Students in UC High’s Coding Club will be building their own Raspberry Pi computers on Mondays after school, in room 450, in order to expand their technological expertise.
According to Electronics Weekly Magazine, the Raspberry Pi computer is a small, low-cost computer used to introduce beginners to computer science (electronicsweekly.com).
According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, it “…is a credit card-sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It is a capable little computer which can be used in electronics projects, and for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word processing, browsing the Internet, and playing games” (raspberrypi.org).
“One of our projects involves building and programming a cluster of Raspberry Pi 2s, mini computers, that when put together, can accomplish amazing simulations and projects,” said Co-President Junior Ethan Spraggon. He continued, “We plan on having structured projects that everyone in our club will have the opportunity to work on. Later in the year, we might showcase our projects in some sort of event at school. Additionally, we have plans for a Hackathon!”
The club’s Raspberry Pi project is a continuation from the previous year, in which club members met at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD in order to work together on their projects. “They had a good program set up where you could go to the supercomputer center to learn and have fun with friends last year,” stated Senior Dimitrije Kostic.
“I hope that we can work together and raise more money to buy more Raspberry Pis, expand our system, and spend more time at UCSD working on our different programs,” expressed Sophomore Sophia Lipkin.
Despite the previous year’s UCSD Supercomputer Center Program, meetings will be at UC High this year in order to make the club more accessible. “We’re hosting the Coding Club every Monday after school in room 450. Because of this, we should have more people in the club this year,” said Spraggon.
The location change isn’t the only new thing for the club this year. According to club’s Sophomore Co-President James Click, the club will be using programs such as Slack and HackClub, in order for club members to learn more about programming and communicate with each other: “Slack is a team collaboration and communication platform, used by millions of teams like ours around the world.”
“Anyone in the slack channel can talk to anyone else, in any channel. They can get help from other high schoolers or simply post something entirely random,” said Spraggon. “Slack is simply a place where people can talk to others and show off code, all while having fun. I love Slack and the Hack Club Team,” he added.
According to Hack Club Executive Director Zack Latta, it is an online series of workshops designed to help out new coders: “Hack Club is built for people who have never coded before. We’ve built the workshops to provide a great starting point for first-time coders – they walk our members through the process of building their first websites and games. Our goal is to provide the easiest and friendliest way for students from UCHS and other high schools to get started coding.”
The location change and usage of Slack and Hack Club are all done in the name of increasing diversity and accessibility for students. “Computer science is predominantly considered single gendered and it’s hard to introduce diversity into such a male-dominated field. Our number one goal this year is to have our club be equally balanced in gender, ethnic background, and experience,” said Click.
According to Spraggon, the club was started because, “We didn’t have any AP Computer Science classes at school. We wanted people to realize the importance of computing. Fortunately, we have AP Computer Science Principles this year and AP Computer Science A should come the following. This could mean that more people will get involved because of these classes!”
“Coding is becoming an ever more important skill to have in the world. Computers of all kinds have become a fixture in the workplace, our homes, and in our pockets. We are more connected digitally all the time, and coding and programming is something I am very happy to be a part of as it pertains to our students,” said Club Adviser and AP Computer Science Teacher Phillip Huszar.
In Senior Aidan Fitzpatrick’s opinion, the club is not just simply about computers, but also the community: “My favorite part of coding club is the sense of community you get being with other coders. Coding is usually quite lonely, so it is great to be with other people that share your interest.”
“I’m relatively new to [coding], and everyone there is really good at helping me learn what to do and figure out what to do,” expressed Lipkin.