Four members of the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab presented their research this weekend at the ACM Southeast Conference. The title of the poster presentation was entitled “Introduction to Computer Science for Urban African American Students Using Sphero Robotics Workshop”. The four students consisted of Trey Ridley, Ernest Holmes, Kevin Womack and Jordan Scott from Morehouse College. An abstract from the submission is provided below:
This paper introduces the use of an all-day coding workshop as an intervention to introduce and expose African American high school students from a southeastern urban school district to coding and computing careers. The workshop is held at a local HBCU and led by African American undergraduates computer science majors who attend that HBCU. The workshop is focused on a robotic ball called an Sphero that allows users to control its motion and color by writing lines of code. Results from workshop showed an increase of interest in pursuing a career in computing after graduation compared to interest before the start of the workshop.
Kinnis Gosha, PhD 