天才少年

在美國曼哈頓開幕的 “TED Talks” 大會上，12歲天才少年托馬斯·蘇亞雷斯對臺下觀眾分享他的創(chuàng)作經(jīng)驗與技術(shù)，自信且毫不怯場的神態(tài)簡直就是年輕版的“喬布斯”。

蘇亞雷斯不是最年輕的開發(fā)人員，也不是這個年齡段中最出色的，但他的自信和演講水平令人欽佩，他經(jīng)常給好友和老師講解技術(shù)問題。

受史蒂夫·喬布斯以及父母的影響，蘇亞雷斯開始學習編程，學習Python、Java和C語言。蘇亞雷斯開發(fā)了知名的iPhone應用《Bustin Jieber》。如果認為這些還微不足道，那么他去年還創(chuàng)建了自己的公司“CarrotCorp”。

在演講中，蘇亞雷斯討論了學生們?nèi)绾纬蔀榱擞袃r值的科技信息的來源，尤其是老師，應該被允許幫助學校開發(fā)技術(shù)課程。

In a recent TEDx Manhattan Beach talk， 6th grade student Thomas Suarez discussed his long interest in technology， how he first found it difficult to create apps and how the support of his parents， friends and Apple Store employees helped him to develop iOS apps for his company， CarrotCorp. Thomas has created several apps using the Software Development Kit from Apple， including a fortune telling one titled Earth Fortune， an AntiJustin Bieber “Whac A Mole” style game called Bustin Jieber and more. He now shares his programming knowledge with other students at a school club.

Hello everyone， my name is Thomas Suarez. I’ve always had a fascination for computers and technology and I’ve made a few apps for the iPhone， iPod Touch and iPad. I’d like to share a couple with you today.

My first step was a unique Fortune Teller called Earth Fortune that will display different colors of the Earth depending on what your fortune was.

My favorite and most successful app is Bustin Jieber [laughs]， which is the Justin Bieber WhacAMole， I created it because a lot of people at school dislike Justin Bieber a little bit， so I decided to make the app. So I went to work programming it and released it just before the holidays in 2010.

A lot of people asked me how did I make these， a lot of time it’s because the person who asked the question wants to make an app also. A lot of kids these days like to play games， but now they want to make them. And it’s difficult because not many kids know where to go to find out how to make a program. I mean， for soccer you can go to a soccer team， for violin you can get lessons for a violin， but what if you want to make an app and their parents—kids parents might have done some of these things when they are young， but not many parents have written apps！

Where do you go to find out how to make an app？ Well this is how I approached it， this is what I did. First of all， I’ve been programming in multiple—in other programming which is to get the basics down， such as the Python， C， Java， etc. And then Apple released the iPhone and with it the iPhone software development kitsoftware development kit：SDK. And the software development kit is a suite of tools for creating and programming an iPhone app. This opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me， and after playing with the software development kit a little bit， I made a couple of apps and made some test apps， one of them happen to be Earth Fortune. And I was ready to put Earth Fortune on the App StoreApp Store， and so I persuaded my parents to pay the 99dollarfee to be able to put my app on the App Store. They agreed and now my app is on the App Store.

I got a lot of interest and encouragement from my family， friends， teachers and even people at the Apple Store and that’s been a huge help to me. I got a lot of inspiration from Steve Jobs， and I started an app club at school and a teacher at my school is kindly sponsoring my app club， any students on my school can come and design—learn how to design an app. This is so I can share my experiences with others.

There’s these programs called the iPad Pilot Program and some districts have them and I’m fortunate enough to be part of one. A big challenge is how should the iPads be used and what apps should we put on the iPads？ So we’re getting feedback from teachers at the school to see what kind of apps they like， when we design the app and we sell it， it will be free to local districts and other districts that we sell to， all the money from that will go to the local ED foundations.

These days students know—usually know a little bit more than teachers with the technology. So， sorry， this is a resource to teachers and educators should recognize this resource and make good use of it.

I’d like to finish up by saying what I’d like to do in the future. First of all I’d like to create more apps， more games. I’m working with a third party company to make an app. I’d like to get into Android programming and development and I’d like to continue my app club and find other ways for students to share knowledge with others. Thank you.

大家好，我叫托馬斯·蘇亞雷斯。一直以來我就為計算機和科技而著迷。我曾給iPhone、iPod Touch和iPad編寫過一些應用程序。今天我就來給大家展示幾個，我編寫的第一個應用叫做地球運勢，它會根據(jù)你的運勢改變地球的顏色。

我最滿意、最成功的應用程序是比斯汀·賈伯，它是一個惡搞賈斯汀·比伯的打地鼠游戲。我之所以編寫這個游戲應用是因為在我的學校里，許多人不是那么喜歡賈斯汀·比伯，于是我就決定開發(fā)這個應用，開始編程，并在2010年暑假到來之前發(fā)布了我的作品。

許多人問過我，我是怎么做出這些應用的？而大多數(shù)情況下，問我這個問題的人也想做一個應用程序試試?，F(xiàn)在許多孩子喜歡玩游戲，但是他們已經(jīng)開始想要自己創(chuàng)作游戲了。這很難，因為大多數(shù)孩子不知道去哪里學習編程。我是說，如果你想學踢足球，你可以加入一個足球隊；如果想學拉小提琴，你可以去興趣班；但是如果想做應用程序，你該怎么辦呢？父母們在年輕的時候可能踢過足球，拉過小提琴……但是有多少父母會編程呢？！

去哪里可以學習編程呢？我是這樣做到的，我做了以下這些事。首先，我先學會了像Python、C語言、Java編程這些非iOS程序語言，打下了編寫程序的基礎(chǔ)。之后不久蘋果公司推出了iPhone手機和iPhone軟件開發(fā)工具包。iPhone軟件開發(fā)工具包是一個創(chuàng)建、編寫iPhone 應用的工具，而這把我?guī)нM了一個充滿無限可能的世界。我小玩了一下iPhone軟件開發(fā)工具包后，做了幾個應用和測試應用，其中之一就是地球運勢。我當時已經(jīng)很有把握把地球運勢放在蘋果的應用商店出售，于是我說服我的父母支付進入蘋果應用商店所需的99美元。他們同意了，然后我的應用就上線了。

我得到了來自家庭、朋友、老師，甚至是蘋果應用商店工作人員的鼓勵，他們對我的幫助很大。我從喬布斯身上獲得了許多靈感，在學校里，我組建了一個應用程序俱樂部。學校里的一位老師對我的俱樂部做出了積極地響應。在我的學校里，每個人都可以來俱樂部學習如何編寫應用程序。于是現(xiàn)在我可以與他人分享我的經(jīng)歷。

有一種叫iPad Pilot Program的社團組織，一些地區(qū)有這類組織，我有幸成為他們當中的一員?，F(xiàn)在最大的挑戰(zhàn)是如何利用iPad，應該給iPad安裝什么樣的程序。為此我們在學校里向老師做了反饋信息調(diào)查，看看他們喜歡什么樣的應用程序。設(shè)計好之后，我們會出售那些應用。本地區(qū)的用戶可以免費獲得，別的地區(qū)的用戶收費，之中的利潤會投入到當?shù)亟逃饡?/p>

現(xiàn)在，學生在技術(shù)方面通常會比老師們懂得略多一點。如此看來……對不起。這其實是老師們的資源，教育工作者應該好好認識然后加以利用。

最后我想說一下我對未來的打算。第一點，我會做更多的應用程序，更多的游戲，目前我正與一家第三方公司合作開發(fā)一款應用，我還打算運用安卓平臺開發(fā)軟件，繼續(xù)把我的蘋果俱樂部開辦下去，探索與同學們分享知識的新途徑。謝謝！