CBA Outreach Efforts

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CBA Outreach Efforts

• Bakhtiar Mikhak
• Learning Webs Group

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A Brief History of ML Outreach Efforts

• Pioneering outreach efforts by professors Papert
  and Resnick and their students to make
  sophisticated ideas and tools more accessible to
  marginalized audiences in a variety of different
  contexts
• teachers and kids in traditional schools
• teachers and kids in vocational schools
• children and adults in after school centers
• youth in correctional facilities
• Museums and other informal learning environments
• Some recent examples
• The Intel Computer Clubhouse Network
• PIE (Playful Invention and Exploration) Network
  of Museums

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A Brief History of ML Outreach Efforts

• International Efforts
• Laying the foundation for our current efforts in
  the Digital Nations research consortium
• Addressing major social challenges
• Such as health care, education, economic
  development
• Continuing our long-term work in
• Central and South America
• Currently expanding to new contexts like
• Asia (India)
• Africa

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Our Current Outreach Efforts

• Many domestic sites
• A local Computer Clubhouse
• The Museum of Science in Minnesota
• Impacting positively two other NSF funded
  projects
• PIE Museum Network
• The CYBORG Exhibit
• International Sites
• Costa Rica
• rural Technical and Scientific High Schools
• rural agricultural communities
• India
• Senegal

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A CBA FAB LAB

• A standard toolkit will make the sharing of
  ideas, techniques, and solutions easier
• The toolkit includes
• one IBM desktop computer
• one Roland MDX-20 mini NC mill and scanner
• one Roland CX-24 sign/circuit cutter
• two full Tower electronics development system
• test equipment
• oscilloscope, signal generator, multi-meter
• one Intel Play computer microscope
• a suite of commercial and research design tools
• one tabletop chemistry unit
• one low-cost RF analyzer

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Outreach Sites

• Two Sites at the Media Lab
• one in 016
• one in 344
• ongoing software and hardware research and
  development efforts
• user studies and activity development
• This afternoon we will be visiting the very
  first Computer Clubhouse that was started as a
  collaboration between the Media Lab and the
  Boston Computer Museum (now part of the Boston
  Museum of Science)

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Outreach Sites
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Stories from one Site

• A multidisciplinary class (including professors
  and students from electronics engineering,
  computer science, and industrial design) on
• the engineering and developmental rationale (both
  at the level of the individuals and communities)
• as well as the technical approach to system
  design for the Tower system
• will be offered at the Institute of Technology
  in Costa Rica for the third time in August 2002.
• Example projects include
• Educational activities and tools
• Health and Environmental Sensing Application

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Telling Time with your whole body