As every organization in the nation and around the world has had to adjust to the way they are serving the community, Hackathon Jr. has gone virtual. Hosting a virtual event with children from Arizona, Florida, Nevada, and North Carolina. Hackathon Jr. Virtual has allowed the Jr. Hackers to collaborate and create with participants from the various states, providing a diversity in learning and the opportunity to create with participants they may have never met at an in-person event. The amazing applications created brought about winners which included members from Arizona and North Carolina. Congratulations to Rahonel, Aaron, and Forest for winning Best Hack.
Additionally, Hackathon Jr. Virtual hosted an event at the Daniel Center of Math and Science in Raleigh to provide access to STEM education to their children. Though there were some technical difficulties with the broadband, the children showed a resilience to adversity and continued to work extremely hard and create their apps. Congratulations to Cornelius and Kamden for winning first place.
During both events the children attended a Ted Talk presented by Larson Rivera, a very gifted young man. Larson is a recent high school graduate and amateur computer scientist with five years of experience involving circuit design with Arduino and Raspberry Pi, as well as programming in Java, Python, and variants of C and C++. Having learned most of his design techniques and development practices from personal trial and error, his projects are mainly oriented around exploration of certain technologies rather than creating end-use products. This has led to a variety of creations that push the limits of certain engineering concepts simply because it’s possible to do so, and thus, his most recent (and most ambitious) project involves a sweatshirt, complex 3D animation, and a plethora of multicolor LEDs.
At each event, the Hackathon Jr. team selects a student the exemplifies one of the 4 C’s (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity).
Congratulations to the recipients of the 4C awards. Tarana Adukoori for Collaboration, Alexander Rickert for Communication, LR Harder for Critical Thinking, and Aaron Stinehour for Creativity.
The uncertainty of the school year has made it difficult for parents and students. As mentioned in our prior newsletter, there are still many children without access to a computer for distance learning. So, we will continue to fund raise and supply laptops to those kids in need for the school year.
This is our opportunity to support the community with technology and education. Through no fault of the child's, their education is now disrupted. No computer means falling behind and possibly having to redo the entire school year. We have setup a nomination form on our website for teachers across the country to nominate students in need of a computer to complete their schoolwork through distance learning.
We are asking the community and organizations to step in and support the educational needs of children in need of a laptop. Hackathon Jr. strives to even the playing field by providing STEM education as well as computers to children in need, but we need your help. Support the kids in your community today by donating!