#hackidemia

[gojohnetta]

TEDxYouth@Austin + Hackidemia: The Musical Room — HacKIDemia https://ift.tt/2YeEi1q

[itstartswithlight]

Wearables Workshop, OR The Most Delayed Blog Entry About an Event Ever

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week (six days to be exact!) since I attended the Wearables Workshop sponsored by Women Who Code NYC. I pondered the possiblity of NOT blogging about it, but then again, I promised myself (and the two people who read this blog) that I WOULD blog about it. A promise is a promise, even to myself. 

I arrived at the event super-nervous. I had never been to a Women Who Code event (partially because, the RSVPs always fill so fast) so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would people be nice? I had complete and utter impostor syndrome. I was just learning to code, not really a full-fledged developer like most of the other women in the room. Could they accept me for who I was?

Thankfully, all of my fears were unfounded (aren’t most fears unfounded though?!) All the women I met were friendly and professional. I couldn’t have felt more comfortable. It also helped that many of us were new to the hardware world, so we were all equally flustered and nervous--all in the same boat.

As for what we did in the workshop itself, I think it only solidified the fact that I want to learn MORE. One group worked with the Makey Makey, turning various items into music (such as glasses of water into a piano) or using the Makey Makey to turn pieces of aluminum foil into a game controller for the video game Dance, Dance Revolution. The group I worked with used construction paper and conductive tape along with the arduino and Processing (the software) to turn the conductive tape grid into a synth. You know, child’s play. (NOT!) It was probably one of the most confounding things I had ever worked with (we had a few code issues, and I got flashbacks of working on my own code at 2AM and wondering WHY IT ISN’T WORKING). In any case, it was super-reassuring to know that even industry professionals get bugs too. 

All in all, it was a great workshop. I had a ton of fun and met some really smart, interesting women in tech. I highly recommend it, and would go to another workshop in a heartbeat!

[intelligenthq]

HacKIDemia – Innovation and Social Change Through Play

[peschmitt]

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A post shared by Pierre-Edouard Schmitt (@peschmitt)

Préparation de l'atelier #HacKidemia de mercredi @iesamultimedia Les grands enfants en atelier :) Mercredi ça va juste être de la folie!!! #IESAkids (à IESA multimédia, la 1ère école multimédia à Paris)

[associationxamxam]

Afrimakers, un projet d'initiation des jeunes aux nouvelles démarches scientifiques

Images: makerfaire Africa, Lagos, atelier Hackidemia.

« Les mouvements d'ouverture qui ont caractérisé le web (open source, open innovation, open data, open science, open education) ne concernent plus seulement une avant-garde de programmeurs idéalistes. Ils ont donné naissance, notamment sur les campus américains, à une nouvelle culture de la transmission, de l'apprentissage et de l'innovation. Ils bouleversent aujourd'hui jusqu'aux organisations les plus rigoureuses, y compris la recherche scientifique. De nombreuses activités il y a peu très élitistes, doivent désormais apprendre à s'adresser au plus grand nombre et à puiser dans la force créatrice de ce grand nombre. » François Taddei

Hackidemia est un principe de « laboratoire mobile » conçu par Stefania Druga, qui a pour objectif de familiariser les jeunes enfants et les adolescents aux sciences et aux technologies numériques par l’appropriation directe et le jeu. Pour Stefania Druga, qui a été formée à l’ingénierie pédagogique au Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires de l’Université de Paris Descartes dirigé par François Taddei, il est important que les enfants mettent « la main à la pâte »,  expérimentent, créent des robots et des prototypes pour découvrir et comprendre comment ça marche. C’est le passage idéal pour pouvoir accéder par la suite à des technologies plus complexes. Savoirs-faire partagés, créativité, mutualisation, propagation virale sont les bases de son organisation. 

J’ai pu voir Stéfania à l’œuvre à Lagos l’année dernière pendant la Makerfaire Africa lors d’ateliers remarquablement bien menés. Elle revient -au sein d'un groupe élargi- avec le projet Afrimakers qui vise à ouvrir des hubs de formation dans sept villes en Afrique l’année prochaine et lance une campagne de crowdfunding. A suivre donc...

[dubacademy]

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This morning we stopped by Travis Heights Elementary for #Hackidemia !! Had lots of fun demoing Old school and new school technology to all the kiddos! #traktor #machine #serato Instructors: @djladda @sharks512 @mixmasterpayton Video: @dabrownsound #dubacademy (at Travis Heights Elementary School)

[intelligenthq]

4 Stories of Social Businesses That Are Revolutionising The World

[spokesamerica]

Learning comes through freedom of exploration - lessons from Stefania Druga of Hackidemia

“Last weekend, in Berlin, the room was a big mess after our kids hackathon. All kinds of things had exploded! To me, this was evidence that our workshop was a success - children learn by breaking things.”

Stefania Druga, founder of Hackidemia, is on a quest to foster curiosity, empathy and play among kids. Hackidemia’s workshops and hackathons are based on several fundamental beliefs: involving parents in workshops stretches the duration of learning; children learn most when they have freedom to explore their curiosity; hands-on learning is most needed in places where “making” is an unknown term.

  From quick-win to structural learning

When Hackidemia starts an event in a new country, the organizing team starts by giving an elaborate training to a team of volunteers. The goal of this training and supplied documentation is that volunteers can organize follow-up classes even when the Hackidemia team has departed.  Organizing a single hands-on learning class does not lead to the structural learning - which we want. 

“Dad, look at my helicopter!”

When children leave a hands-on building place, home is the place they are likely to go. When you involve parents in hacking, mother and daughter are better equipped to remember the small robotic car running into the wall, or the earth all over the floor after sowing the tomato-plant-seeds. The learning experience extends beyond the workshop. 

By involving parents in workshops, you can trigger ideas for parents to foster better learning for their children. When you show a father how an arduino works, he is more likely to recognize an arduino the next time he is looking for a present to buy for his son, and more clearly sees the value of this toy. 

  Freedom nurtures true learning

Hackidemia does not impose a schedule during hackathons. Kids are free to choose soldering or painting. There is no fixed time per activity. When a girl’s curiosity is drawn by another activity than the one in which she’s involved, she is free to explore that class. 

For mentors (or teachers) this means that you need to juggle between introducing new kids to the basics of your class and providing help to kids who are more advanced. This is a very conscious choice for Stefania: “I prefer to make it simple for the children and difficult for the mentors, than making it simple for mentors but difficult for children.”

When children are free to roam between classes, an open space is important, “sometimes more important than the quality of the mentors”. When you want children to follow their curiosity, kids need to see what others are doing. The best way to understand the concept of “building a robot” is by seeing someone else do it (and then engaging in the activity) - not by listening to a 20-year old explain the class content. 

  Good conversations lead to questions

My brief conversation with Stefania raised several important ideas. If we aim to find students through word-of-mouth, should we not set up camp in cities for a few days, in stead of one afternoon? Who do we need to involve for children to be inclined to continue their projects after we leave when parents are not present? How can we build local teams of volunteers? Can we let go of our fixed-class approach and in stead host our classes in an open space?   

[sirusiru-blog]

we decided to inspire kids to imagine a better tomorrow and give them the tools to build it.

http://www.hackidemia.com/our-story/

[knowableorg]

Coming up: Hack The City Berlin!

Berlin is in for a treat: this coming monday will be all about drones, 3d printers, laser cutting, hacking and tinkering - and kids!

That's right. We are thrilled to invite you to the first Hack The City event in Berlin, specifically tailored and made for Kids and children. On April 1st the great folks from HacKidemia are holding a series or workshops and sessions for kids to get a quite new and exciting point of view on the technology that surrounds us, hands-on that is. There will be sessions on laser cutting you own furniture, programming your own video games, tinkering with music making (yep, Makey Makey is here) - so basically a huge experimental lab for kids.

We will kick off at the betahaus at 10.30 am and move over to the all new Berlin FabLab at 2.30pm.

It's going to be a blast - so make sure to register over here!

So, who is doing this again?

Hackidemia a wonderful community of people all over the world that explore new ways of education and teaching with and for children. And it is pretty much learning-by-doing itself: Over the past 6 months they had 45 workshops with 2000+ children in places like Zagreb, Toulouse, Timisoara, Sao Paolo - now adding Berlin to the growing list. Their Co-Founder Stefania Druga just recently moved over here and we had the chance to learn a bit about what they are doing and right away starting thinking about how we could team up. We love the idea - it perfectly aligns with what we have in mind with knowable: exploring the potential that new technologies hold for everyone.

To make this event lasting even after it actually took place, we will document whatever is going down on monday and share right over here at knowable - the idea behind this is that everyone else can learn a bit about the workshops, ideas, and techniques - and keep tweaking and tinkering around with it afterwards. Plus, for us this is a great way to kick off a series of workshops that we will hold in the coming weeks and months.

We are very looking forward to monday! Probably all your family, brothers, cousins, nephews are in Berlin anyway - so why not bring them along? See you on monday, then! :)

[nicolasloubet]

Stefania believes in disrupting the education sector. She is a former Singularity fellow and active with HacKIDemia where she introduces kids to the culture of hacking.

[bobirakova]

TEDx 2013 Rock on for the whole year!

This year TEDxBG that happened in Sofia just a few days ago was just mind-blowing! So much energy, so many things to learn and to share. So many new amazing people - inventors, entrepreneurs, friends, teachers, makers! It was "the fuel that is going to wake us up in the beginning of 2013 and keep us alive long after its gone" quoted from Teddy Zareva, one of the awesome organizers!

Like you see from the picture - more than 1000 people showed up excited about the event. But why TEDx was such a unique experience for me:

I met amazing people that share my believes of where the future is going

Without any doubts for me one of the most inspiring stories was the one by Vladi Shunturov - one of the Lucid Design Group co-founders who shared his vision about a future of responsibility. A future where the buildings around us would change dramatically to be energy efficient and we would be aware and lower down their environmental footprint. I especially loved his point that there are many emerging consumer devices that would help this process and make it very simple and straightforward for any of us to lower down the energy consumption!

Had the chance to tell my story of Singularity University and the Global Impact Competition happening so soon!

The challenge

How can we improve the standard of living health, education, and security of 1 million people in the next 3 years through the use of any kind of exponentially improving technology?

If you have an answer, idea or project you would like to implement to solve the challenge, APPLY to the Competition and win a Full Scholarship for SU GSP13!

We did a great Hackidemia event for the older kids, presenting the idea and just the next day for the real kids! Huge thanks to the never sleeping Hackdiemia Team!!!

My Hackidmeia TEDx workshop was about electronics and using conductive ink to sketch with electronics! Have a look at some of the girls that got excited about electronics while exploring different conductive materials that can be used in creating circuits while painting on a sheet of paper!

All of them were amazing! 

[knowtex]

Le père Noel est un "bidouilleur"

Hackidemia a réalisé le rêve du Père Noël : que tout le monde mette la main à la pâte ! Ce laboratoire mobile qui propose des ateliers de bidouille technologique pour les enfants a lancé la compétition Xmaking Competition. 

L’idée ? Que des enfants, étudiants, parents, grand-parents du monde entier partagent une photo de leur création la plus originale pour Noël, puis votent pour leur préférée. Des idées déja concotées sont disponibles pour faire naitre votre inspiration et ensuite, à vous de surprendre l’équipe d’Hackidemia avec vos projets les plus fous !

Pour participer, il suffit de :

1. Fabriquer sa propre création (ici, pour vous inspirer)

2. Soumettre une photo du résultat sur la plateforme d’Hackidemia : http://xmaking.hackidemia.com ou par mail en l’envoyant à xmaking@hackidemia.com

3. Visiter la plateforme, voter pour sa création préférée et la partager avec ses amis.

Les participants pourront gagner un Raspberry Pi de Noël et une invitation pour le prochain événement Hackidemia de leur pays. Joyeux Noël créatif !

[planetegaya]

This is the DIY Anthem. We made it ourselves at our San Francisco HQ.

This is our heroic vision for the power of practical skills. It's also the reality on DIY today. Using our app and site, thousands of young Makers build, hack, and share. They do challenges, and earn Skill Patches. They inspire each other to level up.

Merci Clément !

[krisallenfields]

Hackers & Founders

The job hunt is on.  Today I emailed more companies and attended a Hackers and Founders meetup in Oakland.  It was a good experience.  There were a lot of people there looking for developers.  Unfortunately, most were looking for technical cofounders as opposed to new employees.  While being part of an early stage startup is actually very appealing to me, I'm not in a position right now where I can work for equity only, which is all that most of the startups at tonight's meetup had to offer.  Still, there were a couple of promising leads and it only takes one.  I acquired a handful of business cards and will be going through them tomorrow.  

Of all the companies present, I think the most interesting was probably a company called Hackidemia.  I don't think they're hiring right now though, which is too bad, because it's exactly the sort of company I'd want to work for.  From their site, "Hackidemia is a mobile invention lab that enables future changemakers to access and create a hands-on STEAM education that will enable them to solve specific challenges by developing and testing creative solutions and physical artifacts."  Basically they hold workshops around the world where kids can play with new technologies and use those technologies to create projects of their own.  It's an ed tech company with high ambitions to change the model of learning adopted at schools worldwide.  And from listening to Libby, the "story wizard" of the company, it sounds likes they have some great ideas for how to turn that vision into the reality.

That's the sort of company I could be proud to work at - one where I know what I'm doing is making a tangible difference in the lives of those around me - where my contributions are helping forge a better future for everyone.   

[hackidemia-blog]

Raspberry Pi workshop in Bucharest

Hello! My name is Bobi Rakova and I am very happy and excited to be part of HacKidemia.  I’m the electronics Widzard so my workshop is going to be about DIY – Do It Yourself electronics. We’ll start with the basic and in no time we’ll be programing for very tiny computers like Raspberry Pi.

I joined the project during the Singularity University Graduate Studies program this year. I have a Computer Science background and a lot of experience in the field between Software and Hardware. I heart the Maker Movement and I get very inspired every time I have the chance to work with kids!

This coming Saturday we’re going to have a look at the basics of icroelectronics. In a fun and interactive way we’ll discover the building blocks of those tiny computers called microcontrollers. We will see how they work together and how we can use them to create simple prototypes. We will learn together what is: a semiconductor, a diode, a LED, a resistor, a protoboard and how we can use them to switch some little LED lights on and off. We will first draw everything on a piece of paper and then we will experiment on the protoboard, connect the lights in series and in parallel. We will see what is the difference, explain how it works and experiment with other ideas.

We will also add a button and will show how we have to connect the elements on the protoboard so that we can turn the light on only when you keep the button pressed. In the follow up workshops we will build on this and learn more about microcontrollers. We’ll have a close look Raspberry Pi and will learn more about how much better it is than a PC. What is difference and how can we access its input and output pins. This will allow us to control LEDs from the Raspberry Pi by writing very little code. Before writing any code we’ll play with visual prototyping tools that would allow us to connect blocks in the browser and then see LEDs turning on and off  on our protoboard. We will go into what is possible and the basics of computer programming for tiny computers.  

We are all very excited and inspired to learn from the kids!