BOSS Summer Program

(July 24th - August 4th 2023)

B.o.S.S. Partnership

The 7th Annual BOSS Summer Academy at the campus of Long Beach State was a huge success, As many as 65 BOSS participants attended the program. The above short video captures some of the excitement of the 2023 summer academy.

The curriculum focused on analytics, coding and data science.  Students learned how to create variables, exploit relational Boolean operators and direct logical flow control in two distinct software development environments:  Scratch (visual coding platform), and Java (traditional text-based modern programming language).  Students also built 3D game content with polygon-based geometry, diffuse materials and 24-bit color texture maps.  Students also learned Python basics, data science analysis techniques, and ways to communicate their findings. 

Syllabus

Youth Group (ages 7-17)

Our youngest students will create 4 projects with Scratch, the popular visual development platform from MIT. They will also be introduced to a 3D game dev tool called Playcanvas to learn a few modern gamer techniques. Every working computer scientist knows how to navigate a UNIX-based operating system. It’s the text-base interface displayed in every Hollywood hacker movie! Our coders will experience this environment while hacking together Java code and testing the software revision system ca, GitHub.

Fundraising

We have exhausted our LA2050 funds; which we raised during the pandemic. So, this year fundraising has been a central priority in order to continue to serve the community. We started a GoFundMe campaign, in the summer of 2023 and managed to raise $2,650 dollars to fuel a summer workshop for the BOSS Summer program. We continued our working relationship with the BOSS organization and have raised an additional $6,633 to teach young boys software engineering fundamentals during the school year. That’s a total of $9,283 over a period of 7 months.

Code Like a BOSS

(1st Semester: October 8th - December 22th 2023)

(2nd Semester: January 9th - May 26th 2024)

THE COMMUNITY WE SERVE

The BOSS program has a special mission to service young boys and promote leadership. So, there are no girls in this batch of young coders. For the record, girls are very capable of learning and excelling at computer science and they should be encouraged to try.

As we have seen with our previous programs, again we have observed a low exposure to people who have experience with computer science. The overwhelming majority of our students, 67% of them have no relationship with anyone who had studied coding.  This lack of exposure puts them at an extreme disadvantage for receiving technical assistance or social support from friends and family. 

Compared to Y.A.L. families in our previous program, the BOSS families have better access to computing devices in the home. Only 17% of students lacked a personal computer, in the BOSS group. Among the Y.A.L. student that metric was a massive 70%. They also have 100% access to high bandwidth cable internet service in there homes. Although, some student do suffer from frequent service outages. Over all, however, this batch of students are blessed with advantages that the Y.A.L. student did not have.

The Algorithm & Flow computer science class and the BOSS program, provide a solid reinforcement of technical support and self confidence. We manifest educational activities, mentorship, and exposure to opportunities these student may not have encountered otherwise. These programs play a vital role in empowering the students and encouraging them to overcome their circumstances for access to a brighter future. We are breaking the cycle of generational limitations.

Tools

Youth Group (ages 7-17)

We use a variety of web-based application to help our student gain experience writing code. Our students are exposed to Scratch, the popular visual development platform from MIT. They are introduced to a 3D game dev tool called Playcanvas to learn a few modern gamer techniques. They use the Google Shell environment to get comfortatble with a UNIX-based operating system. UNIX is a text-base interface, not a Windows-base workflow that most personal computers use.

CIRCUITS LABORATORY

Staff