Bitsome Awesome again with STEMcrunch at Hanford, CA 👩🏻‍💻
Intro
Coach Kimberley — I am Kimberly Pramana, and I had the incredible opportunity to mentor three remarkable children: Benedict, Cayden, and Kendrick. Their journey, a captivating highlight of our January 2024 trip, is one that I am eager to share. Over the past three months, I’ve witnessed the transformation of these initially reserved individuals into a confident, fun, and imaginative team known as STEMcrunch. The team’s strength lies in their visual and creative prowess, enabling them to successfully teach Scratch at three different events within this short span. From the Scratch Sustainability Summit (SSS) to our in-person Bit Awesome Day, their progress has been remarkable.
Despite the three-hour journey to Stratford, the experience was undeniably worthwhile. Meeting the team, parents, and coaches in person proved to be the most rewarding aspect of the lengthy drive. We spent quality time immersing ourselves in the community, gathering at Mr. I, one of Stratford’s community leaders, who graciously welcomed us around 10 am. With an hour to prep and finalize our presentation, the STEMCrunch team showcased their work and explained their vision brilliantly. The team then split into three groups, strategically catering to beginners, intermediates, and advanced students based on their age. After introducing the basic features of Scratch, students were tasked with creating their own games and features, with many showcasing movements and expressing interest in completing their projects. It was an unequivocal success!
Post-session, we enjoyed a team lunch featuring pizza and delectable homemade soups by Mr. I, with the soup stealing the spotlight. We concluded the day with a short interview, capturing the essence of this special day through pictures and heartfelt goodbyes. This is the kind of team worth a three-hour drive just to say hello. I am thrilled to witness the continued growth of STEMcrunch and look forward to more exciting encounters in the future!
Who Are We:
We are a team consisting of junior and high school students who want to teach coding in rural areas. Our mission is to spark new interests in kids who are willing to code in different languages such as python, html, javascript, C#, etc. STEM education in rural areas is 47% less compared to urban areas. Not many opportunities can be given in these areas, thus losing great chances of helping our society to a brighter and better future. Urban or not, we believe anyone deserves chances and help from anyone around the world.
Cayden — Bit Awesome Day was pretty interesting. It was cool to visit Fresno for the first time and understand the area. I was pretty nervous since I didn’t want to teach terribly. Around 10, I met up with everyone and began our preparation for our presentation. I think the kids were bored but I guess it was ok. After the presentation, we began to teach the kids each of us assign to a specific person. I was assigned to a kid who didn’t really seem that enthusiastic, but I think she was following along well and probably understood well. After teaching, we all ate lunch, which was pizza.
Lunch was good, especially the pizza which was one of the only things we ate actually. In my opinion, I liked the breadsticks more since I think it had garlic in it. While eating, we were introduced to a potential person who was interested in expanding our organization to Chicago. I was confused but was very excited to hear someone was actually interested in our organization. I’m pretty sure that person was one of the moms of the kids we taught. After explaining our organization, we were called to an interview by our coaches, where we answered some serious personal questions but we got to answer some funny questions, roasting each other in the process. By the way, Kendrick and I are the coolest. Benedict couldn’t even fit in the frame for the video and I thought we might need a car seat or something. Anyways, we had a fun time and enjoyed this new experience.
Benedict — Bit Awesome Day was a great event I attended which was a 2 hour drive. I played Roblox with Kendrick on the road there and when we got there, we waited for Cayden and tried robbing him with nerf guns. It was pretty nerve racking, especially the main presentation. When I was teaching the little kids, one of them insisted on watching Timmy’s Toys and the other was singing Freddy Fazbear. I did not get to teach them my simple game I created due to the pure chaos during the lesson. I then just went on with what they were doing and it ended up working. I was watching Cayden and Kendrick teach and it was MUCH more calm compared to who I was teaching (no offense). Then we finally got to eat lunch.
Lunch was pretty nice, considering I haven’t eaten pizza for a while. Kendrick and I did a competition on who can eat the most pizza and breadsticks until we needed to drink. We ended up only eating 3 because there weren’t any more. We then were told by coach Yoonjung about a potential person who wanted to expand our organization to Chicago. I was confused by this, because I could barely hear what Coach Yoonjung told us. We then just explained our business plan and what we taught, and explained what plans we have in the future when we become much more successful. She then thanked us for doing this and teaching her son, and we went on finishing our lunch and chugged the Fruit Barrel drink.
After lunch, we were called to do an interview. The first few questions were pretty serious but went on to be funny moments we had and started calling each other names. Cayden and Kendrick called me short because they are mean, which is clear that I am the coolest one in the group. Kendrick is a nerd and Cayden is too tall to be cool. I was not able to fit so I had to sit up and the camera was lowered down. Cayden is too obsessed with memes and Kendrick with math.
The trip back home was pretty boring and tiring. Kendrick and I played some games like naming cities and countries in alphabetical order. We then played a game called 20 questions and Kendrick nor I could guess each other’s words. I think in the future we can expand in coding languages.
Kendrick — It was a pretty eventful day. The drive to Stratford is approximately 2–3 hours which can be draining at times. To get to Stratford on time, I had to wake up at around 06:00 and drive straight to Ben’s house (as he was the one who took me to the event). The only thing I remember from the drive to the event was Pokemon Go and fog… tons of fog. The amount of fog was slightly creepy but it was also pretty interesting. How did so much fog get there? Why is there fog in specifically this area? Could it be because of the farms surrounding the area? So many unanswered questions about fog.
When Ben and I arrived, the first two things we noticed were how small the town is and two dogs in the house we were holding the event in. There was also an electric vehicle charging station. Ben and I waited for approximately 10 minutes before Cayden and the coaches arrived. We were getting a feel for the area; it seemed pretty ominous but it was also peaceful in a way; a type of “deserted serenity”.
The first thing we all did together was, of course, taking photos together before we went into the trenches. Well, maybe not the trenches, it was more like a small foxhole. We prepared our presentation and once everyone including the students who had just arrived were seated, we gave the presentation. Was presentation preparation a bit hectic? Perhaps. Was the presentation itself a bit hectic? Maybe… The one thing I remember the most from that presentation was Ben turning on his puppy eyes and asking the audience for funding.
After the presentation, we spent about an hour teaching the students Scratch. We were all designated different students from children to adults (The Coaches). I was assigned to a slightly older than average boy (averaged from the age group of the attendees) and Coach Kimberly. Honestly, it was pretty rough trying to teach. First, the tablets had zero wifi and Scratch was not installed in some of them. Once we did get it working, the hardest part of teaching was getting the student interested and engaged (I say student and not students because the coaches are always supportive so I cannot take that as valid data). It was also pretty hard for the student to create ideas. Perhaps the ideating part should have occurred before we started on Scratch but then again, they have to understand the fundamentals before we can do anything.
After around an hour of teaching we had pizza for lunch. I personally feel like some of the students were more interested in the pizza than learning Scratch but it is pizza.Ben and I had an eating contest for who could eat the most pizza before needing to drink something; I honestly forgot who won but I think we tied. Coach Yoonjung also told us about an opportunity with a parent who wanted to help spread STEMCrunch. We gave another presentation for them and after that, I’m not sure what happened.
For the final part of the day, we took a huge photo with everybody and then we got interviewed. The interview was not too special, just some average questions such as, “How do you think you have grown since the start of STEMCrunch” and “Who do you think is the coolest on the team?” (Pretty sure none of us won in that department). We wrapped things up after that and headed back home.
The car ride back felt more eventful, maybe because I remember it more than the ride going to the event. Ben and I played more Pokemon Go and we had this alphabet game for naming countries for each letter. Then we played 20 questions and both of us failed that game miserably. It was a giant crash and burn and that is where that day ends.