Category: Outreach

The CRCL partnered with The Lee County Youth Development Center in Opelika, AL and the Razor Foundation in a three-day workshop that used Sphero robotics to introduce students to basic coding concepts using block programming and Java Script. The workshop ran from January 11-13 where there were 27 participants, a mix of boys and girls ranging from junior high to high school age. The lab had undergraduate students from Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University teaching the coding concepts. A competition was held on the last day, which gave participants an opportunity to showcase everything they had learned.

Culturally Relevant Computing Lab Director, Dr. Kinnis Gosha, and Google software engineers, developed a course for Morehouse students to learn Android Application programming, along with the Applied Computer Science(CS) content, and received hands-on experience in a for-credit class.  The course, titled “Mobile App Development with Advanced Data Structures,”combined lecture, class discussion and in-class assignments targeted at learning Java, advanced data structures, ADS, and other basics for Android programming.  The Applied CS classes ran for 75 minutes and were held twice a week for 16 weeks in the fall semester of 2016. These classes, the first at the university for mobile app development, filled up quickly due to the buzz around the collaboration with Google, and 11 out of 12 students successfully completed the course. Applied CS content enabled students to understand, apply and implement advanced data types using a mobile application platform that more than two billion devices run on today.

A group of 25 students from South Atlanta High School participated in the Sphero Coding Workshop today at Morehouse College. Students learned how to write code in the morning session, ate lunch in Morehouse’s Dining Hall and competed against each other in coding challenges in the afternoon. The Sphero Coding Workshop is led by Dr. Kinnis Gosha and his Culturally Relevant Computing Lab. The Culturally Relevant Computing Lab is represented by students from Morehouse College, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. Sponsorship for the workshop was provided by Boeing and the National Science Foundation.