With Alice Workshops for Girls, sisters Aleis and Dana Murphy will offer two-week introductory camps on Alice programming this summer. Participants will create stories and computer games using 3D animation. The first week, the workshop covers programming concepts in Alice. The second week, participants work on individual or group projects to be presented in an awards ceremony on the final day. As students at Duke University and Stanford University and daughters of programmer parents, the Murphy sisters offer impassioned leadership and a desire to share their passion with younger girls. This is the second year for this camp.
App Development With Social Entrepreneurship teaches middle school girls skills to create apps of their own while helping their communities address certain social issues they deeply care about. By creating apps in the context of social entrepreneurship, members will learn the interdisciplinary aspect of app development.
Participants will learn basic programming skills as they use App Inventor and CS principles as they use CS Unplugged group activities. By focusing on the uses of technology to improve lives, those involved will see a rewarding career in computer science. Using App Inventor, the girls will develop an Android App to help connect volunteers with homebound individuals needing library books. Guests representing various technical careers will be invited to talk about their work -- skills required of them and how they got interested in their careers.
Bright Futures is a summer camp and club designed to introduce girls to different aspects of programming. Participants will learn about programming robots, games, and websites. The camp is a collaboration by two NCWIT Aspirations in Computing winners, Melissa and Jessica Ivie.
Build IT is a weekly after school robotics program for girls at West Sylvan Middle School. Program Leader Vicki Niu has seven years of experience competing in FIRST robotics, and will be working with Girls Inc. of NW Oregon to teach girls to build and program LEGO robots. Over the course of eight weeks, participants will learn about the engineering design process and increase their overall technical fluency. At the end of the program, the girls will be well-equipped to join a FIRST LEGO League team or embark on any number of tech-related adventures. Session one 3-11-14 through 4-14-14 Session two 5-6-14 through 6-3-14
With an underlying theme of protecting one's digital identity, girls will learn about computing in a cross-disciplinary residential summer camp. Female student leaders and faculty from computer science, art, and English will engage camp participants in design, writing, and computer programming. Working in teams, participants will learn to program, using Scratch and Snap. Hummingbird robot kits will provide participants with the opportunity to design a creative outer shell for the robot. The robot will be programmed according to a storyline written by the participants. This is the second year for this camp.
The Come Code with Codester Club is a series of five workshops for Girls Inc. students. Middle school girls will be introduced to principles of programming through a novel educational app called Codester, developed by the Program Leader Gili Rusak. They will learn efficiency, problem solving, logic, and collaboration through these methods. After gaining these primary skills, they will break up into groups and will create games or projects using Scratch. The girls will gain inspiration and encouragement to engage in STEM education and further their programming skills.
This technology camp for middle school girls combines jewelry design and computing. Middle school girls will use computing technology to design jewelry and produce them using 3D printing. Beads have always been an indicator of a society’s skill with technology. Participants will learn about the history of beads, jewelry design, digital modeling, programming, and 3D printing. Creating designs will involve computational thinking and coding. Participants will also enjoy a trip to 3D Systems, one of the major names in 3D printing.
Cyber-Security will provide students with a basic understanding of the fundamentals of cyber-security through interactive lectures, hands-on craft activities, and competitive cyber-security virtualization workshops using VMWare. The lectures will provide students with the preparation needed to complete the interactive workshop aspect of the program. They will learn everything from computer ethics, personal security measures, cyber-security’s relevance, demos of cyber-defensive and cyber-offensive tools, and much more. Through collaboration with another student they will work to secure the vulnerabilities and exploits in a virtual image that we have bugged with viruses, backdoor trojans, cryptographic keys to decipher, etc.
Dream It, Code It, a two-week summer outreach program led by 2014 Affiliate Award for Aspirations in Computing Winners Maria De Angelis and Anna Brewer, aims to equip girls with the skills, knowledge, and most importantly, passion, to bring their ideas to life using technology. Anna and Maria, both 10th graders at Santa Barbara Senior High School, will use their extensive knowledge of Scratch to lead girls through creative projects, including an animation about a social issue prevalent in our community. The camp will culminate in an awards ceremony and project showcase for the campers and their parents. Maria and Anna are available to remain in contact with the girls after the program to provide mentoring and guidance in their future STEM activities
An AspireIT camp, FACT (Females Advancing Computing and Technology) is spearheaded by four Sunset High School students — Jeanie Pearson, Kyra Patton, Ria Chang, and Catherine Ordway — and supported by their teacher, Robotics and Programming Instructor Jason Galbraith, as well as Professor of Computer Science Dr. Jens Mache. This week-long summer camp will invite 30 girls to learn about robotics, game design, app creation, and basic computer science concepts. Participants will take field trips to two corporate IT departments which will incorporate information about careers in information technology. Dr. Mache and his colleagues will provide guidance and mentoring for the camp leaders and participants, and assist with the “Career Discovery” component of the camp. This is the second year for this camp.
G.E.A.R. (Girls Exploring Autonomous Robotics), is a three-day workshop to introduce middle school girls to robotics building and programming using Lego Robotics. Exciting and engaging hands-on workshop activities will instill confidence, teamwork, and problem-solving skills as participants are exposed to real-life applications of robotic technologies. Girls will be instructed and mentored by program leaders with experience in computer science and robotics, creating a supportive learning environment. The workshop aims to inspire confidence and enthusiasm for exploring the many possibilities in computer science and engineering.
The Game Programming Using Microsoft Surface AspireIT camp is an eight-week long workshop series beginning in March with the intention to familiarize middle school girls with basic computer programming principles using the fun medium of Microsoft’s Kodu Game Lab software. Girls will meet every Saturday at George Mason University for three hours to learn different aspects of Kodu in order to create games of their own and show off at the end of the workshop series. Alongside the software, the girls will learn about famous women in the world of computers and technology in order to give the girls positive role models in the industry. There will also be workplace scenarios, addressing issues that women face as minorities in the computing field. This is the second year for this camp.
Gidget Girls gives middle school girls the opportunity to meet other girls who share their interest in computer science as they learn the basics of computing, utilizing CS Unplugged, SNAP -- formerly known as Build Your Own Blocks (BYOB) -- and Alice. They will participate in Career Discovery day and hear guest speakers from CPCC and IT-ology discuss the role of women in computer fields. In addition, the middle school girls will use DotDiva and App Inventor. At the end of the camp, each girl will create a presentation focusing on the epidemic of obesity and present their projects to a panel of judges who will award a scholarship to the top three winners.
The one-week, full-day camp will include basics of engineering, basics of C programming, field trips, and robot prototyping that aids humans. The summer program will focus on instilling confidence, teamwork, reasoning, and problem-solving, as well as changing the misconception that girls cannot be scientists and engineers. The aim is to prepare the girls to start robotics clubs in their own schools and inspire their peers. Program Leader Sruti Modekurty is an Electrical and Computer Engineering major at Carnegie Mellon University and a participant in five World Championships as a VEX & FIRST Robotics programmer and builder. Program Leader Leilani Reyes graduated in June 2014 from Armijo High School and hopes to pursue her dream of becoming a computer engineering social entrepreneur.
Girl Code teaches the fundamentals of computer programming to middle school girls through the MIT curriculum for Scratch as well as the code.org online institute. Girl Code also introduces the girls to the basics of Python. In the last few weeks of the program, the girls will work in small groups to create a program centered around a social issue of their choosing. Completed projects will be displayed on the final day in an exposition type setting that models the marketplace. An awards ceremony will feature scholarships and superlative awards as well as guest speakers. This after-school program will meet once a week for 10 weeks.
Girls & Tech teaches curriculum from Khan Academy, Kodu, and CS Unplugged, as well as activities based in web design and other IT concepts. For career discovery, the participants will visit the research labs at UNC Charlotte and go on interactive tours. Speakers from the professional community will talk to the girls about their daily work and experiences in the IT field. The two-week program will expose the girls to programming and potential careers in the IT field.
Girls Generation is a week-long workshop focused on introducing girls to the world of programming. Girls will learn to build a mobile application using App Inventor, introducing them to game design. Using Easy C, girls will get to program robots and see what coding can enable them to do physically. Program Leaders Kaitlyn and Larisa are students of Whitworth University and Seattle University, founders of Girls Generation Robotics at Central Kitsap High School, and National Winners of the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing. They will provide a unique introduction of computer science.
Girls Get IT! (Innovative Technology) Camp Level 1
Originally founded by Savannah Loberger, the Girls Get IT! program, now in its fourth year, encourages girls to pursue computing, engineering, and IT careers. The summer camp is geared toward middle and high school girls who do not know what engineering is or who are curious about the field. The program will help girls explore a range of areas, including game-making, basic programming languages, CAD (Computer Aided Drafting), web programming, and rapid prototyping. The leaders will also address the stereotype that girls don’t belong in technology fields. This camp is unique in that it’s taught and run by high school girls so that campers can learn with their peers in a fun and comfortable environment and increase their interest in pursuing technology fields.
Leader(s):
Ashley Loberger, Mary Catherine Morgan, Erika Goonan
Girls Get IT! (Innovative Technology) Camp Level 2
Themed, “Technology and Social Change,” this day camp for girls takes skills learned in Level 1 and expands the possibilities with interests in computer programming, engineering, and technology. In the true spirit of the Girls Get IT! program, this camp is unique in that it’s taught and run by high school girls so that campers can learn with their peers in a fun and comfortable environment that they would not otherwise have the opportunity to do. The program is designed to increase girls’ interest in pursuing technology fields by having a creative experience with computers, science, and technology. The camp will be a week of half-day sessions, consisting of multiple classes and workshops.
Girls Go for IT seeks to create a community where middle school girls interested in computing can find mentorship and support. Participants will build their own interactive games through Scratch, exploring everyday environmental choices and learning the fundamental ideas behind programming in the process. In addition, they will meet several professionals who work with computer science, ranging from USC professors to programmers for startup companies.
Girls Have IT is a summer camp in Phoenix, Arizona intended to inspire young women in middle school in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM). We hope that our program will empower, excite, and engage the middle schools in computing- and technology-related activities and fields. We will engage the girls in a plethora of fun, hands-on activities to reinforce the topics of computing and technology, such as Computer Science Unplugged activities. Program Leaders hope to improve their knowledge and understanding of programming while inspiring middle school girls to develop an interest in programming and learn that they can do it, too! This is the second year for this camp.
GirlsCodingWithGirls is a weekly workshop series held through the months of March and April. The main focus throughout the program is exposing the girls to another world of opportunities through immersion into the field of technology. In terms of the specific curriculum, Scratch will be taught and then used to program and experiment with Finch robots. The program will also continually emphasize that technology’s influence is far-reaching. Overall, GirlsCodingWithGirls will create a small community of girls that are inspired to explore the world of technology.
Girlz Digital World: Join Roxie the Robot in a Deep Space Adventure
Girlz Digital World introduces rising 6th, 7th, and 8th grade female students to the art of problem solving with programming using Lego Mindstorms combined with Camp-on-a-Disk from Carnegie Melon University. Working with a team, program participants build and program a robot to navigate its way through a maze and complete a variety of space missions to help Terraform a planet and make it livable for humans. Additionally, a portion of the camp includes 'Ted' talks by faculty in IST about both careers and research topics.
Girlz Tech Starteris a one-week summer day camp that will help girls grades 6-8 start their adventure in the world of computing and IT. The camp will cover the basics of App Inventor and the different careers in Computing fields. The girls will also hear from a variety of women and college students currently in STEM to learn how they can make a difference with computing. This program will be held in Central Florida, from June 9-14, 2014. Sponsors include she++, Inner Potential, and Hodges University. Girlz Tech Starter is designed to encourage girls to continue their adventure into computing fields as they grow.
