The Stevensville Coding for Kids program is attracting grade school students at a brisk pace. It is an afterschool and summer program for kids ranging from 2nd to 8th grade that aims to introduce them to computer science and computer art, among other things. The program was initiated last year by the Stevensville Community Center Complex, a local non-profit organization, and is being administered by Loey Knapp and Greg Trangmoe.
Trangmoe is teaching an afterschool class this spring in which 5-, 6- and 7-year-old students will actually build a Piper computer and learn basic programming skills.
A series of classes, called “Camps,” is scheduled this summer with a class similar to Trangmoe’s, called the Code-a-Camp. The week-long camp will be taught by Jordan Hasquet, who teaches advanced placement computer science in the Stevensville High School. According to Hasquet, the camp introduces computer science concepts within a fun framework. The students will build a simple Piper computer and learn basic programming and associated logic through a Minecraft interface. They will begin by working with preprogrammed games but by the end of the week they will have designed and programmed their own game for parents and friends to play. The camp is geared to accommodate 3rd grade and up with no experience and 2nd graders if they have some experience.
At another week-long camp, kids will create their own Robo Hero and build a Lego Robot with the help of Nick Shontz, who retired from being the webmaster at the University of Montana to run his own company, Geo Fli.
In a more advanced robotics class taught by Hasquet, teams of students 5th grade and up with some background in programming, can compete to design, build, and program a more complex robot.
An art camp is scheduled, called Unleash Your Smart Powers. This camp is also being offered by Kiana Fecteau, who has been an artist since 1997 painting mostly in watercolor and acrylic. She teaches watercolor classes in the Adult Education program and is a signature member of the Montana Watercolor Society. Along with traditional methods of painting, she also uses Photoshop Elements and Corel Painter, a digital painting program. In this art class students will learn to draw and paint on a computer using the Chrome equivalent of Photoshop and Illustrator. The class will be taught with the goal of designing posters for the Stevensville Scarecrow Festival.
In a final camp, taught by Shontz, student teams will use versatile Arduino components to build electronic devices of their own design or ones suggested by the teacher.
“The sky is the limit in this class,” said Shontz. This class is for 8th graders and up.
According to Knapp, the whole program was initiated last summer with a grant from the Heman Foundation which funded all of the equipment and general start-up expenses.
“The tuition covers most of the teacher’s salaries but we needed to buy Chromebooks, Piper computer kits, and so on,” said Knapp. She said the Stevensville Community Foundation and many other local donors have stepped up so no child has been excluded due to lack of funds.
“The program has been very successful,” said Knapp. She said that seventy students have taken the classes since last summer and five of them have attended two camps.
To get the camp schedule or to get more information about the classes, contact Loey Knapp at 406-529-9715 or email loeyk@yahoo.com.