With great success at our STEM workshop at BBBSLI this past saturday, Bigs’ and Littles were able to learn about Raspberry Pi circuits and work with Sphero kits. We all worked as a team and had fun while we were learning how to program. It was a great experience to share our knowledge of SpringBoard incubators Inc. Shoutout to our corporate and event partners for making events like this possible.
Thanks to Instructor Will King for giving us great insight on how to conduct a Raspberry Pi Circuit. Thanks to instructors Tuly Reyes and Marilyn Castro for helping our Bigs’ and Littles learn how to code and program a Sphero. More importantly special thanks to BBBSLI for having us.
The animation industry truly began it’s “revolution” in the late 1960s when more and more animated films were produced and released in the public. You’d think it would be the “Walt-Era” when Disney films were being released as the years went by but so many other companies besides Disney were keeping up as well. Regardless, many people found opportunity to find jobs in the animation industry.
June 22nd 1935 in Santa Barbara, California was the day the first African-American animator was born. His name is Floyd Norman. Currently 86 years old but still very active in the animation industry. What made him join the industry was him watching old Disney movie classics such as Bambi & Dumbo. Early in his career he started as an inbetweener or also known as“Tweenening” animator. This means when an animator adds frames so the final animation is more “smooth” and fluid. Eventually he moved on to work as key animator for notable motion pictures such as Disney’s Sleeping Beauty & Disney’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians. He may have been an animator of color but he like many others had to start somewhere in the early and every growing industry.
Frank Braxton
Another few examples of African Americans in the animation industry are Frank Braxton who has done key animation for a handful of Charlie brown TV specials and LeSean Thomas who at first started off as an animator, in later years has opened his own animation studio in the eastern countries and created/produced & directed a handful of original anime series such as Cannon Busters & Yasuke. These men of African American decent have made their mark on the animation industry no matter the genre.
To learn more of these men, I will provide the link to their respective Wikipedia pages.
Although this country has a history of discrimination of races, these men did not falter to achieve their careers in animation and till this day continued to produced more works. I encourage the younger generation to study these gentlemen to become an animator and maybe eventually produce original animation works. Springboard Incubators can help.
We are hiring animators/art teachers with extensive experience in the animation industry to teach those who want to join in it. As for students, all ages can sign up for classes, one on one or groups. Please contact us at at [email protected] or 516.414.2000. Our Business hours are 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Thanks for reading.
The second part of our workshop with BBBSLI will include the Raspberry PI. Here is another preview of the type of projects you can do with SpringBoard. If your organization is interested, please contact us at 516.414.2000. We (SpringBoard) put the fun in STEM Learning.
The Raspberry PI is a pocket computer. Yes, a really cool computer about the size of a credit card. For this project we will use the serial ports and a breadboard. Think of this as Engineering 101.
Raspberry Pi has a GPIO “General Purpose Input/Output” serial interface, that is composed of two parallel rows of metal pins. The GPIO provides an interface between the software and the physical world.
With these pins we can program the Raspberry Pi to interact with physical objects in the real world. We can receive signals from external sources such as a button or a device for measuring wind speed. We can also use it to control physical objects such as turning a light on and off or even operating a 3D printer. In this case The project you see in the photo below is the traffic light simulator.
After you learn how to connect the circuits on the breadboard, you will learn how to program the traffic light simulator in python. Pretty cool if you ask me. – By Tuly Reyes
Big Brother Big Sisters of Long Island’s mission is to “create and support one-on-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth.”
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island provides children facing adversity with strong and enduring, professionally supported, one-on-one relationships that change their lives for the better, forever. To this end, BBBSLI has many different mentoring programs.
SpringBoard will be doing a STEM workshop for Bigs’ and Littles’ on September 25, 2021. I am very excited to be part of the team that will be teaching the workshops. So what will we be doing? Here is a preview.
My workshop is a gentle introduction to robotics. I will introduce the concept of autonomous robotics using the SPRK + robot. What can Bigs and Littles expect? They will work together to program our robot to do simple tasks, hence, autonomous robotics. It will be a great learning experience and I cannot wait. – by Tuly Reyes
Data scientists are “big data” wranglers, gathering and analyzing large sets of structured and unstructured data. A data scientist’s role combines computer science, statistics, and mathematics. Data scientists are in high demand. They analyze, process, and model data then interpret the results to create actionable plans for companies and other organizations.
“Data scientists are anomaly spotters”, said Dr. Steven C. Lindo, Chairman & CEO of SpringBoard Incubators Inc. Meaning that they follow a technique for Exploratory Data Analysis (or EDA). This method uses data visualizations techniques to look for outliers in datasets.
At SpringBoard, our Data Science workshops use the Python programming language for data analysis. We use it natively or with platforms like Google Colab or Jupyter IPython.
Python is perfect for scientific computing, here are the main components you will learn to use at SpringBoard:
Knowledge is understanding gained through learning or experience. You read a recipe to gain knowledge about baking rhubarb pie. When it burns in the oven, experience gives you the knowledge that you need to stop doing three things at once. Fields like biology, math, art, medicine, and others have huge bodies of knowledge. Knowledge can mean information and also deeper understanding. You can use this word as a disclaimer too, as in “To my knowledge, my sister walked the dog.” – source https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/knowledge
Learning leads to awareness but the most important thing is the knowledge that we gain. The definition of knowledge above, can be summarized this way. Awareness.
Today we have a very advanced technology at our finger tips. If we need some type of information we can quickly find it online. We also have the ability to read, communicate, ask, and above all discover to do something new every day.
I want to learn because …
I want to be a person full of knowledge. I want to continue learning until I can’t no more! I want to able to help other people and to continue sharpening my reasoning and problem solving skills. Thanks to Dr. Steven Lindo for his teachings, for motivating us and, for being a fantastic person. Make the most out of your summer and learn!
Un torneo de innovación es una competencia por equipos donde los estudiantes se reúnen para enfocarse en un problema específico. Nuestro torneo de innovación fue organizado por SpringBoard Incubators Inc en asociación con Sean John del 4 al 5 de junio de 2021.
El tema fue Justicia Social, y se nos pidió que brindemos soluciones desde nuestra perspectiva a problemas como:
La discriminación racial
Sesgo de sexualidad y género
Brecha salarial
Bienestar infantil
Trabajo infantil forzoso
Abuso y negligencia infantil
Pobreza e injusticia económica
Falta de recursos
Calidad de vida Sistema educativo
Cuidado de la salud
A la competencia asistimos estudiantes de las escuelas: Hempstead High School, Roosevelt Middle School, West Hempstead y Sewanhaka High School.
La competición duró dos días. El primer día fuimos juzgados por nuestras ideas y nuestros bocetos. El segundo día tuvimos que proporcionar un “prototipo en el que se puede hacer clic” y justificar nuestra solución.
Como incubadoras SpringBoard, los estudiantes tuvieron el privilegio de poder participar y trabajar con otros estudiantes. Aprendimos de nuestros entrenadores y mentores a medida que interactuamos con expertos de la industria y recibimos el aliento de los jueces. Fue una experiencia técnica interesante, informativa y práctica. ¡Sobre todo nos divertimos! Divertido aprendiendo cosas nuevas como crear un prototipo de aplicación, colaborar en equipo y crear soluciones en iniciativas educativas, compromiso cívico y liderazgo. ¡Todos deberíamos innovar, colaborar y crear!
Alissa Tokumoto primer lugar (centro), Irma Salmeron (Izquierda) tercero lugar, y Tuly Reyes (Derecha) tercero lugar
Muchas Gracias a Dr. Steven Lindo y todos los que participaron en este torneo, fue experiencia grandiosa porque aprendimos a innovacion sobre problemas que estan pasando actualmente.
“Club de Computación” de las escuelas secundarias de Hempstead aprovechando al máximo su verano
Las primeras semanas de las vacaciones de verano para los adolescentes se pasan idealmente de compras, yendo a la playa y con la familia. Sin embargo, este no es el caso del “Computer Club” de Hempstead High School. El Computer Club se enfrentó al desafío de codificar la tecnología E.R.R.S.E.L.A. de el Instituto de Tecnología de Nueva York. (Robot de investigación ETIC para actividades de aprendizaje y participación de los estudiantes). A pesar de no tener experiencia en codificación, el grupo de jóvenes tuvo que afrontar la abrumadora tarea de forma remota a través de ZOOM.
E.R.R.S.E.L.A. es un robot desarrollado por el Instituto de Tecnología de Nueva York con el único propósito de desarrollar las habilidades y la disciplina para poder colaborar y participar en E.R.R.S.E.L.A. ‘ funcionalidad y diseño. Trabajando con E.R.R.S.E.L.A. el Computer Club adquirió conocimientos del mundo real sobre áreas relacionadas con la ingeniería y la ciencia de la computación.
Los miembros del Computer Club, Chelsea Prudencio y Alissa Tokomoto participan en uno de los diversos zooms.
Este programa de 10 días consistió en poner al Club de Computación en un curso intensivo de pensamiento crítico, resolución de problemas y diseño innovador. Al asistir al programa aquí en el SpringBoard Innovation Hub, el Computer Club pudo controlar E.R.R.S.E.L.A. de forma autónoma. Considerando E.R.R.S.E.L.A. se encuentra en la ubicación de NYIT en Old Westbury, presenciando a E.R.R.S.E.L.A. ser controlado a millas de distancia fue una maravilla. A través de prueba y error, el Computer Club pudo persistir y pudo poner a E.R.R.S.E.L.A. a través de varios movimientos mediante el uso de JavaScript. Para crear figuras en ocho a través de stop motion para crear múltiples cadenas de código, el Computer Club pudo hacerlo todo.
Miembro del Computer Club (Chelsea Prudencio) y su trabajo para programar E.R.R.S.E.L.A.
Muchas gracias a Michael Nizich, Ph.D, director del Centro de Innovación de Emprendimiento e Innovación Tecnológica (ETIC) de el Instituto de Tecnología de Nueva York, quien creó E.R.R.S.E.L.A. (Robot de investigación ETIC para actividades de aprendizaje y participación de los estudiantes), por brindarles a nuestros estudiantes ansiosos la oportunidad de trabajar con E.R.R.S.E.L.A. y exponerlos a carreras potenciales en Ciencias de la Computación e Ingeniería. Para obtener más información sobre E.R.R.S.E.L.A. haga clic aquí
Hempstead High Schools “Computer Club” Making the Most of Their Summer
The initiating weeks of summer vacation for teenagers is ideally spent shopping, going to beaches, and or with family. However this is not the case for the Hempstead High School “Computer Club”. The Computer Club was met with the challenge of coding New York Techs E.R.R.S.E.L.A. (ETIC Research Robot for Student Engagement & Learning Activities). Despite having no coding experience the group of young individuals had to face the daunting task remotely over ZOOM.
E.R.R.S.E.L.A. is a robot developed by the New York Institute of Technology with the sole purpose of developing the skills and discipline to be able to collaborate and take part in E.R.R.S.E.L.A.’ functionality and design. Through working with E.R.R.S.E.L.A. the Computer Club gained real world knowledge of areas surrounding computer engineering and science.
Computer Club members, Chelsea Prudencio and Alissa Tokomoto participating in one of the various zooms.
This 10 day program was consisted of putting the Computer Club through a crash course of critical thinking, problem solving, and innovative designing. Attending the program here at the SpringBoard Innovation Hub the Computer Club was able to control E.R.R.S.E.L.A. autonomously. Considering E.R.R.S.E.L.A. is located at the NYIT location in Old Westbury, witnessing E.R.R.S.E.L.A. being controlled miles away was a marvel to experience. Through trial and error the Computer Club was able to persist and was able to put E.R.R.S.E.L.A. through various motions by the use of JavaScript. To creating figure eights through stop motion to creating multiple strings of code, the Computer Club was able to do it all.
Computer Club member (Chelsea Prudencio) and her work to program E.R.R.S.E.L.A.
Big thank you to Michael Nizich, Ph.D, director of New York Tech’s Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Center (ETIC), who created E.R.R.S.E.L.A. (ETIC Research Robot for Student Engagement and Learning Activities), for giving our eager students a chance to work with E.R.R.S.E.L.A. and exposing them to potential careers in Computer Sciences and Engineering. To learn more about E.R.R.S.E.L.A. click here
Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) Impact on Jobs
June 25, 2018 – SpringBoard Team
Since the information technology (IT) boom in the 1990’s IT workers more than doubled between 1990 and 2000. The chart below from the U.S. Census shows the growth since 1970 and the diversity of jobs that are available to IT professionals.
From the chart above we can see that many different skill sets and job functions have been created from 1970 to 2014. The chart shows 3 categories in 1970 and 14 different categories in 2014. The industry has continued to grow and evolve from 2015 to 2018 and Big Data problems have given birth to a new set of job skills: Data Scientists, and Cloud Architects. Some of the key skills that Data Scientists possess include Python Programming, Statistical Analysis and Machine Learning.
STEM Impact on Salaries
As the information technology industry continues to evolve into 2020, new skill sets will be required to meet the demands of this expansion. Information Technology continues to be one of the highest paying professions in the U.S. The information provided by the United State Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the potential earnings for computer and information technology professionals by industry.
Since the information technology (IT) boom in the 1990’s IT workers more than doubled between 1990 and 2000. The chart below from the U.S. Census shows the growth since 1970 and the diversity of jobs that are available to IT professionals.