Far too few schools offer meaningful exposure to computer science and even when kids catch the tech bug, there isn’t a community available in which they can immerse themselves.
This project will create a weekly opportunity for high school and middle school kids from all over the city to gather at a tech space in lower Manhattan, receive instruction, work on projects, and be mentored by more experienced members of the tech community and CSTUY’s experienced teaching staff.
Students can work on projects ranging from web applications to games to simulations to whatever their inspiration directs them to.
By attending these sessions, we will be creating a community of young technologists.
Think a Boys and Girls club for techies.
Kickstarter funds will cover instructors pay, insurance, necessary equipment and supplies and some food and goodies for the participants.
The program will run from October through May.
We are CSTUY, a 501(c)-3 non-profit dedicated to bringing meaningful computer science educational opportunities to middle and high school students.
Our staff consists of experienced high school CS teachers known for creating innovative programs and inspiring students (https://cstuy.org/about). Over the past two summers we’ve run a successful immersion program where we’ve serviced approximately 150 students from over 40 schools but have been frustrated by the lack of opportunities for these students during the school year.
$30,000 – with an additional $5000 we can host a Hackathon! Last year we held one in the spring: http://cestlaz.github.io/2015/03/29/defhacks.html and we’d love to do it again, just bigger and better. The extra funds will cover food, prizes, materials, and outreach.
$35,000 – If one Hackathon’s cool, two is even cooler – the most frequent comment we got last time was “when’s the next one.” If we reach this goal we’ll host a late Fall/Winter Hackathon and then another in the Spring.
$40,000 – With extra money we can buy extra toys for the kids to experiment with. Think Leap Motion, Google Cardboard, Occulus Rift and more.
$140,000 – This is a big jump but this would fully fund our summer program. Last year, we had approximately 50% of our applicants on full scholarship – if we can get here we can get to more under-served kids. If we can fund this now, we won’t have to do this again in a few months.
>$140,000 – anything above and beyond goes right into next year’s Saturday and summer programs.