Women in Computing Day 2017

We are pleased to announce Women in Computing Day 2017. The event will be hosted on June 3rd from 10:30–3:00PM at Next Century’s Virginia Office, located at 3120 Fairview Park Drive, Suite #700, Falls Church, VA 22042, there will be 30 girls aged 9–13 attending a special day of events focused on engaging with technology. There will be four sessions that focus on topics related to computing and technology. If you are interested in registering a participant please follow this link.

Sessions

Drawing with Programming

In this session girls will use code to “draw” a picture for themselves. The students will learn concepts of programming by using functions and using their parameters to draw basic shapes to form an image. Students will learn how to use functions and determine the input for the output they desire, learn the importance of sequencing your function calls, and learn how to use documentation to use functions.

Design Thinking with 5 Chairs

When thinking about this question, did the image of the solitary genius (scientist, inventor, entrepreneur) spring to mind? This is such a persistent myth that it’s hard to resist. But few innovations are the work of a single individual. Rather, they come about because people join together to create something no one person could have.

A design thinking project is a lesson-based way to explore design thinking by connecting real world problem-solving, collaboration and what one can do through design thinking. New research indicates that the ability to work together toward a common goal just may be one of the defining features of humanity. In the digital age, we’ve never had more ways to work together to address our shared challenges and opportunities.

The goal of the 5 Chairs Exercise is to encourage the participants to collaborate, gain confidence iterating on designs based on human needs, while working with different materials. This activity will encourage them to design models of chairs based on design principles they pull from user profiles — teaching participants to build, test and iterate while keeping their designs grounded in a human’s needs. This activity will also promote critical thinking by asking student to empathize with their user’s needs while demonstrating resilience in the face of challenges or frustrations.

3D Modeling

We will be discussing how the eyes and brain determine where something is in space (size, focus, binocular disparity) and how we can use that in 3D graphics and Virtual Reality. We will have several examples: anaglyph (red / green) glasses, ViewMaster, Stereoscope, Google Cardboard, Oculus Rift, and PS4 VR, with the important point that they basically all work the same way. We will have the students create their own examples that can be viewed with anaglyph and Google Cardboard, as well as try a couple of different demonstrations with the Rift and PS4 VR.

Robots

Robots can perform dangerous tasks — sparing people from having to risk their own lives. Robot now spray paint all kinds of products, saving factory workers the danger of inhaling fumes. However, we really needed robotic assistance for more unstructured tasks — for example stopping the nuclear meltdown the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power after the earthquake and tsunami on March 9, 2011. Unfortunately, the robots were not yet ready to help with this task. We will show the results of some research on robotics performing tasks needed at the Fukushima plant — both of successes and failures — so you can see how fragile the capabilities are. Our world needs programmers, engineers, and scientists, to help build the robotic technology to help with disaster relief and to help save human lives.

Int the session we will be taking our first steps into learning about how to program robots for search and rescue. We will be programming robots to rush through a maze of rubble — taking imaginary “supplies” to earthquake victims. We will be using a small robot, the Sphero Mini, which we will program from a smart phone. We will see how to program the robot to perform step-by-step to navigate the maze and get to the victims. Then we will divide into teams and write programs for the robot. At the end of the session, we will have a competition to see which team’s robot can most quickly bring supplies through the rubble to the victims. Hopefully, by the end of this session, you will understand what makes programming robots both challenging and fun!

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