In an effort to promote the information technology field, the Computer Science club hosted an information and activity session at Kilmer Middle School on Feb. 11.
A club that focuses on exposure to the IT field and implementing cheap technology solutions, the Computer Science club was started three years ago by senior Sherif Sarhan in an effort to “create a community for students to have a place where they can learn more about computers,” Sarhan said.
The Kilmer meeting involved running through a brief curriculum of computer science topics, and was the culmination of a central goal of the club, according to Sarhan.
“Our main goal is not only to educate people at Marshall and get them involved, but also to get the community involved,” Sarhan said. “We want people our age and younger to have opportunities that they couldn’t have had before.”
Another goal of the club that it will be attempting is to replace expensive technology used in school with cheaper solutions. For instance, they want to promote a $25 computer called the Raspberry Pi that requires nothing but a monitor, mouse and keyboard to operate, according to Sarhan.
“It’s very cheap because it uses the same components that a smartphone uses,” Sarhan said, adding that “you can do anything you would do on a regular computer” like surf the Internet and type up Word documents. Replacing old computers with the Raspberry Pi instead of much pricier computers could save school systems thousands of dollars, according to Sarhan.
As well as attempting to solve technological problems and learning more about computers, the Computer Science club also gets to investigate new technology, such as an Arduino microcontroller that allows development and prototyping of computer programs.
The Computer Science club is currently made up of about 55 students. The club is unique in that it involves self-taught lessons, such as learning how to run a server. Many of the members take computer classes, but the club is open to anyone that wishes to join.
2013-02-20