Holiday Training – Oysters and Pearls

Teaching Video Game Design in Northern Uganda – A Give and Take
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Teaching Video Game Design in Northern Uganda – A Give and Take

I was invited to teach Video Game Design (VGD) at the Oysters & Pearls-Uganda Tech Camp 2016 along with Professor Carl Twarog from East Carolina University in North Carolina and his 4th year student, Candice Fonville. The three of us made a great team. Sandra had seen a notice on Twitter of my class in Unity in late 2015 at Outbox in Kampala and contacted me. In the first week, we introduced the students to Unity Engine and how to make a basic 3D game with an environment, a 3D character, token collection and score. In the second week, we introduced 2D games, and showed the students the differences and similarities in making 2D, and 3D games. READ MORE...

Uganda – Holiday Robotics Training Sept 2016
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Uganda – Holiday Robotics Training Sept 2016

Above are the photos from the Holiday Robotics Training held in September 2016. Below is Ntananga Phyllis blog post (from Tech Women Uganda) describing the training.

In early September 2016, I got another opportunity to mentor a group of young people from Gulu in Mobile application development during the Holiday Robotics Training organized by Oysters & Pearls – Uganda at their Gulu town premises. Running for two weeks, this training covered areas like Video Game Design, Robotics and Electronics, Minecraft and Mobile Applications Development. Unlike the January camp, this training was not residential and participants attended from Monday to Saturday between 8AM to 5PM.

A day before the official start of the training, mentors made preparations and arranged the different equipment to be used. It had been 7 months since I was last in Gulu and I couldn’t help but notice in awe the progress Oysters and Pearls had made in regards to their Maker Space – all thanks to Sandra Washburn for her love, dedication and motivation in equipping tech-savvy young people with technological skills to aid them become the change makers this nation needs.

The Maker Space is perfectly set up with all the requirements that anyone with a dream of changing the world

Open Hardware, Software & Minds

By Linday Craig, Consultant, Educator, Technologist and Artist: questbotics.com

The people who attended the 2016 Annual Gulu Technology Camp found a doorway to future that they had never seen before — who knows where it will lead them?

Imagine a camp for 10 to 18 year-olds that combines robotics, microcomputers, pcDuino, video game design with Unity, self-defense training with an international kickboxer, Samsung’s virtual reality gear, Android app design, musical performances, quadcopters, and Legos. Now imagine this camp took place in previously civil-war-torn northern Uganda.

Just to make things interesting, throw in a small documentary crew and a large group of technically savvy instructors who wandered the grounds amongst the energetic students. Finally, add to all of this the fact that almost half of the camp’s 100+ students were blind. Even if you have an extremely active imagination and you can wrap your head around these foundational facts, I can guarantee that you can’t imagine the amount of sheer joy, inquisitiveness, and boisterous energy that inhabited Gulu High School in the form of children during the 2016 Oysters & Pearl’s Annual Technology Camp.
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

Robotics Camp by Oysters & Pearls – Uganda

(this is a reprint from Ntananga Phyllis’s article from her blog: Tech Women Uganda.)

On a very hot Thursday in the first week of January 2016, I hopped on a bus headed for Gulu. I was super excited. It was my first time to go to the North. Naturally, I had all the imaginations anyone could have about an entirely new place. The journey was long but to my surprise I was awake the whole time, thanks to the fear of missing out on the adventure. I saw different things like rare fruits that we barely have in the Central or Western region of the country and the sight of the Karuma Bridge, one of the many beautiful things of nature with which God blessed Uganda. Before sunset, we were in Gulu town for the Robotics Camp.

That evening, the trainers that had arrived for the camp all gathered to be taken through the materials and resources that were going to be used for the next two weeks in the camp. As a software developer without much knowledge in hardware/embedded systems, most of the terms and materials were so new to me – stuff like

2016 Robotics and Animation Training

The curriculum for 2016 includes pcDuino, Raspberry Pi, Android Apps, and Animation using several open source software programs. We’ll be using laptops, Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 smartphones as well.

The program is open to beginners and advanced users. Several vendors have supported the program through donations and discounts. The teachers include Professor Carl Twarog and one of his students from East Carolina University, Linz Craig and 18 experienced programmers and teachers from within Uganda.

The program runs from Sunday Jan 10 until Saturday Jan 23.

Read the post from Lindsay Craig. You will read about half-way down in this article about his involvement with Oysters and Pearls! Thank, Linz!

Holiday Training – January 2015

I arrived in Gulu on a Saturday afternoon, not sure what to expect from the next two weeks. As a volunteer with the Oysters & Pearls holiday training program, I knew about the class materials and basic program setup. As I quickly learned however, there was much more to the program than just the teaching.

Joining Sandra and the instructors, I spent the weekend assisting with logistics — the little details that I had never considered, but had to be completed. Where were all the plates for the dining hall? Could we borrow mattresses for students that didn’t bring their own? Why was the electricity off in the classrooms? These and a hundred other small-but-crucial tasks had to be settled, even as students started arriving on Sunday afternoon.

Classes began immediately on Monday, and continued through the week. Sighted students were sorted into one of three classes — Engineering for the Future, Introduction to Robotics, or Advanced Robotics. As the classes delved into new materials and lessons, I watched the projects grow increasingly complex. Since I constantly moved from room to room, I saw the classes develop in snapshots. What started on day one as a collection of wires and boards became a functioning light display, then a

Engineering Camp at Gulu

It was great to be back in Gulu for my third time at the Oysters & Pearls holiday training. This was the first year we had an engineering camp designed just for girls! Eighteen girls attended the training, sixteen from secondary school and two from primary school level. In the beginning everyone was very quiet but they warmed up quickly by the end of the first day.

The first week the girls designed and created water filters. It was exciting and inspiring to watch their experimenting. Their engineering challenge was to:

Design a water cleaning process to provide clean drinking water to the girls’ dormitory.

The sample water we provided them was particularly unpleasant. We used tea leaves, mud, dirt, flowers and other various plant life, and some insects to create a nasty brew of “dirty water” that they had to clean. Their process had to include filtration and purification, and the success of their designs was evaluated based on budget, cleaning time, and quality of the water after cleaning. At the end of the week, a panel of nine teachers examined samples of the water after each team of students had cleaned it. The panel (including me) smelled the water, observed its appearance, shook it to see

Fine Arts Training April 2014

I’d like to share some photos I just received of the Fine Arts Training. This session was taught by Brianna Schuyler and Odoch Daniel to the blind students. Brianna related that some of the students didn’t know what to do when they began, but they eventually started playing with the wiki sticks and made some great stuff. I agree!
fine-art-class-1
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Holiday Training – August 2013

Literature Lesson This break is the most important one of the year for academics because the O-Level (Secondary Four) and A-Level (Secondary Six) candidates will take their National Exams just a few shorts weeks after returning in mid-September. We have limited the Holiday Training to those candidates and the two forms below them.

Many, but not all, of our students have the Booksense player which enables them to listen to the day’s lessons or books that have been scanned during their off hours. Others will read their Braille notes, which have been typed over the past few years, bound and carefully guarded. Achieving a Division I or II result is extremely important for these students to reach their dream of attending college. Their aspirations range from lawyer to journalist to teacher and other careers.

Even with their parents help, to afford the travel and living expenses associated with university level, some scholarship will be needed. Achieving at least three scores at the top level will assure a spot and some scholarship funding.

$Math Lesson$ We are particularly proud of our brave A-Level candidates who have chosen to sit for the Sub-Computer Mandatory Test from which they are exempt. These three are path-breakers for all

Holiday Training – Ropes Course

Blind Annex Students at The Recreation Project, pass a Hula Hoop without unclasping hands.

During an unscheduled holiday, several Blind Annex students returned to Gulu High School for math and computer training. One morning, students visited The Recreation Project and loved the challenges of the Ropes Course. Here, they are passing a Hula Hoop around the circle while keeping their hands clasped. Ben, the leader is timing the passing, so everyone is focused on cooperating to pass it swiftly.

Passing the hulu hoop without breaking hand-holds