What the Heck?

I’m Mei — 12-year software dev, ex-engineering director, now stay-at-home mom running the longest-running experiment of my life: what happens when you raise a kid inside the tools instead of outside them?

It started when my son and I made a red car game with Claude. Eight minutes, a couple prompts, and his whole frame shifted from consumer to creator. He’s shipped many more games since. But this newsletter isn’t just about that.

Raising Pixels is for parents who build things — or want to start. Whether you code for a living, used to code, or just know there’s something between “hand them an iPad” and “$200 robot kits designed for second graders.” If you’ve ever thought “I could make something better than this app” while watching your kid tap a screen, you’re in the right place.

What you’ll find here:

• Computational thinking for tiny humans — not coding syntax, but the mental models underneath: patterns, sequences, debugging, cause and effect. Taught with household items, physical play, and yes, AI.

• Building with AI as a family — real projects, real prompts, real results. What works at age 2 vs 4. How to make it theirs, not yours.

• Systems for parents who have no time — I have a 3-year-old who doesn’t nap. Everything I build ships in short bursts. If you’re a parent-developer trying to fit creative work into the margins, I write about that too.

• The book — 12 Weeks of Tech Projects to Build With Your Kid is out now. 12 weeks of hands-on projects that teach computational thinking through play — no screens required for most of them.

Have questions? Made something with your kid? Reply to any post. My son and I read everything (though he’s mostly interested in whether you made any vehicle games).

Play all his games: madladstudios.com

Shop: shop.raisingpixels.dev

Find me: @meimakes on 𝕏