We had 150 students show up to the Legends of Learning Zoom. They kids were so excited and inspired. The number of questions that they asked was outrageous.
Students with Royal O'Brien, Game TECH Chief Evangelist Royal O'Brien is a software and hardware engineering veteran with more than 30 years of experience in the corporate enterprise and video game industries, having founded multiple companies from software development to service solutions. He has multiple patents in both video, telephony & digital distribution technologies. He has invented and holds multiple issued patents in the video, VOIP, game, and digital distribution technology industries. Royal has been at Amazon for a little over 3 years where he is responsible for Evangelism for all Amazon technologies related to the video game industry. I Provide Game Tech leadership and alignment of roadmap, release timing, and coordination of content across AWS, Twitch, Alexa, GameSparks, GameLift, and Lumberyard. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/obwando/ Students were able to speak to Josh Rodriquez, Software Engineer at Microsoft.
A passionate and innovative software engineer with a degree in Computer Science from North Carolina State University. Two years of industry work experience at multiple companies in the fields of data analytics, software engineering, and artificial intelligence. Highly involved in student organizations and outreach programs. Effective communicator demonstrated through working as an Engineering Ambassador for the university. Enthusiastic individual excited to contribute and catalyze companies at the forefront of new technologies. The students were able to learn how to code music from Oliver Zhang, Software Engineer, PFX SMRT Security Platform through the Nuevo Foundation.
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Evidence of clubs, groups, learning tasks, etc. that promote awareness and provide access to STEM professionals often underrepresented in STEM fields.
Due to Covid, the number of club and group activities are limited. Before Covid, we had field trips to the Mercedez-Benz to learn the science and stem behind the building as well as a lesson. Students would attend Chattahoochee TECH for a day during the Atlanta Science Festival. Students were also able to go to Lockheed Martin to watch and attend the high school coding competition - Code Quest. They were also able to learn more about code and they were able to tour the facility to see how they build planes. Students were also able to talk to a scientist through Ms. Byrom's science class. Students have opportunity to participate in: Robotics teams; Science Olympiad; Recycling Clubs, Gardening Clubs; Tech Team; Mathletes; Science & Engineering Fair; STEM Club; Regional Technology Competition; or other locally developed clubs, teams & competitions (These are options, not a required list of clubs/extracurricular activities). Every year for the past three years without fail, the students have participated in the Cobb Regional Technology Competition as well as the Games for Change Gaming Competition. We have spent class time learning and working to present in these competitions which this year is virtual. This year, Games for Change has added a writing portion to the competition where the students are able to review one of their favorite video games as well as write a narrative of a game that they would like to make. Barber did have a robotics team for a year, and we have not been able to start up again due to Covid. Heather Bell and her classes are not working on working in the BMS garden. New this year, students will be participating in the Legends of Learning Gaming Competitions. This year, we have twelve girls that will participate in Girls Who Game. We are preparing to introduce a Middle School Pilot of BMS Computer Science Honor Society. Also around 11 students are participating the the Cobb Student Leadership Academy. Partners participate in learning in person or virtually through career fairs, interviews, sponsors, judges, mentoring, and students share evidence of learning from STEM PBLs in other ways. Learners have multiple formal, age-appropriate opportunities to engage with STEM practitioners, community experts and/or other STEM partners to help them connect new learning with real-world examples and workforce readiness. Games for Change has a mentor that will be working with us during the competition and she is Mentor, Suzanne Rajkumar, CEO of CBC Codebreaker. Girls Who Game will also supply us with a mentor, but that is TBA. Students were able to Skype with a Scientist to talk about genetics unit and how DNA of zebra fish is closely related to human DNA. That is why some testing for humans is done on zebra fish.
Students were able to talk to the students about game development with Mr. Shane Owens Director of Innovation and Research at a game developing company called Thrust Interactive.
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