The new club Open Source successfully started working a few weeks ago. The main goal of the club is to be a place where you will not only gain knowledge, but also learn how to apply it. Some mind-blowing projects are going to serve as milestones on the way to learning electronics and technology.
“I think it’s a great lead way into career path,” junior member Katie Saf said. “And it’s definitely something that is very innovative if you heard of what you’re capable of making.”
Right now the Open Source members are creating a glove that would work as an actual phone. Another project that was proposed by school board, is to change the way of checking attendance. The idea is to hook up the iPads and attach monitors on the door so as a student walks through a classroom, it records his/her attendance.
Although those projects may sound extremely complicated, the club’s co-founders believe everyone who is motivated can do this. “The special thing about our club is that you don’t have to know technology or electronics initially,” sophomore Jimmy Le said. “But if you have creative ideas and want to know how to apply your ideas you can come to us and learn it with a group. ”
When the co-presidents were learning programming themselves, the main problem was that there was no professor to ask all questions. Different programs have different ways of interpreting the code so online forums rarely worked. This motivated them to create one uniformed space where people can learn based off of each other and based off of each other’s mistakes. “So that way you only have to learn the right thing once and not learn what you thought was right and reteach yourself after,” co-founder sophomore Preston Peddicord said. Although it’s a project-based club, right now they’re learning the basics of electronics, software and visual design. “This way everyone will have a general idea of what’s going on,” Peddicord said. “And then we’ll split them into groups and there will be two sessions a week – a learning session and kind of work-on-project session.”
One of the upcoming current Wednesday sessions will be devoted to taking apart a couple of old computers to have a better idea of what is going on the inside.
As technology becomes more and more popular with every year, the group finds it is essential to be successful in any field. “In this day and age it slowly becomes a necessary piece of knowledge to have,” sophomore Will Gavin said.
As of now the club meets in room 107 on Wednesdays however the day is set to change in the near future, so keep an eye on the announcements.
Any questions?
Twitter: @JHS_OpenSource
