Arizona students compete in coding competition

MESA, Ariz. (KSAZ) - Jack Trabue is just 12 years old, but he's already thinking ahead to entering the work force.

"When I heard when I was quite young that you can build things and be creative at the same time, I was like 'Why not?'" he said. "Well, Google is one that I've wanted to work for and Amazon because I think they have a lot of really cool ideas."

And he's not alone. This week, more than 200 forward-thinking junior high and high school students gathered at Spark Game Jam for a coding competition.

During the two-day event, students of all experience levels work in teams to develop a video game using an open-sourced system called "Scratch" from MIT.

And the results are amazing! Just ask Michaela Nash.

"Ive created video games where you have to catch things falling out of the sky, I've created kind of like games, like Flappy Bird and I'm trying to make a game like personally on my own time that's kind of like Minecraft," she said.

The take-away message is to stick with code, fostering invention and innovation.

"I can, you know, come and meet a lot of other people who know more about code or know less and want to learn," Trabue said. "I knew that this is the thing I've wanted to do, I want to help people and I want to know more."