120’ program. Area 120 is an experimental program within Google which helps small teams rapidly build new products in an entrepreneurial environment, and Grasshopper is Area 120’s latest handiwork.

Grasshopper has been released to help beginner coders take their first steps in the world of coding, and quite honestly this app is really awesome.

When you first open Grasshopper it asks whether you’ve coded or not before, I of course chose the option that I hadn’t. It then proceeded to give me a one minute run down on what coding is, where it’s used, and which code the app teaches (Javascript) before throwing me straight into my first lesson.

In its ‘Fundamentals’ course, users learn about functions, how to create variables, control code flow + much more, so far I’ve only got up to drawing the French flag on a website, but I’m progressing every time I play.

The easiest way to describe Grasshopper would be that it’s pretty much Duolingo but for coding, the interface is impeccably designed, and to be honest you’d expect nothing less from Google.

“Coding is becoming such an essential skill, and we want to make it possible for everyone to learn even when life gets busy. We made Grasshopper to help folks like you get into coding in a fun and easy way.” the company said in a blog post

One can quite easily see the potential for Grasshopper to get big in schools, universities and amongst general tech heads who want an easy, free and fun way to learn code.

This is exactly the kind of app you pull open while you’re sitting on a train somewhere or waiting for your coffee to arrive, and with the curriculum expected to expand over the coming months you won’t be running out of things to do any time soon.

Grasshopper has hopped into both the IOS and Android stores and is available for download now!