Mini Maker Faire Chicago North Side

Mini Maker Faire Chicago Northside, even bigger and radder than ever before!

The Call for Makers is OPEN!

The event will be held on Saturday, May 2nd, at Schurz High School, and we want you and and your friends to SHOW YOUR STUFF. Please forward this along to anyone who has something interesting to share. It is FREE to participate as a maker, and the earlier you submit, the more likely you will be chosen for a Maker feature.

DEADLINE to Apply: April 6th (I know, not a lot of time…let me know if you need more time for thought)

To summarize Maker Faire briefly, it is the world’s largest Do-It-Yourself festival, celebrating the inventions, technologies, arts, crafts, literature, science, hobbies, and ideas of anyone who likes to create. Chicago Northside Maker Fairefocuses on inspiring students to work with their hands and show others to do the same. We welcome especially hands-on experiences, workshops, learning and teaching of any form, and young makers!

Here are the ways you can participate:

1) If you or some you know have a cool project to share, please SUBMIT A PROPOSAL.

Proposals are due by April 6th.2) Volunteer for Mini Maker Faire Chicago NorthsideHERE. We need help signing in guests at the door, handing out goodies to those who donate, helping makers setup, and directing traffic. All volunteers get free lunch and free hugs!

3) If you are interested in attending the fourth annual Mini Maker Faire Chicago Northside, please reserve your FREE tickets today.(Donations are welcome through Eventbrite and at the door if you wish to help support those who are unable to pay, and keep this a free event.)
Saturday, May 2nd, 2014
10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Carl Schurz High School
3601 N. Milwaukee Ave.

4) Any individuals or companies who wish to ChicagoNorthsideMF for more information.

Follow us on Facebook and @CNSmakerfaire and spread the word! Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope to see you all there!

Cheers,
Christina Pei & The CNS Maker Team
—
http://makerfairechicagonorthside.com

IIT NxtGen Tech Summer Courses

The NxtGen Summer Tech Program, offered by the School of Applied Technology at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), is for high school students who are interested in learning more about Information Technology (IT), computing and next generation technologies.

NxtGen courses offer a glimpse of the future of the internet, computing, programming, networking, and the next wave of emerging technologies. Courses are hands-on and involve interactive projects with support from IIT faculty, staff and select students.

These are fee-based courses.

More info at http://appliedtech.iit.edu/nxtgen

Robots4Us Student Challenge

The Maker Mom just posted a new contest that DARPA is running.

"Open to students in grade 9-12 (high school or homeschool), the contest merely requires students to create a video about how robots can make a difference for our society in the future. The video should be 2-3 minutes long and highlight the benefits of a robot-assisted society. How might robots help families? Schools? Communities? And because it’s DARPA, they also want to know how these future robots will affect national security. {Gah! Flashback to the Tom Cruise bathtub scene in Minority Report* with the spider bots crawling to the building to find him after his eyeball transplant.}

Students may enter in teams of up to 3, but only one gets to attend the award event. Entries will be judged on clarity and creativity of vision, as well as the technical quality of the video.

Five winners and their parents or guardians will receive trips the to DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals this summer, June 5-6, in Los Angeles. On June 7, the winning students will participate in a special event.

Read the full details here. And hurry! The deadline is April 1, 2015."

http://www.themakermom.com/2015/03/robots4us-student-challenge.html

Daniel LawTeacher of Awesome Things
FIRST Robotics Coach (FLL, FTC, and FRC)
Computer Science Department Chair
Lane Tech High School
drlaw

Jump in and fail constantly.

Splash : UIUC CS Event, April 11th

On Saturday, April 11th, UIUC is inviting all high school students to UIUC for a FREE undergrad-led outreach event: CS @ ILLINOIS Splash! Any student interested in computer science, math, or science is welcome. The students will spend the day taking fun courses taught by undergrads, creating a custom schedule based on their interests. The program includes all three meals on Saturday for free. We hope they will enjoy a day of creativity on-campus while meeting other high school students and college undergrads! Splash will offer a wide selection of classes with topics in and out of computer science. Some courses our instructors are planning to teach:

• Robots: Our Future Overlords
• UIUC 101: How to Succeed at UIUC! (or any college)
• Secret Codes, Magic Tricks, And Coloring Books
• Landing a Job your Freshman Year
• Hacking Ninja 101
• Quizditch: Harry Potter Trivia
• E-sports Are The New Sports: League Of Legends Analysis
• What the Heck is Machine Learning?
• Awesome Animations in Swift

…and a whole bunch more! We would like your help in inviting students to Illinois for Splash. Interested students should submit their emails at https://splash.cs.illinois.edu by Tuesday, March 24th to ensure availability. We will reach out to them within two weeks with more information! Splash is entirely free, though students will need to provide their own transit to UIUC. We plan to do our best to facilitate carpooling where possible. Questions? Course ideas? Let us know at cs-splash@illinois.edu. We look forward to meeting your students at Splash! Thanks! –The Splash Team

iD Tech and Code.org Give 100 Girls Scholarships to Attend Summer STEM Program

iD Tech knows that the world needs more girls in STEM. This year, iD Tech is partnering with Code.org, a non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science, to send 100 girls to iD Tech Camps for free! At this weeklong summer program, ages 7-17 create mobile apps, design video games, mod with Minecraft, build robots, code with C++ and Java, produce movies, and more. Programs are held in 30 states nationwide. Girls can apply for a scholarship at www.iDTech.com/girls throughApril 1st. To learn more about Code.org, please visit http://code.org/.

Questions? Contact:
Karen Thurm Safran
kthurmsafran
408.666.8353

Chicago Robocode Competition 2015

Saturday, May 23, 2015 from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Chicago, IL

Music, Food, and Drinks will be provided

Rules:

1. Use Robocode Version 1.9.2.4
2. Settings will remain default
3. Robot is allowed to extend AdvancedRobot
4. Code size is not limited so make the greatest robot you can
5. Robot java files will be sent to bryanroque31 for review before the event (I will send a reminder before the event)
6. Any robot that uses plagiarized code will be immediately disqualified
7. Good Luck and Have Fun!

The Competition:

There will be a one on one bracket, and a losers bracket.

Rounds will be set to 1 round. Winner of the round will be determined by the Robocode scoring system.

Winner recieves 1 point for the round, Loser recieves 0 points.

First to 3 points wins the battle and continues the bracket. The loser of the battle moves to the losers bracket.
(number of points to win a battle may change depending on number of competitors)

This continues until each bracket is finished.

The Finals:

Winner of the original bracket fights the winner of the losers bracket to determine 1st and 2nd place. It will be a 5 point battle.

Loser of the original bracket fights the loser of the losers bracket to determine 3rd and 4th place. It will be a 5 point battle.
(number of points for final battles may change depending on number of competitors)

5th through 8th place will be determined by placing all remaning robots in a 10 round melee.
The Robocode scoring system will decide who gets what place.
(number of rounds for melee may change)

Register at http://goo.gl/7ZYDcc

Have questions about Chicago Robocode Competition 2015? Contact the organizer

[robocode, prizes, programming competitions, programming]

Splash: University of Illinois

There is an excellent upcoming opportunity that may be of interest to you. The University of Illinois is hosting an event on April 11, 2015 called Splash during which students at the University of Illinois will teach attendees about multiple aspects of Computer Science including website creation and video game creation. There is no fee for attending and breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided. You can visit this site for more information on this event: https://splash.cs.illinois.edu/

Women in Engineering Summer Program

UIC is launching the Women in Engineering Summer Program for high school students this summer 2015. It is open to all high schools, public and private, but we are targeting a specific group of students. The program is designed for rising juniors and seniors with a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or higher with grades of As and Bs in math and science courses. The goal of the program is to give students an opportunity to learn more about the different fields of engineering through hands on projects and field trips; and that ultimately they will consider studying engineering at UIC. For further details, you check out the webpage here: wiesp.engr.uic.edu. You can also check out the attached flyer for more information.

WIESP 2015 Flyer.pdf