How Five Girls are Using Science & Code to Save the Earth

Earth Day is this Friday, April 22nd, a day to demonstrate support for environmental protection around the world.

To celebrate, we spoke to the winners of the Girls Code 4 Climate Contest from Altona Middle School in Longmont, Colorado about how they made the winning videos, their interest in programming and science, and how they're helping to save the earth!

Pictured from left to right:  Katja, Alyssa, Sreya, Sudhiksha, and Eilene.

Q: What was the most exciting thing about doing this project?

Katja:  Recording it was the most exciting and fun- especially the video for it was awesome.

Sudhiksha:  Recording was fun, but also really challenging because we had to fit everything under a 30-second time limit, and we had a lot of information.

Sreya:  It was exciting to know that information that we added to that video could actually have an effect and make the world a better place.

Q:  What was the most challenging aspect of this project?

Sudhiksha:  For me, it was finding an idea.  It was hard brainstorming and coming up with an idea.

Katja:  We had to rush at the end to get everything in, so we couldn’t make it as good as we wanted it to be.

Alyssa:  It was challenging to research and find all the information.

Eilene:  We were rushed because it took us a long time to find our idea.  We switched topics three different times.

Sreya:  Storyboarding took us a really long time.  We had to figure out what we were going to talk about and how to write the script.

Q:  What did you learn from this process?

Sreya:  I learned that we had to manage our time and not goof off as much, but that’s also what made the project fun.  

Katja:  We also learned how to storyboard a video.

Sudhiksha:  I’m going to focus more on what the project was about. I was really surprised about how high the stats regarding climate change are.  I just went with the crowd before and thought climate change might happen or might not.  I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but now I know.  In a few years - decades, Florida will be gone along with a number of other big cities.  It’s mind boggling.

Sreya:  Simple things like not mowing your lawn as much or using less paper - just those small things can make a huge impact to prevent the so-called “end of the world.”

Katja:  My family is very climate-active.  We go to rallies, we participate and learn about it, but I don’t think I ever realized before we made these videos that I was part of climate change - that I had caused it to happen. So now I’ve been making an effort to change.

Sudhiksha:  Since we made that video, I’m always thinking I shouldn’t use so much construction paper.  I remind myself that I should cut from the edges and waste less.  If more people watch the video, they could be reminded too, and that could make a big impact on saving the planet.

Alyssa:  Before we made these videos, I never took climate change that seriously.  Now I’m more aware of what’s happening.

Eileen:  When I was a little kid, I used to love wasting paper.  I would cut it up into little pieces and throw them in the air. Afterwards, I would clean it up and put it in the trash instead of reusing it.  Now I feel like that was such a waste of paper and such a waste of our climate and our future. Doing this video made a large impact on me.

Q: What did you like about participating in the contest and using the Vidcode technology?

Sreya:  The fun thing about Vidcode is that there are so many things you can do.  It isn’t like block (drag-and-drop) coding, which still teaches the thinking patterns.  But with Vidcode, you’re actually using code - JavaScript.  You put it into the video like blocks, but then it shows you the actual code you’re using.

Katja:  I enjoyed using Vidcode because it let me learn.  JavaScript seems really intimidating, and Vidcode’s tutorials made it less intimidating.  You can learn in a fun, non-stressful environment.

Sudhiksha:  Block coding for me was a challenging for me at first, because I didn’t know much code.  Vidcode, which uses JavaScript, was different.  The tutorials had little blocks that would show you what the code was.  You had the tweak the numbers and colors, and you could see the effects right away.  That was really cool.

Eileen:  I started with JavaScript when I was about six years old.  When I started using Vidcode, I was learning more about JavaScript.

Q: How does it feel to be winners and girls in a programming competition?

Alyssa:  Amazing!

Sudhiksha:  I love this feeling because many girls are not considered to be engineers or scientists.  I don’t like gender inequality.  I think that’s one of the top problems of the world. To win against 300 other videos is an honor, and it shows that girls can code.

Katja:  It’s like telling yourself that you can do things you didn’t think you could.  I started this project because I thought it would be a good experience and didn’t expect to win. When Sreya and I won the Runner-Up title, I started to think that I can do things and can make an impact on the world.  So now I’ve entered in a few different competitions.

Sreya:  When people use stereotypes like girls can’t do stuff, I want to prove to other people that I’m strong.  When it came to coding, I was a little frustrated at first, but it’s nice to know we can do it without that gender thing. We’re just sixth graders and we’re girls.  It feels amazing to succeed.

Alyssa:  We proved that girls can do coding and science! 

The Girls Code 4 Climate Contest winners brainstorming video ideas

Q: Will you continue to learn programming?

Katja:  I don’t plan to make a career out of programming, but I want to learn more.  This semester, I’m doing independent study in computer science class.

Eilene:  I view coding as a hobby.  I like making stuff like games.

Sreya:  I used to hate coding. I used to suck at it. When I came into coding class, the teacher made it so much more fun, and since my friends were in the class, that made it even better.

Alyssa:  It didn’t really mean to sign up for computer science, but as soon as I walked into class and met the teacher, my whole perspective about coding changed.

Sudhiksha:  I love coding. It’s one of my hobbies. I do it for fun.  I’m really interested in being a genetic engineer and that requires a lot of computer and programming skills.

New Possibilities With Code!

Vidcode, the creative learn to code platform, just got better. SO MANY changes to the Vidcode site went live TODAY!
So what's new? Well...

 

A new project, Famous Filters, is now available for everyone!

Learn how to create Instagram-style video filters with JavaScript, save them, switch them, and share them with your friends (learning about variables along the way).

 

 

 

All the projects are new(ish)!

We've been working with the incredible Dr. Em (dancing above) to make all of our projects more fun and intuitive. Every single project tutorial has been rewritten, go check them out.

 

Is that all? Not yet! We're also releasing a brand new JavaScript effects library.

What does that mean? It means that everything you've always wanted to do (invert your video colors, change text, make effects and creatures with shapes, select infinite graphics) is now possible with code! Read the documentation to learn about all the new possibilities, and check out some of the new projects below!

 

Finally, we're releasing a new media library.

Every movie, photo and graphic you upload gets saved to your account - no more uploading photos and videos every time you want to create a new project. It also means that you can add photos and graphics to all projects, not just specific ones like Meme Maker!

Start coding with our new tools!

Are you a teacher who wants to learn how to use these new features in your classroom? Sign up for an upcoming free teacher training session, or email [email protected] for more information.

The Importance of Steam Learning

Originally Posted in our blog series at the Huffington Post

If you are familiar with the technology or educational sectors, you have undoubtedly heard that STEM, which is educational focus in science, tech, engineering and math, is being changed to STEAM, to include the arts. This is an initiative that is being accepted on an increasing scale by institutions, corporations, and education and tech professionals,and we here at Vidcode are totally on board.

STEAM learning is such a hot topic right now, and STEM/STEAM related careers are in such high demand that the Federal Government has just extended a provision allowing foreign students that are earning degrees in STEM fields a seven month visa extension, now allowing them to stay for up to three years of “on the job training.”

But why is STEAM so important to teach kids in school today?

The US Department of Education reports that the number of STEM/STEAM jobs in the United States will grow by 14% from 2010 to 2020, growth that the BLS terns as “much faster “ than the national average of 5-8 % across all job sectors.

Computer programming and IT jobs top the list of the the hardest to fill jobs, according to a recent study done by McKinsey. Despite this, the most popular college majors are not STEAM related.
“The number of graduates in the STEM fields is growing. Only .8% annually” according to the same Mckinsey study. So how can we get more kids involved in STEM, and create a strong and able workforce?

By teaching STEAM, of course.

The inclusion of the arts component into STEM makes it more fun to learn, and more approachable to kids. A child who has never seen code or computer science learning will be less intimidated and more engaged if it includes something they are familiar with, like an art component, whether that is learning it on an interface that uses a creative component to teach it, or whether they are learning computer science by actually creating something, like on our platform, Vidcode.

Children need to be engaged in learning, and learn in ways that can hold their attention, the way social media, and internet sites like Youtube do, The easiest way to do this is to make it fun and interesting. The inclusion of arts does this, for a wider range of children. Something like video art tied into code makes learning look more fun, where the student is solving a problem to create a project they love.

Art education allows students to learn things in a more open ended way and make them applicable to real life. Arts and creativity are crucial to the sciences, technology and computer science.They are the tool that allows technology to be usable in real life! Arts are used in website and user interfaces design, advertising, product design and usability, branding and start-up creation among countless other uses, all things that are crucial to STEM learning and careers.

So STEAM education is crucial to educate and prepare the next generation of the American, and global workforce, and to allow this generation to create jobs and grow the economy.

Follow us on Twitter! : www.twitter.com/vidcode

Happy International Women's Day!

We are loving all of the Woman’s Day Posts on social media today!
International Women’s day is a celebration of “ the social, economic, cultural and political  achievement of women,” according to the official website of the International Women's day campaign. 

All over instagram, twitter, facebook, and the internet, people worldwide are showing their support for this important day. 
 
We decided to celebrate this day by learning about some amazing women in tech!

First, is a woman that is a popular household name, model Karlie Kloss. Her side hobbies include learning to code,sponsoring a scholarship for girls to learn to code, and encouraging interest in coding among girls.

"Call me a nerd but I love coding, the language of computers. Understanding coding is a superpower. I met some tech entrepreneurs and they are billionaires through learning this stuff. I'm so competitive with myself and I am fascinated by the language of technology so I decided to be part of the conversation,” Kloss said in a December interview with British Vogue. 

Anyone who is using their celebrity status as a platform to support something we too at vidcode are insanely passionate about (after all, our product is built around it!), is a women’s day hero in our book.  

A name every women in tech should know is Grace Hopper, the original woman in code. A Naval Admiral, Hopper was the third person ever, and first woman, to program the first computers for the Navy,  called the Mark 1. Later, Hopper developed the first compiler for computer programming, which is a set of programs that transforms code into computer language, making it usable in program creation. 

She also popularized the idea of a common coding language for computers, which lead to one of the first advanced coding languages. There is a great documentary about her called “The Queen of Code.”

CyFi is a 15 year old female hacker that is disrupting the web security industry. When she was 10, CyFi hacked into an online farming game, manually altering the clock so her crops had more time to grow, pointing out a major security flaw in the games model. 

Shortly after, CyFi co-created r00tz Asylum, which is a “nonprofit dedicated to teaching kids around the world how to love being white-hat hackers. A white-hat hacker is someone who enjoys thinking of innovative new ways to make, break and use anything to create a better world.”

R00tz Asylum runs DEFCON KIDS, the junior version of DEFCON, a conference that is the largest and longest running hacking conference. It is attended by members of organizations that deal with governmental and private cybersecurity, as well as hackers. 

At DEFCON 20 in 2012, CyFi  was recognized by the head of the National Security Agency, Keith Alexander. 

“CyFi”  is a pseudonym to mask this hackers true identity. Sounds like a superhero to us. 

Who are your favorite women in tech?

Announcing the Winner of our Girls Code 4 Climate @EDU Award

Vidcode is excited to announce the winners of the Girls Code 4 Climate @EDU Award! Created in partnership with Millennium@EDU Sustainable Education as a contribution to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the contest invited students from around the globe to create, edit, and submit short videos about the Earth's climate.

So – without further ado – we'd like to congratulate the winners, Sudhiksha, Eilene, and Alyssa for their video “Less Paper = Less Climate Change.” In their video, which they coded and edited in the Vidcode app, they explain the simple things people can help do to help combat climate change every day.

Their efforts have earned a new tablet computer, a science lab, and a premium Vidcode account for their classroom. Congratulations, Sudhiksha, Eilene, and Alyssa! 

Congratulations are also in order for our runners-up, whose videos you can view in the Contest Gallery, for their outstanding work in the categories of Research, Concept, Creativity, and Composition. Each category winner won PRO Vidcode accounts, .

The Award is intended to empower students to talk about climate change through art and technology, learning both about the critical environmental issues facing our planet, and about the methods of communication and innovation that will one day help solve them. To participate in this contest, students chose a topic related to climate change, researched that topic and then recorded a short video sharing their research, bringing art, education, and technology together to help change the world. 

If you missed the Girls Code 4 Climate competition, fear not! We will be hosting a GirlsCode4Energy@EDU contest in the spring. Sign up below for updates, and we'll see you soon!

Vidcode Takes CES 2016 on the Diversity Spotlight Stage!

The first week of January tech took over Las Vegas as the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show came into town. The Vidcode team came to Vegas with the rest of the techies, as the Diversity Spotlight presentation at the Intel booth! 

Vidcode co-founders Allie and Melissa, experiencing a virtual reality roller coaster at CES 2016!

Laina, an eighth-grader and talented Vidcode user, ran the presentation. Laina is an artist, and loves painting, drawing and playing her cello. As a student in middle school, her favorite subjects are math and science.

She was so excited when she found Vidcode, a platform she could use to combine her artistic and technical interests. She used Vidcode to create a computer vision project, using code she wrote herself and a video she had filmed. 

Laina presented her beautiful computer vision project on stage alongside Vidcode co-founders Allie and Melissa. "I'm shocked that I learned a new skill through something I love, and it was exciting to see what goes on behind my favorite apps," said Laina after showing the crowd what she had made.

Watch the entire presentation below.

Life After Computer Science Education Week

Computer Science Education Week is officially over. And what an incredible week it was!

We teamed up with Girl Scouts of Greater New York to create the tools for Girl Scout troops and classrooms around the United States (and world!) to run their own CS Tech Jam and Hour of Code events, introducing thousands of students to computer science in the process.

Between December 7th and 13th, with the help of communities around the world, some amazing things happened, including

• Introducing over 3,500 students to Computer Science in 41 countries and 42 states.
• Providing tools to help organize over 300 in-person Tech Jams.
• Us receiving 686 requests for Hour of Code patches from Girl Scouts around the country.
• In NYC alone, 651 Girl Scouts participating in Tech Jams and Hour of Code with Vidcode and GSGNY.

But it's important to remember that all these students getting introduced to computer science and technology during CS Ed Week is so much more than just a list of numbers. All across the country, classrooms participating in Tech Jams have been sending us stories about their experience, and telling us why their events are special.

One school in New York told us, "Many of the girls in this troop of 4th and 5th graders have never coded before or thought about computer science as a future career option. This first exposure will hopefully get them interested in this field - and continue their love of learning about technology!"

Another classroom in Dallas Texas shared with us that, "This event will be special for my students and I because it will be, for many of us, our first time being exposed to coding/programming. As we learn the programs of Adobe CS6 this will be a great compliment to help us take graphic designing to a whole new level." In Northern California, "The Hamlin School is working with the girls and encouraging them to use code to 'build their dreams' at both the middle and lower school." Check out the interactive coding map and read all the stories on the Tech Jam home page.

One of the most exciting events of the week occurred when over 120 Girl Scouts gathered in the Girl Scouts of Greater New York offices in Lower Manhattan to learn the basics of computer Science. Older Girl Scouts helped girls as young as 5 code video greeting cards and program robots to do simple tasks, like picking up water bottles.

Girls of all ages learned and celebrated computer science through creativity and problem solving. There were two rooms, one full of computers for Hour of Code activities, and another for Unplugged Activities. These included girls 'programming' their friends to draw certain images, or do dance moves in a particular order.

After spending the day at the CS Tech Jam, Girl Scout Anyia Smith said "When I think of girls, I think of almost anything." Watch the NY1 News video to see the CS Tech Jam in action.

In the spirit of creative coding, all the Hour of Code and Tech Jam participants had a place to share their finished projects and code with each other.

That place is the Hall of Fame, where everyone who chose to make their projects public could publish their final video greeting cards for every other Tech Jam coder to see! All the projects are still live to check out (and to sneak a peek at the code that made them happen). 

So, Life After CS Ed Week

Wondering what to do next? Learning to code doesn't have to end when CS Ed Week does! We offer many free projects online, as well as 40+ hours of curriculum and lesson plans, all centered around creating video art with code.

Keep exploring! The CS Ed Week website has an entire section dedicated to learning beyond Hour of Code, with resources that include learning to code by building robots, creating websites, or drawing animals.

Happy coding!

Computer Science Education Week with Girl Scouts of Greater New York and Vidcode

Computer Science Education Week takes place this December 7th to the 13th. It's a week to build and learn with code - anyone can do it. Only 5% of schools nation-wide offer students the opportunity to take a rigorous CS course. CS Education Week is meant to provide a time for schools, teachers, and communities to set aside a small amount of time devoted to exposing students to a greater realm of CS opportunities.

For this year's Computer Science Education Week we've built a special Tech Jam and Hour of Code in partnership with the Girl Scouts of Greater New York. 

Our partnership is centered around a shared commitment to give teen girls leadership and STEM opportunities.

Take part in Computer Science Education Week by giving your students access to Hour of Code, or go beyond Hour of Code by running a Tech Jam with your community, Girl Scout troop, or classroom. There's no previous experience required, you can run an Hour of Code activity, or an entire Tech Jam, even if you've never coded before!

A Tech Jam is a model event for a community or school to celebrate computer science. The Tech Jam that Vidcode and Girl Scouts of Greater New York have created includes an Hour of Code, discussion questions, off the computer activities, and badges and certificates to win and share! It's free, and doesn't require signup OR prior experience.

By the end of the Tech Jam participants will have an understanding of the fundamentals of programming with JavaScript, and they'll have created a Bestie Video Greeting Card (like the one below) to share with their family and friends.

How to run a Tech Jam

Find information on running a successful Tech Jam in the Volunteer Guide, or print out the Participation Guide Booklet for you and the other volunteers.

You can mix and match Tech Jam steps to fit your needs, staff and schedule. For example, if you don’t have a volunteer or teacher to lead the event, the “Bestie Video Greeting Card” Hour of Code is a self-guided activity for students.

Other activities include Unplugged Activities to teach Computer Science Fundamentals without computers or even internet connection, volunteer led discussions before and after the Hour of Code, and a 'Hall of Fame' where participants can view their videos and code, and the projects of other participants! See a more detailed activity list and schedule.

To get started now, register your troop or class to get your event added to our events map. We'll also send you tips and resources as Computer Science Education Week gets closer!

How can you help 

You can help by spreading the word and getting your community involved! Tell teachers and Girl Scout Troop Leaders who might be interested in Hour of Code, or in running an entire Tech Jam!

Visit our Spread the Word page for resources to share your event. There are descriptions of the event, social media messages, graphics and banners for you to use to share to get your local community excited about Tech Jam, Hour of Code and Computer Science Education Week!

Get Ready for Computer Science Education Week

Computer Science Education Week starts December 7th and ends the 13th. Get students excited by telling them about the certificates, Hall of Fame award and Hour of Code patches they could receive!

Still have questions about running your Tech Jam event or using Vidcode? We'd love to hear from you! Contact us at [email protected]

We can't wait to see what you and your students create!

Empowering Students to Talk About Climate Through Art and Technology

Vidcode is excited to announce the Girls Code 4 Climate @EDU Contest created along with Millennium@EDU Sustainable Education, as a Contribution to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The contest encourages students to use the skills (or as we call them, superpowers) they learn in computer science, art and media classes in new ways. 

To participate in this contest, students choose a topic related to climate, research that topic and then record a video sharing their research. Topics include:

1. Climate changes and its effects
2. Public responses to climate change
3. How climate changes impact your everyday life
4. What actions participants can take to make a difference

Once they've recorded their video, students add effects and graphics with JavaScript. They can use the graphics that Vidcode provides in creative and relevant ways, or they can create and upload their own. One student, Anna, created and coded a video using a yellow lawn in the background as an example of the drought she refers to and added graphics and effects in the scene to emphasize the lack of water.

We created a guide to help participants get started choosing and researching topics. It includes more information on the topics they can choose from, important climate terms and examples of how other artists are responding to climate change in their work.

Empowering students to show their point of view through art and technology is powerful. Art is a way to connect people with ideas that they would otherwise not be exposed to and gives artists a voice to say something they might not otherwise have been able to say. Alongside art, technology offers new media to create artworks, like creative coding, and new channels for messages to spread and be shared.

And this is important, historically art and technology combined have made a real impact. For example, Judy Collins took recordings of humpback whale songs and included them in her 1970 album Whales and Nightingales, which exposed millions of people to the beautiful and complex songs that whales use to communicate. These whale songs inspired the 'Save the Whales' movement, and in 1982, hunting whales became banned internationally.

We hope that this contest is a starting point for students to have conversations, and to research and create their own projects about climate and climate change, even after the contest ends. The top 5 winners of the contest will get full access to the Vidcode platform, offering them more tools to create projects with code and videos. And the overall winner will receive, in addition to full Vidcode access, a computer device designed for education and a science lab complete with sensors and software, so they can continue their research of the world around them.

Learn more about the contest and submit your own video, or use our Teacher Guide to bring coding, art and science into your classroom. The contest runs until November 15, 2015.

Creating Art in the Virtual (Reality) World

This year, Vidcode went to the Intel Developer Forum and had a blast seeing all the amazing things that makers and artists were creating with new technology!

Of course we also made sure to check out all the new technology we could, and were so excited when we stumbled on virtual reality that let us draw all around us, creating beautiful glowing art out of nothing in an empty virtual room.

Source: www.tiltbrush.com

We were using the HTC Vive headset, which comes with controllers and sensors that let you move around freely in virtual space, and draw anything you want around and above you. One of the Vidcoders wrote her name all around her, another drew a room full of rainbows and falling leaves. 

The Future of Storytelling created a video showing Glen Keane, the former Disney animator behind 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Aladdin', using this same virtual reality technology to make his 2-dimensional characters come to life around him.

“When I animate there’s a frustration I have, wishing that the flatness of the paper would go away and that I could actually dive in,” says Keane. “Today all the rules have changed. By putting tools in your hand that can create in virtual reality, I can put goggles on and I just step into the paper, and now I’m drawing in it.”

In the video below, produced by The Future of Story Telling, Keane tries out this new way to create art and tell stories through technology — and what he creates is out of this world.

Getting Started with Vidcode for Educators (without a Computer Science background)

Starting a "learn to code" class or after school program can be overwhelming, especially if you don't have a computer science background.

But with the right tools and support, you can keep your students engaged and excited about making with code.

Starting off a coding club with Vidcode introduces JavaScript in a familiar way. Students already used to editing photos and videos see that code relates to something they're already familiar with. 

Students learn more advanced concepts as they make more complicated projects, learning about arrays, functions and if-else statements.

Don't worry! As you get into these more advanced lessons and concepts, there's additional curriculum, lessons, off-the-computer activities, worksheets and presentations that go along with the lessons Vidcode has available online. 

Vidcode provides advanced computer science curriculum, teacher training and technical support to help get your club or class set up and running smoothly.

Vidcode also helps make coding a fun and social experience, students can share their code and videos with their class and see what all their classmates are working on. Each class and coding club is part of its own Vidcode group and gallery, where students can show off projects they're working on and share things they've learned with the rest of the group.

Are you thinking about starting an after-school coding club, but aren't sure where to start? Check out our Vidcode classroom roadmap! And learn more about the classroom support and curriculum Vidcode offers on our groups page or get started now at app.vidcode.io!

What the Vidcode staff is up to: ITP Camp

Sometimes we'll be writing updates about what the people behind Vidcode are doing outside of work!

During June Leandra, the Vidcode designer, spent the month learning, tinkering and building at ITP Camp. Read about her experience, and what she's bringing back to Vidcode from what she learned.

ITP Camp was an absolutely incredible experience. I attended workshops on creating audio visualizations with P5, user testing, creating bowls out of mycelia and making hanging plants, and ran sessions on using sketch and animating svgs with css!

Taken at the end of the 'Using Sketch' workshop, when everyone illustrated blue unicorn logos! I was frowning to match the unicorn.

Camp was a playground, with so many toys that I didn't even get to half of them. I spent a lot of my time playing with the laser cutter, I was absolutely blown away seeing things I made in Photoshop and Illustrator enter the physical world.

What I was able to bring back to my work at Vidcode from the experience, was an understanding of the world of creative coding and the communities around creative coding that exist. Processing has been around since 2001! I had been working with Vidcode with the goal of getting people excited about learning to code through creative projects, but I definitely didn't understand the amazing ecosystem that that work is a part of. 

One of many Processing sketches I made while at camp

I'm already working on creating new Vidcode lessons around the creative coding technologies I was exposed to during my month of camp, be on the lookout for new lessons in the fall!

We Spent a Week With Hoboken Vidcoders!

Vidcode spent the week of June 15-18 at Stevens Coop School. Sixteen students spent four days learning the fundamentals of coding with JavaScript, and making some amazing videos!

Elise, our amazing instructor, spent the first day going over the elements of JavaScript, as students used them hands-on in the Vidcode editor.

They used objects, properties and numbers to add effects to their videos, and strings to change the color of the videos they'd shot.

They learned about and created variables to hold their number and string values!

They worked with some very original variable names.

The next day, the class moved onto learning about how to create and manipulate arrays.

They used this knowledge to put photos they took into arrays, and iterated through them to create stop motions videos. 

Once they learned how to create simple stop motion videos, they went out with clay and paper to create more elaborate videos, including this one below titled 'The Big Blob Attack'. Check out the code that was used to put it together!

Later in the week, students moved on to some more advanced lessons, and used functions and variables to make their videos change over time. Sam used these coding skills to make a video of a plane look like an old movie!

The last day was spent on everyone's final projects, and getting ready for final presentations! Students spent the day making new stop motions, music videos, and other creative projects, and then adding their final effects in Vidcode using everything they had learned about JavaScript that week.

Final presentations were great! Students showed off their final videos, and talked about the coding concepts that they had used in their final edits.

You can see all the videos the students made this week in our gallery!

Interested in having your own Vidcode workshop in your summer camp or school? Find out more about our group programs!

Maker Faire Vidcode Station (and a Blue Ribbon!)

We spent the weekend of May 15 to 17 in San Mateo at the Bay Area Maker Faire! We set up a stop motion station and a Vidcode coding station, and we're so excited about all the vidcodes that people of all ages came up and made! They're all on display in our Maker Gallery.

Like this vidcode, by our awesome volunteer Cynthia!

Or this adorable dragon by Morgan!

And (our absolute favorite!) this Vidcode heart by Lilaine

We are also SUPER excited to announce that we received a blue ribbon! We had so much fun meeting everyone at the Maker Faire, and can't wait for the next one.

Don't forget to check out all the awesome vidcodes created over the weekend!

Mapping the sneakernet

"Mapping the sneakernet" is an article by AN XIAO MINA for The New Inquiry

There are 4.3 billion people who are said to be unconnected to the internet.  What type of communities are popping up sharing connections with family members and communities at large?  'Shared access', sharing devices and telecom accounts, is common in places like rural Lazon in the Philippines where one community member will have a facebook account and the community shares it for updates/ discussions.

Read more here

Female CEO Profile: Kristin Muhlner

We love hearing advice from amazing female CEOs.  Girls, go out and study code, business, or engineering, because in the end you will get to work on great teams and lead great people.  We need you!  

Technical fields don't leave you stuck behind a computer or a pile of spreadsheets.  It can be your access to changing the world! 

NYTimes Profile

BETAGirls

BETAGirls came to our office this week!  We had a blast coding with them and building stop motion animation projects on Vidcode.  We were blown away by the amount of talent, intelligence, and ambition that was in that room thanks to the girls!  

They are gearing up for the technovation challenge where they will be building a business plan and an app.  

They are already so ahead of the game!  Can't wait to see what they bring to the world.

NYTM Footage

Last Tuesday Melissa and I presented at the NY Tech Meetup.  We had a blast meeting the other tech companies and community at large.  Check out the livestream footage below, our presentation is towards the end at 1:13:00.

NYTM livestream