The ICT University USA, along with The ICT University Foundation organized a 4 week immersive STEM Education boot camp for Form 5 and High School students and I had the privilege to coordinate it !
This bootcamp is an incentive by the university to ignite the creative genius that resides in most youngsters via STEM ( Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
By exposing students to STEM and giving them opportunities to explore STEM-related concepts, they will develop a passion for it and hopefully pursue a job in a STEM field.
Our STEM Education boot camp had a total of 4 categories, each mentored by our STEM Hero Volunteer Mentor (I totally made up the title, kinda sounds cool though) ;
- Robotics, AI and IoT mentored by Xaviera Kowo [@XavieraKowo]
- Web Development mentored by Kingsley Chebonkeh
- Cyber Security mentored by Sama Clinton
- Graphics Design mentored by Fon Ngum Buka
While I coordinated the entire bootcamp and each category, I spent a lot of time with group working on robotics. The students were taught the basics of arduino and raspberry pi and how they could use these components along with a bunch of sensors they were introduced to to build cool things.
The Bootcamp kicked-off on August 4th as scheduled. The hallways of the campus were flooded by a diverse group of individuals with one thing in common, a thirst for knowledge. While the bootcamp was planned only for high school and form 5 students, we had both graduate and undergraduate students in attendance.
We started the camp by introducing the different categories; their learning outcomes as well as the mentors for each category. You could tell it’ll be a fun learning experience by how enthusiastic the participants were. There was no shortage of questions and this was really just introduction.
Day 1 ended with a tour of the campus, the labs and all the cool equipement they’ll have the opportunity to work with. They got a peak at the arcade room, our 3D printer which was in the process of rendering cat designed by our tech woman Xaviera Kowo as a whole bunch of cool stuff.
The next time I’ll be meeting them, the participants will be their respective categories on a fun learning adventure.
