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Curious about coding? Want to build your programming skills? Or perhaps you just love a good problem-solving challenge?

We’re thrilled to announce our new 10-episode series: Think Like A Coder. The series, in partnership with YouTube Learning Playlists, will challenge viewers with programming puzzles as the main characters— a girl and her robot companion— attempt to save a world that has been plunged into turmoil.

Check out the series here:

In our digital age, coding has become a basic literacy skill which gives us a deeper understanding of the technology we use everyday. Beyond being a much sought-after skill on the job market, coding helps foster creativity, reinforces math skills and develops our problem-solving abilities.

But it can be hard to know where to begin. Learning to code is like learning a language and getting started can seem like a daunting task.  Luckily, if you have the right resources, the hardest part is just taking the first step. We’ve got you covered.

Think Like A Coder is joining the long list of free online resources for the code-curious. Here’s a list of some of our favorite learn-to-code resources:

1. code.org has great resources for students and teachers. It teaches students the basics of programming through a free series of guided exercises and includes an extensive curriculum mapped to K-12 curriculum standards.

2. If you’re looking for programming challenges, check out the Advent of Code, which is run by Eric Wastl, who consulted extensively on Think Like a Coder and inspired quite a few of the puzzles. The Advent of Code is a yearly event that takes place in December and involves 25 coding challenges linked together by an overarching plot. It’s also available throughout the rest of the year, and the challenges it features are a great way to stretch your coding and problem-solving skills once you have basic proficiency with a programming language.

3. FreeCodeCamp has thousands of coding lessons and programming challenges, and you can even get certified for a few different skills.

 4. University of Michigan’s Python for Everybody Specialization on Coursera is a beginner-level intro to software development using python that focuses on interacting with data.

 5. Microsoft has a 44 video series called Python for Beginners. In their words, “Even though we won’t cover everything there is to know about Python in the course, we want to make sure we give you the foundation on programming in Python, starting from common everyday code and scenarios. At the end of the course, you’ll be able to go and learn on your own, for example with docs, tutorials, or books.”

6. If you’re trying to decide what programming language to learn, a flowchart like this one may be a helpful starting point.

7. Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World by Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, is an excellent introduction for programmers just getting started.

8. For more experienced programmers, Cracking the Coding Interview is a great resource for problem solving with a variety of different techniques, as well as preparing for coding interviews (as the title suggests). Some of the puzzles featured in Think Like a Coder were inspired by this book.

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