C H I L D/ YO U T H A C T I V I T I E S \\
New Business
TEACHES KIDS TO CODE
Cara Christianson always assumed people were either right-brained
or left-brained, and she was firmly in the left, artsy column. A
lifelong lover of the arts and dance, Cara, 30, earned her degree
in art education from Hood College and moved to Frederick with
her husband a few years later.
Her husband, Andy, a software engineer, never stopped encouraging
her to try coding. He had been doing it since he was a child and
knew she would love it too.
After teaching at Oakdale Middle School for 3 years, Cara caught
the “coding bug.” Then, after their daughter, Lacey, was born, the
Christansons thought it was a good time to start a business centered
on coding for kids. That’s when The Elsewhen Brainery was born.
This unique business in Frederick offers a long-term program that
provides students with a thorough coding education. They start
with the basics, such as drawing static images, then move on to
animations, and finally user interaction to make games. At the
highest levels, kids are learning object-oriented programming, which
allows students to make complex, reusable code.
Cara was kind enough to answer a few questions about her burgeoning
business and share the benefits of learning to code, for kids.
What inspired the creation of The Elsewhen Brainery?
I decided that perhaps if I had been exposed to coding as a kid, I
would have had more career options, and I decided that I could
give other kids the opportunity to explore these options. The name
came from our joint nerdiness. I love reading, particularly “Harry
Potter” novels, so I wanted something that sounded like you would
find it in Diagon Alley, thus Brainery came to be. Elsewhen is a
science fiction term, referring to another place in time. It is also a
play on Else/If, which is a programming term.
How does it all work?
Our classes are currently for third- through eighth-grade students.
The students that come to our classes are diverse in every way. Some
kids build their own computers and have learned some coding on
their own, some know almost nothing except that coding seems
like fun. We strive to meet each kid where they are. We don’t want
anyone to be overwhelmed and disheartened and at the same time,
we don’t wan