Lockdown Fun: Your Age In Binary

Today I gave my son a piece of paper with this cryptic message: 00001100.

“This is you”, I told him – “and this is your sister”: 00001111.

“If you can work this out, I'll pay for your v-bucks!”

I gave him a single hint. The word “binary”.

Unfortunately, it only took him 5 minutes to Google the answers: 12 and 15.

Nevertheless, I made the pen below, and we had a talk about what binary numbers are – and how computers work:

If you have kids, let them click on the circles until the sum equals their age (or their parents age!), and if they're curious – well, then you have an excuse to talk about programming and stuff 😁

Thanks for reading, and Happy Easter!

Comments

[Chittoji Murali Sree Krishna]

Cool site, the conversion is great.

[Mads Stoumann]

Thanks!

[Jon Kantner]

It’s also possible with age.toString(2), but I assume leading 0s need to be there.

[Mads Stoumann]

Thanks! Yes, I want to show the leading zeroes, so with padStart it's total.toString(2).padStart(8, '0')

[Wesley]

00010010

[Cory Dorfner]

Very cool, quick little app and a great way to start a discussion about binary numbers and computer science in general for kids. Nicely done!

[Mads Stoumann]

Thanks!