It may not have been easy as pie to start, but the after more than a year of planning, the Easy as Pi Club, a new after-school computer science club, is finally a reality.
The club, the product of a partnership between Georgia Tech’s Center of Advanced Communication Policy and Grady, aims to spark an interest in computer programming and computer science. Headed by mathematics teacher sponsor Vicki Vinson, the club has attracted 10 regular participants and appears to be on its way to joining the long list of established after-school activities offered at Grady.
Senior Robert Brown played a key role in the creation of the club. When Brown was hired by CACP last summer,his first job was to gain a basic understanding of micro-controllers (functional computers the size of microchip).
“My supervisor gave me a starter kit and some wires and let me loose,” Brown said. “I [started] working on these projects with these micro-controllers and it was a lot of fun. I was learning and making things happen in way I had never experienced before.”
Easy as Pi uses microcontrollers, which are essentially tiny computers, such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino to develop interactive objects such as your own web browser or give a monitor touch screen capabilities. Microcontrollers have the same processing capabilities as desktop computers, including spreadsheets, word-processing and games.
Since the start of Easy as Pi in early September, the club has have met every Tuesday after school and has been designing, researching and sketching ideas for projects that can be brought to life with these microcontrollers.
“People are busy and so schedules are hard to work around,” Brown said. “We still have solid group of people who come and meet. We have been splitting into groups and coming up with ideas for our projects and researching how to make those ideas [a reality].”
Kenneth Bernard, the network support engineer for CACP as well as Easy as Pi’s club facilitator, has high goals for the club. His primary objective is to teach kids more about science, technology, engineering and math so that students become more interested in the subjects. For Grady, however, Bernard has more in mind.
“My hope is that Easy as Pi continues to be strong next year and that more people join,” Bernard said. “A foundation will be built as more of the kids learn these skills and the ultimate goal is for these skills to be taught in the Engineering pathway as class curriculum.”
Brown echoes these sentiments.
“This could be a huge benefit to a pathway I think is lacking,” Brown said. “I just want kids to be taught how to code and program Before I started working with these microcontrollers I had no idea how interested I’d be in wiring and circuitry and Easy as Pi really opened that up to me. If I could get one other kid to find that love, I’d be really happy.”
To become involved with Easy as Pi come to Ms. Vinson’s room (C301) after school on Tuesdays.
