COE Fall Career Day

this past wednesday was another College of Engineering Fall Career Day. here are some observations and comments:

(btw, if you are student check out these posts; after the career fair, make students awesome, and you need to do a honors thesis)

actually, i'm not sure if it was just an engineering event, i thought that the Information and Computer Science Department was involved as well, but there weren't that many students. the COE site has a has an events listing and of course it showed this event. but, i noticed that there wasn't an event listing nor a fall career day listing on the ics department site. but, i'm sure they have it post on their mailing list.

there were are few engineering professors walking around and talking to the companies. one professor, tep dobry walked by last semester and mentioned he got a few good students. and because of that we hired one as an intern. the point is that its great to see the professors going out there an promoting their students. we had a lengthy discussion about his student and his other students. we were discussing our needs, their classes and the future. i really appreciate that kind of involvement from the faculty. there were a bunch of engineering faculty walking around. it was good to talk to gerald lau from the ics department.

i didn't get many ics resumes. but, i talked to a handful of students that didn't have their resumes. it was good talking to them, they all seemed really intersted. and as usual i recommended ics 413, because i think none of them knew what junit was. i often give these students my personal email address, hoping that they will contact me...

i met a lot of EE students. its pretty cool because we hired a couple of interns that know a bunch of students. all their friends came to visit us. they all seem like good candidates. they seem to have a lot of good experiences with cubestat and micromouse and if they are anything like our interns then we think they will do great.

i heard a few students talking about the BS in computer engineering and wondering if its good. most of the discussion was from the EE students wondering if the ICS courses were good. and whether i thought it was a good move. i'm not sure what to think about that new degree...

i think a large majority of the students need to work on making a great first impression. sell your skills, stand up straight, eye contact, and stop trying to steal the pens! haha. seriously, i think a few of the younger students need to practice a little more professional communication. the Center for Career Development
and Student Employment actually has a lot of great resources for that. i did a few practice interviews. trust me it really helps!

i think this year was a little bit slower that most and we were in a strange location in the corner. but, i thought it was a pretty good career fair. i was pretty happy with the ee and ics students i talked with we had some good conversations. and for me its all about just talking with students; even though they don't work for me, i hope that i help them learn more about our industry.

programming from scratch

as you probably know now, i've been promoting scratch at the lacy veach day of discovery events.

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

i really like scratch, because it has a lot of great resources for educators, parents, and kids. here are some resources:

learn how to use scratch

information for educators

referrals and quotes

research on scratch

they even have a conference on scratch

they even provide ways for the students to upload their scratch creations, comment on others, and even download scratch files. its a great way to create a community of kids and educators. check out the:

projects

galleries

forums

and scratches to help promote scratch

how we scratch
here is a short summary of how we utilized scratch for the lacy veach events.

first of all, our role in lacy veach day of discovery is to provide interactive displays that hopefully teach the students about cool technology related to space exploration. we decided to use scratch to accomplish that, since we felt that programming abilities is often over looked in the aerospace industry.

anyway, here are some things that we did to make scratch work in this type of event;

we developed quick lesson plans for students that would help teach the students scratch in about 5-10 minutes. the goal was to teach them some initial concepts that they can take with them as they try out the program in more detail at home. basically, we tried to have the students create two sprites and move them in different ways.

we created user accounts on the scratch site to upload their scratches to. here is the user account for the 2008 event; http://scratch.mit.edu/users/LacyVeachDay2008 and here is the account for the 2007 event; http://scratch.mit.edu/users/Referentia

we created fliers to give the parents and students making sure that we told the parents that the program was free and that it could be downloaded. we also made sure that we told the parents and students that their creations were going to be posted online.

we brought our computers and network. we gathered up 5 of our own laptops, complete with a entire network so we can exchange files between the computer. this was important because we wanted to display the students work on a projector.

we created a demo application that looped through the students creations so the students and parents could view their and others creations. this was useful as a way to attract students and parents to our display.

lessons learned:

we talked to as many parents as we did students. parents are amazed that this sort of resource is available and free for that matter. the parents seem to be really interested. so, make sure you have enough volunteers to work with the students and parents.

some kids are really into it and want to do more than the basic examples. the scratch cards come in handy in these situations.

scratch is awesome because kids think its awesome. its really cool to see the kids face light up with interest when they see what they can do. they really get into it. and to me thats what programming is all about. its the creativity, challenge, and accomplishments that make programming awesome. hopefully, more organizations, teachers, mentors, and parents use scratch as an education tool.

if you need help, let me know.

lacy veach day of discovery 2008

this past weekend we participated in lacy veach day of discovery, which is a large scale science fair with exhibits and workshops. we had a great time with all the kids. i even learned a lot! science is cool. we presented programming from scratch and its becoming a yearly tradition for us a referentia systems inc.



at the event we taught kids how to program with scratch, an interactive programming language that creates animation, games, music, and art designed for kids to help develop 21 century skills. it was a huge success. the kids at the event were great. my friends did a great job of helping the kids. overall it was a huge success. we posted the kids' scratch creations on the scratch mit site. check it out!

here are some pics of my crew at the event:
my coworkers at referentia are awesome. without them our scratch display wouldn't be possible. they really step for this event. it must be something about teaching kids to program that gets them into it. so, thanks to those referentians that helped out, it really does make a huge difference. (i remember learning logo when i was a kid and its probably a huge reason why i ended up in computer science; read more about my strange academic journey)

here are some pics from the rest of the event:

this year seemed to be a lot bigger than last. there were many more exhibitors and it was pretty fun to walk around checking out the displays;

Astronaut Onizuka (check out the Onizuka Day on Hilo)

BAE Systems

Bishop Museum - they had a a cool globe projector.

FIRST robotics (Moanalua, ROC, Sacred Hearts, Waialua)

HaSTA

Hawaii Academy of Science - i talked to them about the Hawaii State Science Fair. this event seems really cool. i want to go check it out next year, i think around april.

Hawaiian Astronomical Society

HECO - heco was there in full force. they always do a great job of helping the kids

Institute of Astronomy - these dudes are really smart. i talked with them last year and the stuff they are doing is really cool.

NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center

Pearl City Elementary - there were a bunch of kids from pearl city.

Referentia!!!!! - YAY!

Robofest

Starbase (couldn't find a link)

UH College of Engineering

there were also presentations;

keynote speaker Astronaut Stanley Love

assembly with special 3D program, student interns at NASA

science Magic--science demonstrations with a flair

and a bunch of workshops:

The Incredible Mars Pathfinder Mission

Dr. Gadget presents Gadgets that Float and Glide Through the Air

Water Powered Bottle Rockets

Meteorites: Rocks from Space

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Gases in Space Living

Polynesian Star Compass

(see the full listing here)


it was an awesome day of learning. now that i've learned more about the different workshops and presentations, i actually want to be a kid and sneak in and learn. there are some many great exhibits, workshops, and presentations. WOW! anyway, i had a lot of fun talking with the kids and parents. i can't wait till next year.

re: Path to AwesomeNess...

here is a comment that i left one of our interns on his blog; path to awesomenes.... i wanted to share this with the rest of you, so i added it to my blog.

this path to awesomeness post started as our internship program that we presented at the uh ics industry day. our presentation was titled; make students awesome. so, we had the idea that our intern keep track of his progress in a blog.

so here are my comments.. and you can read austen's comments at his blog.

that is a pretty good start. here are some comments.

2) learn to research
the idea here is that you learn about researching about all sorts of things, including hacking. but, i intended it to be more general. like doing actual research. for example, an honors thesis is research. the important aspect of research is that you are able to form new ideas, communicate them, evaluate them, defend them, and utilize them. conducting research is an important part of what we do as a company, but it is also very important for your development.

perhaps the thing to do here is learn more about how we do research in our company. if you don't know what "research" we are doing, then ask.

5) learn how to increase your marketability
this one is really important. you have to learn and develop things that will separate yourself from your peers. figure out what the norm is and go way beyond it. when you think you went far enough, go further.

6) learn about the industry
this one is important too. you need to know about your options. what types of companies work in hawaii. i say this not so that you only groom yourself to work at company Foo. but, more so that you learn what possibilities out there in hawaii and on the mainland. learn about what other companies do. what technologies are they working with. what are they researching. what software development processes do they follow. are their projects meaningful, etc, etc?

you are on your way. if at the end you have learned a lot about these six areas, you will definitely be AWESOME!

good luck.

my ics courses

today, a few of us visited the ics department to plan the uh ics robocode competition. while, i was walking around the post building i stumbled upon this document; information and advice for computer science majors and minors. it seemed pretty interesting and i wanted to see what type of information the department provided its students. so, i took a copy for myself.

the document seems pretty interesting at a high level. i'm not really sure it offers a whole bunch of advice, it does have a lot of information. anyway, if you have been following my blog for a while, you'll know that i've tried to lay out a lot of advice for students. so, i won't go into a lot of details about process, work habits, communication, soft skills, 6 steps to awesomeness, undergrad thesis, etc. instead, i'll give you a pretty concrete piece of advice.

Take ICS 413/414/613
Software Engineering
from Dr. Philip Johnson

is that clear enough for you? here is a current website of the fall 2008 ics 413 class. and look it even has a quote from me:

The skills you acquire in ICS 413 provide professional advantages. Aaron Kagawa, a software engineer and recruiter for Referentia Corporation, has this to say: It has been my experience that learning technologies like Ant, JUnit, Eclipse, and Subversion and practices like Code Reviews, Extreme Programming, and User Testing will separate you from the rest of crowd when applying for entry level Software Engineering positions. While recruiting and evaluating University of Hawaii ICS students one of the first questions I ask is "Did you take 413 Software Engineering?" Followed by, "Do you know what JUnit is?"

anyway... if you are still wondering what classes i took, here is a list of all of them. i also included my grades in those classes for one reason. i got pretty good grades. but, i guarantee it is not because i'm smart. i got good grades because i worked my ass off. if you read my academic journey you'll see what i'm talking about. here it is, all the ics classes i took (note i started UH in 1998. i didn't start taking ics classes till 2000)

semester	class	grade	comment
spring 2000	ics 101(lab)	A
spring 2000	ics 111(lab) [lew]	B	i had a fantastic ta that really helped us
fall 2000	ics 141 [gersh]	B
fall 2000	ics 211 [biagoni]	A
spring 2001	ics 212 [peterson]	A
spring 2001	ics 311 [suthers]	B
fall 2001	ics 312 [sugihara]	A
fall 2001	ics 313 [stelovsky]	A
fall 2001	ics 321 [deryke]	A
spring 2002	ics 331(lab) [ikehara]	A
spring 2002	ics 413 software engineering [johnson]	A	TAKE THIS CLASS!
spring 2002	ics 415 web programming [stelovsky]	A
summer 2002	ics 491 [gilbert]	A	.net programming
summer 2002	ics 499 [gilbert]	A	.net programming
fall 2002	ics 414 software engineering II [johnson]	A	TAKE THIS CLASS!
fall 2002	ics 499 [johnson]	A	working on my honors thesis
fall 2002	ics 691 [johnson]	A	a class about hackystat. i was the only undergrad in the class
spring 2003	ics 463 hci [hundhousand]	A
spring 2003	ics 499 [johnson]	A	working on my honors thesis
i finally got my undergraduate degree! grad school starting
semester	class	grade	comment
fall 2003	ics 613 software engineering [johnson]	A	grad level software engineering
fall 2003	ics 623 data security [peterson]	A	dr. peterson is a genius
spring 2004	ics 691 [quiroga]	A	information architecture
spring 2004	ics 699 [johnson]	A	masters thesis work
fall 2004	ics 624 data management [nordbotten]	A
fall 2004	ics 664 hci [strevler]	A
fall 2004	ics 690 [suthers]	A
fall 2004	ics 691 [binstead]	A	design for mobile
fall 2004	ics 699 [johnson]	A	still working on the masters thesis
spring 2005	ics 699 [johnson]	A	still working on the masters thesis
spring 2005	ics 700	A
summer 2005	ics 699 [johnson]	A	still working on the masters thesis
i finally got my masters degree!

hopefully, this is interesting or useful to some of the students. if you have any specific questions about the classes i took let me know.

current student activities

things are a little crazy these days. there is a lot going on. here is a short list of things that i'm working on.

ics alumni association
i've been pushing hard to help create an alumni association for the department. its definitely an uphill battle. i've been talking about it for a while on my blog. but, it wasn't till the department realized that they need to drive the need that we really started.

we are working on a coding competition for the department. originally, it started as a Topcoder event, but it since has changed to a Robocode Event. we changed it because of a couple reasons, first the topcoder competition was going to be held at 6AM! for some reason thats the only time topcoder could give us. second, topcoder is pretty hard and doesn't seem like a lot of fun.

while working on the alumni association we created a techhui group called ICS Mentors. this got us a little attention, but it has died down. we also, just created an ics alumni website; http://uhicsalumni.org/. we plan to use this site as a place to get membership information, plan events, etc.

there are a few issues that we are facing. first, we have a small group of people, which i all we need for now until we flesh out the details of the association. but, my worry is that the other graduates that i talk to just don't seem that interested. where am i going to find the volunteers in the future. my worry is that it is just going to die after this event. oh well.... my second concern is actually creating a non-profit organization. i hear it is a little difficult to organize and finish the paper work. i'm falling behind in getting this done and it is a concern.

anyway, the robocode competition is just starting to get formalized. i'm starting to learn about robocode and even compiled my first robot. i'll be posting my notes and tips here. i really hope that the students are interested in joining the competition. and i really hope that we (the alumni association) can pull this off.

lacy veach day of discovery
lacy veach day of discovery is next week! referentia is going to support this event by conducting another scratch programming teaching event for the students. i'm pretty excited about doing this again. we had a great time last time and hopefully we can do it even better. we are trying to get more laptops so we can teach more kids. and we have even more volunteers this year. its going to be awesome.

planning this event was a lot easier this year, because we are doing scratch again. in fact, this decision has taught me a good lesson about how to run these events. plan well for one year and you can reuse your efforts the next year. this not only makes it easier to support these events. it also lets you improve how you approach the lessons and even plan it more efficiently. thats cool!

career fairs
i have three upcoming career fairs; the UH engineering career fair, aiea high school career fair, and the UH ICS industry day. each event is different. for the aiea high school event we are going to give a 30 minute presentation. i did this last year and it seemed pretty successful. this year, one of my engineers is going to give the speech. the engineering career fair is always fun. its actually pretty tiring talking to all those students. career fairs are a great way to help students. i always look forward to talking to the students and offer and advice i may have for their job seeking journey.


sheesh thats a lot happening in the next few weeks...

light bot for stem

light bot is a software-development education game that helps teach software concepts to kids. its pretty cool, because i'm betting that the kids won't even notice the learning going on. a bunch of us at work played with it for a while and it kept us entertained. and some parts were actually challenging. we had engineers that came up with different solutions. the differences in choices were actually pretty interesting.


in all light bot seems like a good intro to some software techniques. its fun and challenging. i would recommend to try to have your students try it out. but, of course there are other options out there like scratch (we used scratch for lacy veach), alice, or even the old school logo. for the super advanced there is always something like processing.