STEM Uganda – Page 2 – Oysters and Pearls

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

A Ticket to Uganda

A quiet night spent by the Nile River

I can remember my first conversation with Sandra Washburn of Oysters & Pearls…it was like it was yesterday. I was spending time in my hometown, Boston, teaching some workshops at the Artisan’s Asylum. Pacing my hotel room on a dreary, rain filled day I spent about an hour giving Sandra information about what I felt were the best ways to educate a population about technology. I had my hands full working with SparkFun Electronics to help achieve this goal in the United States, where we partnered with people like the Artisan’s Asylum, M.I.T., various library systems, IT-oLogy, thousands of schools, camps, organizations and other well intentioned people. Teaching Introduction to Electronics and Soldering in Uganda

Sandra was talking about doing the same thing in Uganda, but with much less existing or supportive infrastructure, and for a population that sometimes has never even seen a computer before. I gave her as much information as I could and promised to connect her to a man I

Thanks to Hockaday for Introducing Us to EiE

We are so proud of our Engineering is Elementary program and the difference and influence it has made on our young students. I came to find out about this fantastic program from Amy Banks, a science teacher at the Hockaday School in Dallas, Texas.

The Hockaday School now has a post on their website recounting our initial discussion and how they were instrumental in introducing this wonderful program to Oysters & Pearls and sending us and our students on a great road of discovery and priceless learning. Here is a bit of what they have to say:

On October 12, 2012 Lower School science teacher Amy Banks met with Jennifer Nantale, Country Director or Nyaka Aids Orphans Project in Southwest Uganda and Sandra Washburn, Executive Director of Oysters & Pearls. Ms. Banks shared the Engineering is Elementary program and discussed how it is used with students in grades 1-4 at Hockaday. Ms. Banks encouraged her visitors to contact EiE at the Museum of Science in Boston to learn more about the program and how to apply it to their own organizations. Ms. Washburn took this advice, and met with EiE, who arranged to send two volunteers to Northern Uganda to train six teachers at the Gulu