On Thursday evening, March 24th the Cape Fear Museum will be hosting an Experience STEM 2.0 event. This second annual event allows our community to come together and check out the different innovations that are happening right here in Wilmington, NC.
As a proud sponsor, we will be hosting an interactive booth where participants can use easy software coding, together with some art and a little imagination to make their favorite activity come to life. Our booth will include an interactive program that even your kids would love. In just a few minutes, you will be able to program an icon to make it dance or bounce a basketball or play music!
Can’t make it to the event but would like to try out your STEM skills? Worry not, with the benefit of technology, you are able to experience the program in the comfort of your own home AND you can have your kids try it too!
Now it’s time for you to try it out for yourself.
We’ve created a quick demo to show how easy it is to play around in Scratch.
WATCH HERE: To Dance, To Shoot a Basketball, To Play Music
MIT University created Scratch. It has an easy interface catered to beginners to help them learn how to code without getting caught up in the heavy technical mechanics. With just a few drag and drops, you can create a video game, program a sports game, or even make a tune. Scratch promotes computational thinking and problem-solving skills; creative teaching and learning; self-expression and collaboration; and equity in computing.
Other favorite resources:
Alice is another free resource we like to recommend to all of the students and newbies out there. Alice is designed to teach logical and computational thinking skills, fundamental principles of programming and to be the first exposure to object-oriented programming. It’s used by teachers but can easily be led by parents-as-teachers as well. Most start at the middle school level, although it has regularly been used with younger children – and even those at the university level.
PS Solutions Foundation
We love to teach our trade to the next generation. Our 501c3 Foundation was created in 2012 to encourage young girls to develop an interest in software engineering and consider careers in computer science. We love that our foundation offers tools and resources to teach kids of all ages to learn how to code.
Our goals include:
- Get children exposed to computer science early.
- Help girls, in particular, see that they are welcomed in this field of work.
- Demonstrate how computer science leads to a rewarding career.
To donate to our foundation or to view more resources visit: www.pssolutions.net/foundation
