Hackapalooza!
Two months ago, two TIQC members were hired by EF Academy, an international boarding school in Thornwood, NY and tasked with creating a five week coding bootcamp for the students. Students Sumaita Hussain and Margarita Zias took this challenge head on and began developing curriculum for the students. While their initial outline consisted of only Java projects, Hussain felt that it was more important to give students a more broad overview of computer science. Upon speaking with the students they also realized that much of their computer science curriculum came from books rather than actual coding practice. They eventually settled on a very ambitious outline: 4 languages in 5 weeks. Once they received approval from the school they began their course.
Week 1: Scratch — Students became familiar with the language quite fast and were tasked with creating small, one minute videos to show off to their classmates. This proved to a nice ice breaker for the team as they were able to create a more relaxed and familiar environment for the students to work in.
Week 2: Java — Students were introduced to Java and more fundamental aspects of coding such as code structure, commenting, variables, algorithms and arrays. One advantage for the girls was that the students were already familiar with Java on a basic level so this class functions as more of a review and expansion on their current knowledge. Students created a Pokemon themed program where they were able to customize their character to interact with other Pokemon and carry out fight sequences.
Week 3: HTML &CSS — Our instructors decided to bring out the ‘big guns’ for this one as they contacted MLH (Major League Hacking) to use their localhost material. Since they were already familiar with this coursework, the students were also able to follow along quite well and stop them when they had questions or fell behind. By the end of the class, the students all came out with a basic outline and working prototype of their personal website. Zias also awarded the students with free domain codes which they could use if they decided to continue with this build.
Week 4: Mobile iOS Development — For week 4, the girls also brought in the incubators own Kashfi Fahim who became the lead instructor for that week due to his familiarity with xcode and mobile app development for iOS. This proved to be the most challenging class yet as many students dd not own apple devices and had difficulty participating in the workshop. The team quickly pivoted as they set up one laptop and connected it to the screen allowing Fahim to recruit students one by one to build with him.
Week 5: Hackapalooza! — Zias and Hussain ended their five week camp with a classic hackathon where students were tasked with building hacks centered around important topics such as the environment, women's rights, and communication. The turnout for the hackathon proved good over the course of two days as students created games, websites and app’s using the knowledge that they had learnt over the past month. TIQC’s Ying Zhou and Kashfi Fahim also joined the event as judges while Hussain and Zias took a back seat as mentors. At the end of the hackathon, students came up and pitched/presented their projects to the judges, many emotional as they shared their own personal stories. The winners were then announced which commemorated the end of this five week program. Many left with bags of swag others with prizes but most importantly all left with a drive to continue codding and pursue computer science in their academic carriers.
While both the commute and the work proved to be much more than the girls expected, they continued to come to class every week eager to teach students as much as they could in this limited amount of time. Students seemed very passionate and interested in the coursework as the weeks progressed and the girls quickly gathered a small following for themselves at EF Academy. When I asked Hussain if she would be interested in coming back in the fall to expand the program she stated, “We’d have to think of a lot more material but I definitely think it’s doable”.
