STEM Ed Announcement: Circuits and Beats (middle school students

[Morton Sternheim <mort@k12s.phast.umass.edu>]

This is a UMass Amherst program.
Contact information is below. 

Circuits and Beats 2010
=======================

A Free Two-Week Summer Tech Workshop for Springfield Middle-School Students
designed and implemented by UMass Amherst's Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering.

Downtown Springfield, Massachusetts
Parish Hall of the Old First Church at Court Square
August 2 - 13, 2010
(Monday through Friday, both weeks; 1:30 - 5:30 PM each day)

Circuits and Beats (C&B) is a free two-week summer tech workshop where
twelve middle-school-aged children from Springfield, Massachusetts will
design, build and program funky electronic music machines under the
direction of UMass Amherst engineers. Each young maker will build and keep
her or his own music machine.  They will learn how to read circuit
schematics and modify computer programs for an 8-bt microcontroller. Check
out the C&B video at tinyurl.com/circuitsandbeats1!

The two-week Circuits and Beats program will consist of ten afternoon
hands-on tech sessions: 

August 2 - 6 (Mon-Fri) + August 9 - 13 (Mon-Fri), 1:30 - 5:30 PM each day
It is expected that each participant will be present for all ten sessions.
C&B will take place in the Parish House of the Old First Church on Court
Square in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. The City of Springfield
purchased the landmark 1819 church building in 2008. 
The three major goals of Circuits and Beats are:
THE JOY OF TECH: C&B will introduce the students to the joy of tech through
an exciting one-of-kind musical hardware/software electronics project which
they will make and then take home. They will assemble electronic sensor
circuits which will be used to control a miniature music synthesizer!

CONNECT MATH AND SCIENCE TO TECH WORK: C&B will emphasize which
middle-school and high-school math and science courses form the basis for
future studies in engineering, computing and technology. C&B will advise the
young makers regarding which math and science courses they should take in
high school in order to study engineering at UMass Amherst or other colleges
and universities.

MAKE COLLEGE CONCRETE: C&B will take the young makers on a field trip to the
UMass Amherst campus, meeting students, alumni, staff and faculty and
touring the extensive facilities.
The lead instructor for Circuits and Beats is Sean Klaiber, a graduate of
the UMass Amherst Electrical Engineering program this year. Sean is an
accomplished musician and has two years of experience teaching hands-on tech
at UMass Amherst's M5 (UMassAmherstM5.org). Sean will be assisted by three
other UMass engineers. Constantina Tyes is a senior in the Electrical
Engineering program. Constantina hails from Cape Verde. Rodrigo Bismonte and
Patrick Estabrook are juniors in Computer System Engineering and Electrical
Engineering, respectively. Rodrigo came to Amherst from far away Guam!
Patrick came to the valley from not-so-far-away Virginia. Mr. T. B. Soules
of UMass Amherst's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering serves
as the faculty director of the program. His normal mode during the two-week
program will be "off-site/on-call."

All of the computers and test equipment will be loaned to C&B by the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMass Amherst.
Transportation to and from Old First Church will not be provided by the C&B
program. This will be the responsibility of the families of the
participants.

The C&B program will provide the transportation for the field trip to UMass
Amherst scheduled for Friday, August 6.

Each student who completes the two-week program will receive a Logitech S220
2.1 Speaker System in addition to their own Circuits and Beats music machine
featuring the Arduino Duemilanove microcontroller and the VS1053 MIDI
(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) Sound Module.
The middle-schoolers will not be expected to have any particular technical
background. The young makers will be expected to have a genuine interest in
learning more about computers, electronics and music.

For an application form or for general registration information, please
contact Maryann Lombardi.
Maryann Lombardi
Director, Creative Economy
UMass Amherst Outreach
Slobody Building
101 University Drive, Suite C1?
Amherst, MA 01002-2376?
Phone: 413-687-1285
Fax: 413-545-6555
Email: mlombardi@outreach.umass.edu

To speak with the faculty director of Circuits and Beats, please call 
Baird Soules at (413) 687-4710.


  T. B. Soules
Sr. Lecturer and Undergraduate Program Director
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Marcus Hall, Room 5
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst  MA   01003-5215  USA

Email: soules@ecs.umass.edu
Mobile phone: (413) 687-4710
Office: (413) 545-4573     
Administrative Assistant: (413) 545-2441 (Undergraduate Program Office)






To contact the lead instructor of Circuits and Beats 
please call Sean Klaiber at (508) 826-6884. 







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Rodrigo Bismonte, a Circuits and Beats instructor.









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Patrick Estabrook, another Circuits and Beats instructor.








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Constatina Tyes, yet another Circuits and Beats instructor. 



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Revised 27 July 2010