“I want to just DO SOMETHING instead of asking someone else to start a process to investigate the possibility of someday possibly maybe doing something.” - Cory Doctorow, Makers

As a high school student in a city just outside Boston I never imagined that I could make cool things. Motivated by that experience I now hope to inspire young people to create and build. I have had the good fortune of living near the Brookline Teen Center (BTC), where I hope to realize that goal.

To start inspiring young people to become Makers I wanted to run a weekly class at the BTC that would have allowed students to create their own website and host it on individual Raspberry Pi’s. For example, the Raspberry Pi could have been connected to an LED that blinked every time the web server received a request. This could lay the foundation for students running the official Brookline Teen Center website. I started by creating hackthe.brooklineteencenter.org. Unfortuately, the class never got off the ground because I was not able to invest enough time to support the class without some help (e.g. promoting the class).

My hope is currently to teach a high school or middle school level course or after school program. Unfortuantely, the AP computer science course appears to simply be an introduction to Java. I would like to focus on Python, C, and C++ (in addition to numerous other tools) in an effort to build things and develop understanding of core conepts.

Promotion

Explain the motivations for taking the class including the following:

• Place out of introductory college courses
• Be able to specialize more quickly
• Earn a stable income
• Solve problems (e.g. my middle school puzzle class)

Create interactive projects to develop interest in the class. For example, use the Laser Tag software designed by the Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) to promote the class, as I did in college (see The Sincerest Form of Flattery and Berlin Wall Commemoration)

Core concepts

• The difference between applied tools and theory
  • New technology makes improvements or implements new ideas. That technology is generalized beyond original intended use. Attempts are made to constrain or balance its use noting that the previous technology works very well.
  • When to use a file to store information instead of a complex database

Teaching goals

• Involve students in iterative learning experience
  • Distributed documentation (e.g. MediaWiki)
  • Students that display commitment and helpfulness can learn to teach and communicate with diverse people about complex topics
    • Assistants in later iterations
    • Mentors for more diverse groups from other communities
  • Develop a means of deciding on group projects
• Each class should include time to make something that can be expanded upon at home
• Prepare for undergraduate education
• Never, ever use PowerPoint or a similar slide format
• Create and classify problems
• Ask students what they expect from the course before it begins
• Reinforce learning through summarization by students
  • At the beginning of class review what we learned during the previous class
  • At the end of class review what we did during that class
  • Provide a teaser for next week

Reading list

This is a list of books that could form the basis of a class or be incorporated into other classes.

• Blum, Andrew. Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet. New York: Harper Collins, 2012.
• Doctorow, Cory. Makers. New York: Tor, 2009.
• Gertner, Jon. The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. New York: The Penguin Press, 2012.
• Hafner, Katie. Where Wizards Stay Up Late. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
• Kidder, Tracy. The Soul of a New Machine. Little, Brown and Company, 1981.
• Lessig, Lawrence. Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong, A Biography. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1956.
• Raymond, Eric S.. The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. Beijing: Cambridge: O’Reilly, 2001.

Read an article from Hacker News every week and discuss it in class. What bias may exist in this news source?

Project ideas

• List of projects stored somewhere and displayed with HTTP and/or a hardware display
• Host the BTC website at the Center and managed by students (e.g. Google Web Designer)
• Generally encourage participation by recording statistics for BTC activities
• Basketball hoop sensor and LED array
• Bowling LED array, score database and HTTP front-end
• Member building sign-in using hardware ID (e.g. RFID) and LED array announcing +1 visit and total visits, or just achievements (e.g. 100th visit)
• Abstracted member database with randomized IDs associated with each member
• Wearable electronics
• Bitcoin
• How to use technology to teach math (e.g. WolframAlpha) using programming and electronics
• Maximize scholarship money
• Democratic control of music playing in the BTC and FM/HTTP broadcast of it
• Which software web server should one use?
  • Which web servers are most popular?
    • Web Server Survey by Netcraft
    • Usage of web servers for websites by W3Techs
  • Which web servers are easiest to use?
    • Python SimpleHTTPServer
    • Mongoose

Field trips

Despite growing up just outside Boston I never realized the vast number of people creating creative and technical things. This list will hopefully form the basis of regular field trips to visit local makers. Students will learn about complex real world problems and be encouraged to participate in the creation of solutions. Like the Reading list above, these trips could be incorporated into other classes. In the spirit of creating something the students could work together to publish a book or magazine documenting these places.

• FireFly
• Sprout
• Artisan’s Asylum
• Geekhouse

Resources

• 3D printer
• Basic electronics
• Mobile projector
• Mobile audio system