3 CoderDojos in Town

Welcoming, open, safe, free environments for kids to learn coding.

There are now three CoderDojos in town: the CoderDojo Twin Cities, Katie CoderDojo and the new Tonka CoderDojo.

Each one  has a different style, code groups and age ranges so explore them all to find the best fit for your child.

Tickets are free, but go fast; register early (this weekend!) to avoid disappointment.

The CoderDojo movement was started in 2011 in Ireland by code-savvy teenager James Whelton and philanthropist Bill Liao.   There are now almost 500 CoderDojos in 48 countries. You can start one too; here's how.

FINCH ROBOTS
Code Savvy is delighted to borrow 100 Finch Robots during the month of September, thanks to Bird Brain Technologies. Finches are rugged little robots with light, obstacle, temperature and orientation sensors as well as the ability to move, change color, talk and play music.

We'll be programming the Finches at CoderDojoTC and Katie CoderDojo and also loaning them to teachers in schools across Minnesota during September. Interested educators please contact hello@CodeSavvy.org. 

CODING on the NORTHSIDE
The Digital Empowerment Academy is a digital literacy initiative founded in 2013 that enables Northside teens to become savvy users and creators of digital technology. DEA is hosting a series of digital literacy workshops in North Minneapolis -- check out the schedule of events here -- and has recently convened the Northside Digital Innovation Alliance.

Save the date: A fundraising gala for the Digital Empowerment Academy will be held November 8, 2014 from 7 - 10 pm. For more information, please contact: Lanise@DigitalEmpowermentAcademy.org

Reproduced with respect and gratitude from Rebecca Schatz's Code Savvy email report 9/6/14

MinneWebCon April 14-15, 2014

MinneWebCon’s roots are in people coming together to solve problems and make things easier, and we are entering our seventh year with a big-time commitment to grassroots knowledge-sharing. You might hear from folks who are working in your field, or are in a position you consider

light-years from the everyday. Our work with the web brings us together, and at MinneWebCon attendees and speakers from all backgrounds, career paths, and work environments have a space to collaborate, talk, learn, ask, test, argue, create, and grow.

From the Twin Cities, Minnesota, the Midwest, and beyond… join us April 14th and 15th, 2014!

Spring 2014 Alumni Learning Series - May 2

Physics and Nanotechology Building—Tour and Lunch

By James Marti, Associate Program Director of the Minnesota Nano Center

Friday, May 2, 2014 (RSVP by April 25)

Noon-1:30 p.m.

Physics and Nanotechnology Building
115 Union St SE, Minneapolis

Enter by either the east or west doors.
We will meet in the MNC conference room, Rm. 130 (just off the main floor atrium).

Register for the May 2 lunch and tour

The University of Minnesota launches a new era of excellence with the Grand Opening of the new Physics and Nanotechnology Building this spring. The new facility will house experimental physicists—relocated from Tate Laboratories—in about 40 new research laboratories. More than 5,000 square feet of new clean room space has opened in the nanotechnology portion of the building, plus new labs for biological and nanomaterials research not found in any of the University's existing common-use nanotech labs. The new facility allows for the expansion of interdisciplinary research, as the University simply didn't have that space available in the past.

Join us for lunch, followed by a tour, in this amazing new space.

We look forward to seeing you!
David J. Lilja, Department Head
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Vipin Kumar, Department Head
Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Parking

Parking for all of these events is conveniently located across the street from Keller Hall in the Washington Avenue Ramp.

For more information, contact Anastacia Quinn Davis at aqdavis@umn.edu or 612-625-4509.

Spring 2014 Alumni Learning Series - April 24

Low-Inertia Microgrids to Enable High Renewable Integration

By Sairaj Dhople, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Thursday April 24, 2014 (RSVP by April 17)
11:30 am-1:00 pm

Walter Library, Room 101

117 Pleasant St. SE, Minneapolis
Box lunches will be served.

Register for the April 24 lunch

In this talk, assistant professor Dhople will describe the modeling, analysis, and control challenges in emerging low-inertia microgrids, which offer several system-level advantages such as reducing transmission and distribution losses, increasing renewable integration, and ensuring a reliable and secure power supply to critical loads in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Consequently, developing countries may choose to sidestep the traditional hierarchical bulk power system, in favor of agile and adaptable micro grids.

We look forward to seeing you!
David J. Lilja, Department Head
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Vipin Kumar, Department Head
Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Parking

Parking for all of these events is conveniently located across the street from Keller Hall in the Washington Avenue Ramp.

For more information, contact Anastacia Quinn Davis at aqdavis@umn.edu or 612-625-4509.

Mentor at the new Sumner Code Club

Please consider mentoring at the new Sumner Code Club, held in the beautiful Sumner Library just northwest of downtown Minneapolis.  Inspire Northside girls and boys (ages 9 to 14) to explore coding using Scratch -- a fun and powerful language for creating and sharing your own games, animations and stories. 

Experienced Scratch mentors -- or mentors eager to explore Scratch -- are all welcome. 

We're starting out with 3 sessions on Monday evenings from 4 to 6 pm -- March 31, April 7 and April 14.   

Please REGISTER HERE to mentor at one or all of these events and enjoy introducing a Northside child to the delights of coding.

Thank you for helping inspire a diverse new code-savvy generation. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. And please spread the word.  

Thank you,

Rebecca Schatz
rebecca@codesavvy.org

CSA Spring Meeting - April 16, 2014 7:30-9:00am

We're mixing it up for our early spring meet up. In place of a mid-afternoon gathering, we're going to try for an earlier time slot - Breakfast!  Our special speaker for this meeting is one of CS&E's 'top researchers' - Prof. Loren Terveen whose research focuses on 'Precision Crowdsourcing'. The meeting details can be found under the agenda tab above.

Prof. Loren Terveen

Prof. Loren Terveen will be joining us to talk about his precision crowdsourcing  work with social media giant 'Pinterest'. He will present some noteworthy research findings, share his viewpoints on this research and bring us up to date on his current interests. After the talk, we'll have a short CSA business meeting.

Plus, we'll also have Matt Gray of Clockwork Active Media, a software engineer, tech-biz entrepreneur, CS&E alumnus 'in the house' to talk to CSA membership about Coder DoJo Twin Cities. Matt co-founded the Twin Cities chapter and he'll have some inspiring anecdotes to share.

Wednesday April 16, 2014 (RSVP by April 10)
7:30-9:00 am

Keller Hall, Room 4-178
200 Union St. SE, Minneapolis
Continental breakfast will be served.
Enter through the Electrical and Computer Engineering Main Office on the fourth floor.
Register here:    http://cse.umn.edu/forms/140416_alumni_learning.php

In concert with the College and Dean's office, we've invited CSE alumni to Professor Terveen's talk as one of the college's Spring 2014 Alumni Learning events.  We're hopeful this 'breakfast' time frame will not throw too many 'old timers' off of their game clock.  We're trying new and different ways to boost involvement and attendance. Our hope is to attract and welcome a few new faces and reconnect with old friends who couldn't get away for the typical mid-afternoon CSA meeting time.

See you bright and early on the 16th.

Ed. Note: Years of informal surveys over the past few years told us that CSA folks were 'open and welcoming' to different meeting times and places, given adequate notice, of course.
We need your input, we want to hear from you. Your suggestions and feedback are welcome.
Please, please take that 5 minutes and send us your thoughts, criticisms, ideas and recommendations via email. All of our 'lead dog' email addresses for this august organization are listed in the 'CSA MailBag' section.  Just click on the link and start.

Coder DoJo is Calling You ... back to the U

Hi Mentors,

If you are mentoring at the March 22 event, you may register up to three of your own children at this time. Please contact hello@coderdojotc.org if you have any questions or concerns.

We have a fantastic roster lined up for this Saturday---30 mentors---but I'd love to see even more for the 22nd so we can take full advantage of the classrooms at the U.
I'm working on a date for a mentors-only meetup so we can discuss 2014 so far and how well each group is working. I'll keep you posted.

Thank you all so much for volunteering your time to create this unique opportunity for kids and young adults in the metro area. And a special 'thank you' to all of you who put so much time, energy and effort into CoderDojo every other week.

Remember, every mentor that volunteers means an additional three students can attend CoderDojo!

You'd think after nearly a year of our events I'd be used to the delight in a child's eyes when they figure out they can control their computer---but I'm not. It gets me every time. :)

Thank you.  Matt Gray


Volunteer to warm your heart, sharpen your mind, and create some smiles! 
Sign up to be a mentor at the upcoming 4/12/2014 event!

Ed.Note: CoderDoJo Twin Cities conducts 14 week 'seasons' consisting of 7 working sessions held every other Saturday at the STSS building on the east bank UofMN campus. 
For details and remaining session dates for the 'current' season refer to the CoderDoJo website.