Google has a project called Made with Code. The purpose of this program is to teach girls about coding. The project’s mission statement is “Made with Code inspires girls to pursue their dreams with code.” There are seven coding projects that are available on their website right now but they are adding more.

One of the projects is called holiday lights. This enables you to code the design, color, and pattern of the lights on Christmas trees in Washington, D.C. I found this really interesting so I decided to try it. It turned out to be much simpler than I thought it would be. There are little pop up bubbles that give you instructions on what to do. You can pick if your lights will be striped, spotted, or in a lava lamp pattern. You then choose up to two different colors of lights. After that, you pick the size of your lights and how you want them to move.

When you finish your design you can submit it. It will show on one of the 56 smaller trees surrounding the main Christmas tree in the center. I chose to display mine on Florida’s tree. After you submit your final design it will tell you the date and time your lights will be showing on the tree.

I think this is a really interesting project to do and it only takes ten minutes, depending on how elaborate you want your display to be.

Click here to go to the site.