ICS News Archive

Pi Day: Celebrating One University’s Quest to Inspire Everyone to Code

International Pi Day is a great time celebrate math and celebrate those who strive to introduce computer coding to all. Not just because we think coding is fun (and it is once you get the hang of it,) but because there are over 2.4 million STEM jobs waiting to be filled by young and old alike.

“If more students and workers aren’t inspired to stick with STEM and coding, we will not have the millions of new workers needed [to make] our connected world a reality,” according to Time Magazine’s Tim Bajarin in his article "How STEM Skills Are the Next Great Equalizer."

One university is leading the quest to inspire students to stick to STEM with 10 individual programs that use a teeny, but powerful (and affordable) computer invented by celebrated Broadcom engineer Eben Upton called the Raspberry Pi.

The Henry Samueli School of Engineering at University of California, Irvine (UCI) has unique programs that are teaching kids to code and develop real-life problem solving skills in a cool way.

One program is FABCamp that is designed to teach middle school students to understand the world of engineering through hands-on interactive projects that involve coding. It’s the most comprehensive informal learning program of its kind in the United States — encompassing 10 engineering disciplines in an action-packed one-week period.

“Our goal is to cultivate students who have an inherent love of engineering and who would major in it in college,” said Gregory Washington, the Stacey Nicholas Dean of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. “We are providing a national model that other institutions will adopt, inspiring the next generation of innovators and inventors.”

Read the full story on the Broadcom Foundation website.