A fun day of Coding4Girls Summer Camp in Technological University Dublin
As the technology grows and the IT industry is taking more responsibility to make the difference to the world, we sadly find that the female ratio in IT industry is still as low as 20%. As a fast growing IT company, LIT (Liberty Information Technology) always takes great action to support and encourage Women in Technology.
On 10th June this year, my colleague Andy O'Sullivan and me were delighted to participate in and support the Coding4Girls Summer Camp, which was hosted in TUD campus in Blanchardstown, Dublin. It was a great event that allows the girls to experience some technology. and provided a great opportunity for them to learn some coding skills, which may help them develop the career in technology industry.
There were 32 girls from different levels in secondary school attended the event. A tower building exercise was first introduced to them. To successfully building a tower, the design thinking is really important in a project. The girls were given limited cards, Sellotape and scissors to build a 36 inches tower that can hold some 5 cents coins. 10 minutes was given for the girls to come up with the design, and 20 minutes for them to implement the design. Since the girls were having so much fun, eventually we had to extend the time to allow them finish building the tower. The results of the design exercise was quite interesting. Some of the group made cubes first then stacked these cubes, while some of the group were trying to build a big triangle tower.
Following the tower building exercise, Andy gave a talk about how technology may change the life in the future. The girls were very interactive in this session, especially in the topic around the automatic driving car, they asked lots of good questions that really call for deep thought.
Later, we had the robotic car exercise; the girls were split up into groups of two, and each group was given a robotic car.
Sample code was given to the girls so that they can type into Arduino platform to help them understand what each line of code does. The girls were very excited to see that how to make the car beep, move and take turns. They also learnt to input the variables and tried to make the car to take different actions. The girls really enjoyed the entire session. It reminded me of how excited I used to be to make a small change in a mother board at the first time of coding.
During the lunch break, Andy had a demo of Apple’s ARKit 3 (Augmented Reality SDK). The girls were taking turns to play with it and everyone seemed to be thrilled with the technology.
Andy also showed the video of how his son looks using the tech.
After lunch, we were back to the laboratory where we introduced the site called hourOfCode. The site provided capability for the girls to practice the logical thinking skills with various levels. One of the most popular practice is Star Wars, the girls could move either different action blocks or code block and turned out to different results.
The activity lasted for 2 hours and at the end the students didn’t want to stop.
Finally, we talked about what our work in Liberty IT is like and how they can pursue careers in technology and engineering. The girls also shared some great examples that encourage them to come up with the ideas, implement them and make difference in life. The day was finished with some quizzes and spot prizes, and everybody got a full day; fun, coding experience and prizes at the end of the events!
Overall, it was a fulfilled day of fun experience. We really enjoyed to demonstrate how technology impacts real life. The girls reminded me of how I started showing my interest in coding and how I pursued my career. We all hope that this experience gives them a good taste of coding and encourages them to consider developing the career in technology and engineering in the future.
Last but not the least, big thanks to Daniel McSweeney from TUD for inviting us to support this fantastic event, and Michelle Looby, Aoife Fox and their colleagues for organising this event!
