Sunday, October 5, 2014

Ton Duong kicks off the First Fridays Program


On Friday evening, October 3rd, Ton Duong kicked off the GeeksFSO First Fridays Program at The Rack Cafe, 1844 Springfield Ave., Maplewood, NJ.


First Fridays showcases the talent of local young people for creating and publishing content for the internet. The talent is drawn in part from the regular "open court" access to practice (access2practice.org) workshops that GeeksFSO conducts on the other Friday evenings from 5 to 7 PM.

GeeksFSO sees the process of creating content for the internet as a gateway to technology for diverse and disadvantaged population groups, and the language of technology is math.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Ton Duong and an open mic at The Rack on Friday, October 3rd!

Plus an open mic for a few talented performers. Sign up at the door and if the list isn't already full, you will save yourself ten bucks!

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Making progress ...

The new Valley Settlement House website is getting ready to go online ...

Our high school senior is working on his portfolio ...

Archie and I helped a 4th grader do his homework for the Summer Program on one of the downstairs computers ... that desperately need a wifi connection ... which is coming as soon as we have a website so our  reverse marketing guru can pull in the donations.

The 4th grader mentioned the bird feeders and the cameras. He said he would like to help. That made my day.

It's all coming together, slow but sure.

If you would like to help by donating, for the time being you can give through our crowdfunding website:

http://www.patreon.com/geeksfso

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Help us raise the money!

50% of the children who participate in Valley Settlement House (VSH) programs do not have access to personal computers in their homes. Please become a part of our effort to create a Geeks FSO Campus at VSH by participating in our crowdfunding campaign at:

http://patreon.com/geeksfso

There are other statistics besides pcs in homes that make creating a Geeks FSO Campus at the facility a worthwhile program. And educational outreach to underrepresented communities in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) is a strong goal in NSF (National Science Foundation) and NASA RFPs (Request for Proposal). Both place a high degree of importance on involving diverse populations in confronting such issues as sustainability.

You don't have to donate a lot to help us. That is the beauty of crowdfunding. Start with $2 or $5 and get to know us as we grow. And we don't hesitate in asking for the $10-$25-$50 from those who are already familiar with the work we do.

Members of our team have been working on STEM educational outreach programs since 2000. The original 3-year weather station project in Plainfield, NJ, grew into Essex-Stevens Model program that evolved into the local LSAMP project (Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation) that is directed by one of the instructors in the Summer Science Program and a key adviser to the Geeks FSO Campus project at VSH:

Nadia Lvov
Assistant Professor/ECC LSAMP Project Director
Division of Mathematics and Physics
Essex County College
Newark, NJ 07102


This year the Essex-Stevens Model program (Essex County College-Stevens Institute of Technology) celebrated its 10th year.

In 2007 we involved Valley Settlement House in our educational efforts because they met the definition of a underrepresented community in STEM. This effort quickly evolved into a successful Summer Science program at VSH, that is now the foundation of the Geeks FSO Campus ... and so we grow.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Ton Duong joins the Geeks FSO Campus workshop!

Ton Duong is entering Stevens Institute of Technology this fall in the Mechanical Engineering program. He is transferring from Essex County College (ECC) where he participated in the ECC LSAMP under Nadia Lvov, Assistant Professor/ECC LSAMP Project Director in the Division of Mathematics and Physics at Essex County College, Newark.

Ton will be helping us with creating content. Here are some of his videos with his comments:

 - This is my favorite piano cover, Kiss The Rain composed by Yiruma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdJ_RL7WY7Y
 - This is my latest piano video, La Valse D'Amelie composed by Yann Tiersen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lywpoi3cK0
 - This one is another dance video project that I made last year, The Signal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6gbzSqwfp0
 - And finally, this is one of my most successful performances at ECC Talent Show in Fall 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL_f9F9vl7s
 
He is also pursuing projects in robotics including working on a team that is building a robotic hand following the design plans of the InMoov project. We will be exploring options for becoming involved in this project in our workshops, and in taking advantage of Ton's participation--and at his suggestion--we are purchasing 2 ea.Arduino Uno Ultimate Starter Kits -- including the 72 page Instruction Books. He is working on a drone project that we want to support also.

Ton is an incredibly gifted and creative person and we are fortunate in having him participate in developing the Geeks FSO Campus.

Friday, July 25, 2014

Underway at Valley Settlement House ...

Newly installed birdfeeder with two surveillance video
 cameras at Valley Settlement House in West Orange, NJ.

A. The first Coding & Content workshop was held on Sunday, July 20th from 2 to 4 PM. We had two student participants and 2 mentors (Luis Grados and myself.)  One student -- from Essex County College and the Essex-Stevens Model Program -- will be working with Luis on updating the VSH website while learning html, CSS, Javascript, & Java. (Actually creating a new website.) The other student out of the VSH community and an 18-year-old West Orange high school student and drama major will be working with me in creating video content for the internet. (I will start using names if and when the students give me persmission to do so.)

B. Two bird feeders with three surveillance video cameras as part of a Zmodo wire-linked system were installed on Monday, July 21st. I did the installation with the high school student I am mentoring in the workshop. He is at VSH on weekdays. We will install one more bird feed this coming Monday, July 28th, and complete the installation of a total of eight surveillance video cameras next week. I plan to explore a communication connection to the Cornell University Ornithology Lab beginning tomorrow, Friday, July 25th.








C. In collaboration with Professor David A. Robinson, Department of Geography, Rutgers University -- and the NJ State Climatologist -- we will be instituting an Earth Systems framework for the science programs at VSH with two immediate initiatives:
1. Introduce the use of Skype to connect the classrooms of VSH with the global Earth Systems community beginning with Dave's climate science presentation in the VSH Summer Science Program from 1-3 PM Monday, August 4th. This Friday, July 25th, and next, August 1st, we will be debugging the connection to provide 2-way visual communication combined with projected PowerPoint graphics in the classroom.
2. Begin a precipitation measurement program  as part of the national  CoCoRaHS program, again, in collaboration with Dave's  role as NJ State Climatologist.

That is the beginning of what we hope will become a STEM Center for the community VSH serves. This is educational outreach to underrepresented populations in the STEM fields at its core. And yes we are doing it without a major grant BECAUSE it demonstrates what can be accomplished by a community that sets its mind to pursuing this goal.

Friday, July 11, 2014

Announcing the first series of workshops at the Geeks FSO Campus at Valleyh Settlement House

"Coding and Content Workshop 101a"

The first 2 hour coding and content workshop mini-series, "Coding and Content Workshop 101a," of the Geeks FSO Campus at Valley Settlement House for young adults ages 18 to 25+ is scheduled to begin on Sunday, July 20th at Valley Settlement House, 33-41 Tompkins Street, West Orange, NJ 07052  (973) 678-2550.

This initial mini-series will run for 6 weeks from 2 to 4 PM on Sundays through August 24th.

We will explore the use of online resources such as Jon Chan's Bento website as a guide for independent study for coding mobile apps and creating content for the internet within a workshop-based student-with-mentor learning environment.

Initially we will be looking at HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Objective-C, and Java.

The end goal of Geeks FSO Campus program is to develop marketable skills in our students for employment in rewarding careers, or even simply to enrich their lives with a deeper understanding of and heightened ability to interact with the exponentially expanding technology of the modern world.

Contact Hilding "Gus" Lindquist, hilding.lindquist@gmail.com to apply as either a mentor or a student. But while you may apply as one or the other as your main "function" in the program, you will be both within the context of the workshop.


There are a limited number of openings depending on the number of volunteer mentors available, but no more than ten students will be accepted into this workshop series as members in five two-person teams, and only ten more student applications will be accepted for the waiting list. As yet we have not put a limit on the number of mentors accepted into the program or put onto the waiting list.

This means that for this workshop series there will be a maximum of five two-person mentor teams working with up to five two-person student teams in order to be reasonably certain of at least one mentor and one student for each team's participation in the workshop.

Teams will be matched by their laptop's operating systems. For this initial series of workshops, students are expected to bring a wifi compatible laptop suitable for the workshop and will be assigned on a first come, first served basis to an available mentor team with a matching operating system. (Mac, Windows 7, Windows 8, etc.)

Prospective students without suitable laptops should still apply if they want to be put on the waiting list.

To the prospective student: If you are concerned as to whether or not your specific laptop is suitable then contact Gus for a determination while we are accepting applications, and no matter what, you will have put yourself in line to get a student slot in the program at some point ... and we know that extensive delay is denial, so we will be working as hard as we can to get you into the program as quickly as possible.