Ossining Students Wrap Up Summer Programming & Innovation Academy

Ossining School District students spent two weeks this summer turning bananas 
and carrots into computer keyboards, creating video games and programming 
robots, thanks to the District’s popular Summer Programming & Innovation 
Academy.

The focus of the Academy, held at the Brookside School from July 7-17, was on  hands-on creativity for students interested in using technology and cutting-edge 
software to accomplish tasks and create their own inventions and robots.

Fourth- and fifth-grade students spent their first week in the program using Makey 
Makey invention kits, small circuit boards created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab that conduct electricity from the most surprising objects, including bananas, carrots and celery stalks, to computer keyboards. In their second week at the Academy, students explored Lego NXT Robotics, the program that allows students to create their own small robots and compete in robotics contests.

The Academy’s older students, in sixth and seventh grades, worked for a week with littleBits, electronic circuit boards that encourage them to create new inventions, and spent the second week working with Gamemaker, a computer videogame creator. 

Classes were each staffed by a teacher and teaching assistant. And on the 
Thursday of each week, they provided parents, grandparents and siblings with live 
demonstrations of their work.

“The students were fully engaged during the entire Academy,” said Ossining 
Assistant Director of Technology Jennifer Forsberg. “The Academy was fun to 
design but the best part was watching teachers and students using their creativity 
and imagination combined with technology and every day objects."

The program was funded by the Jennifer Fante Foundation and OssiningMatters. To learn more about the Summer Programming & Innovation Academy, visit their community page at http://goo.gl/etiwsi.