Awards and bursaries for High School Students.

Many companies 'give back' in many ways and if you do then good on you. If you are looking for a way to 'give back' think about this.

If you have made a connection with your local high school Computer teachers and are thinking about ways to help out then here's an idea. You can help encourage students to go on in Computer Studies, Computer Technology or Robotics by offering the school an award or bursary for one of their top ranking students in this area. Right now we offer one school generated award, a plaque, for the top ranking student in Computer Studies. These students often tough it out for 3 or more courses in a room many other students dismiss as a place for geeks. Of course these other students don't realize that the so called geeks will be driving sports cars and setting trends that they will then follow. I think it would be cool if Computer Studies and Technology students got a little recognition and encouragement from the community. A small amount of money every year puts your companies name out into the community.

What do I want to see on the wall when I walk into a company office? A Coop appreciation certificate showing that the company takes on High School Coop students and a picture of a CEO shaking some young persons hand while looking at a certificate and cheque. That's a company that gives back to their community.

Cool use of Smart phones in the classroom

In their grade 12 summative students had to design, build and test a complex (series/parallel) circuit that included 2 IR LEDs. The big question of course was "How do we know it is working." Simple, turn on your smart phone camera and look at the LEDs through the camera. Since modern CCDs see into the near infra red the students could see the magically glowing LEDs on their phones when, to the naked eye, they appeared to be off.

2D LED Matrix Summative challenge

A 2 day independent summative challenge this year was to use an Arduino, Stamp or OOPic to program an LED matrix to show the students' initials.
Good: One initial.
Better: 2 initials, alternating.
Best: 2 initials scrolling.

3x3x3 LED cube.

I always wanted to try this project out. We just followed some of the examples on line and had terrific results. Here you can see one programmed to scan through all the LEDs.