Deploying the Seth Bonder Camp in Minority High Schools
2020 DEI Ambassador Pascal Van Hentenryck
The Seth Bonder Summer Camp in Computational and Data Science for Engineering is intended for high school students interested in engineering who have no or minimal background in data science and computer programming. The camp only requires that participants are able to use a browser and have the desire to learn computational and data science through meaningful and exciting applications, in machine learning, optimization, computational social science, and genomics.
The 2019 edition of the Seth Bonder camp was held at Georgia Tech on July 22-26. See the introductory video. Check also this article on the 2019 Camp.
The camp uses Snap!, a visual programming language that is easy to learn. Key concepts underlying computational thinking and data science are introduced in the context of relevant applications. The camp will combine lectures with significant lab time, during which students will develop compelling Snap! programs.
The camp is supervised by Pascal Van Hentenryck and an army of amazing graduate and undergraduate students in computer science and industrial and systems engineering. They share a passion for teaching, technology, and the applications of technology for societal benefits. The camp is partly supported by a generous gift from the Seth Bonder Foundation. It is based on a course Pascal designed and taught at the Australian National University in the beautiful country of Australia in 2015. The course was intended for college students with no background in computer science.