Category Archives: IET Newsletter

Business Engagement, Community Partnerships, IET Newsletter, NOVA Loudoun Campus, NOVA STEM Faculty, STEM Awards, STEM Courses, STEM Degrees

NOVA Adjunct Wins NVTC Data Center Champion Award

August 28, 2020 blenon

NOVA Adjunct Faculty T.J. Ciccone has been named the Data Center Community Champion at the 2nd annual NVTC Virginia Data Center Awards in McLean for his leadership, support, and contributions to NOVA’s Data Center Operations (DCO) program and students.

The virtual event was attended by more than 150 industry executives, economic development professionals and state elected officials to recognize individuals and projects that represent excellence in areas of sustainability, construction, support, and advocacy and community engagement. Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world, according to NVTC’s 2020 Impact of Data Centers on the State and Local Economies of Virginia. You can read more about the 2nd annual NVTC awards here.

Professor Ciccone is the Vice President of Critical Operations at Stack Infrastructure and has helped lead the way in Data Center Operations for our college community by creating industry engagement opportunities for NOVA students, building industry-driven curriculum and providing data center tours and on-site laboratory activities.

His class at NOVA, ENE 195 – Intro to Data Center Operations (DCO), is part of the NOVA Engineering Technology A.A.S Degree DCO Specialization as well as the DCO Certificate program and expands basic knowledge on how data centers work from an engineering standpoint. This course is the only fully college accredited data center program in Virginia and more than 70% of students who have taken the intro course are now working in a data center. Professor Ciccone is teaching in-person (with social distancing) this semester at the Loudoun campus.

He responded to his NVTC award by saying “I am honored to be named a Data Center Community Champion, and beyond grateful to Northern Virginia Community College for embracing the need for an accredited data center program. It expands and increases the available talent pool, the diversity of candidates for the labor force, and most importantly the opportunity for young people from all walks of life to enter a career in technology. To be part of this, the largest data center market in the world, is very humbling.”

Congratulations, Professor Ciccone – we’re grateful to have you at NOVA!

#BoldlyNOVA #WeDoSTEM

IET Newsletter, STEM Camps, Virtual Events

Virtual STEM Camp Review 2020

August 28, 2020 blenon

STEM Camp Review 2020

Our virtual summer STEM Camps recently concluded with a total of 552 participants in 19 topics over 60 different sessions.

micro:bit, Scratch, VEX Robotics, Fabrication and Cybersecurity camps (with varying topics) were offered from June until August. Participants included K-12 students who were taught by NOVA Faculty and staff, High School Instructors and College Interns, eager to pass along their love and knowledge of STEM in a challenging and fledgling remote format. The show must go on, and indeed it did effectively to keep students engaged in STEM from the safety of home.

One major positive development with this year’s virtual camps was their reach. In our own commonwealth, virtual camps extended beyond the NOVA service area down to Newport News (in partnership with Brooks Crossing Innovation and Opportunity Center, or BCIOC) and caught the attention of Dr. Mia D. Joe of Old Dominion University, who helped BCIOC make a transition to remote learning by adapting our camp modules.

Beyond that, we were able to instruct students from 12 states (VA, DC, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, IL, MD, NC, NY, PA, and SC)!

Camps were more affordable for many reasons, but mainly because they were offered per household instead of per student. We had 552 attendees with 297 unique registrations, 67% male and 33% female. When it came to earlier STEM engagement in Coding, the breakdown was 60% male and 40% female.

We even had a surgical-robot naming contest (in partnership with OrthoVirginia) for students in our robotics camps. The MAKO Robotic-Arm Assisted Robot assists on knee operations and after all submissions were in, the surgical staff at OrthoVirginia chose a name submitted by robotics camp student Nathan Tang (with assistance from his friend Micah): R2-Knee2 (read about that story here). Nathan, a future Biomedical Engineer, got to meet the robot and the surgical staff as well as winning prizes that included 4 tickets to a DC United game (when it’s safe, of course).

Parent Reviews:

At first, students and parents were a little concerned about how online learning would work out, but our staff worked hard to adjust the learning modules for an engaging remote format that proved effective. A few reviews from parents:

- “Collette LOVED this camp and we will sign her up for one of the ones you list below, too. Thank you – I thought “virtual camp” would be a drag for her, but it was wonderful!” – Bridgette Farrell

- “Thank you for the update and warning about managing my daughter Logan’s expectations. She seems very interested and engaged in this class. So much so that she has requested her own 3D printer 🙂 I am delighted that the class is going so well and that the program was able to pivot so effectively to virtual classes.” – Elizabeth Fry

- “The boys have been enjoying camp this week! They were able to complete their cool emoji pins this afternoon and we have uploaded their files to Canvas. Thanks for having so much patience guiding the kids through unfamiliar software and tools. The boys have been playing around with the programs and hope to use it more!” – Laura G

- “I don’t think we could have asked for a better teacher! The instructor was great and really attentive to her class. I was in the background listening to the lessons while I worked and most of the time everyone was following along with her. She explained things well and would stop periodically to make sure everyone understood/ everyone was on the same page. For my child this was a big deal and because she did this frequently he was able to catch up and eventually became more confident in asking questions or saying when he needed help. I think an individuals comfort with asking questions is huge predictor in whether or not virtual learning will be successful or not because it’s easy to get lost with coding and not always so easy for an instructor to help you. She (Ms. Lisbeth) did a great job.” – Parent of Virtual Coding Camp student (via SurveyMonkey)

- “It was amazing. He was completely engaged every day for two straight weeks. And with two working parents – we did not have to supervise or run logistics for him. We were really lucky to have this!” – Parent of Virtual Camp student (via SurveyMonkey)

Student Reviews:

- “Honestly it was really cool! I really enjoyed the brute force exercise. I know this is not the ideal way to teach but I’ve really been enjoying this week! Cryptography is definitely something I might consider looking into as a career!” – Valerie

- “I learned how to use the John the Ripper program which i found very interesting. I also found the birthday paradox interesting and the fact that it could be used to find collisions. I enjoyed the lab and would like to do more.” – Kathleen

- “I liked the lab it taught me a lot of information, I found how fast the john ripper attack was and how many different options it used before it got to the correct answer so quickly. I liked the lab and would like to do more.” – John

- “I liked using EXIF data to find out where an image was posted, and learning how to do so. – Ethan W.

- “Great lesson! I liked learning about exif data and learned that it can be used as factual evidence, if need be. Nothing to be improved, great experience.” – Kevin

- “I liked the brute-force lab, I thought it was fun and interesting. I learned about the birthday paradox and thought it was very interesting that it was used when thinking about finding passwords and eventually resulted in security being improved. ” – Andrew

- “My experience today was very nice! I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. (I mean no disrespect by that, by the way XD). I liked how concise the lecture was, not a lot of fluff * I learned what social engineering was” – Camp Student

- “The teaching style was great, it included us all and helped me learn easier than just speeding through the information! I really liked this class, and i hope i encounter similar teachers in the future :). thank you for giving me something fun and interesting to do over this summer!” – Camp Student

- “I really loved it and it helped me figure out a very possible career choice for me” – Camp Student

IET Newsletter, NOVA STEM Faculty, STEMinars Online

NOVA SySTEMic Goes Online!

March 20, 2020 blenon

STEMinars: Online Workshops and Professional Development

We offer STEMinars (STEM Workshops) throughout the year to bring new STEM technologies to light and new students into STEM. In addition, our STEM Education Coordinators work with each school division to provide hands-on technical training to support teachers in academic and co-curricular programs.

Now, in response to social distancing measures, we are launching Online STEMinars, led by STEM staff and faculty, so you never have to distance yourself from project-based learning! These video-recorded or virtually live sessions are offered for FREE and cover a broad range of STEM topics. Some of these sessions include introductions to design software, computer programming, electronics such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi, 3D scanning, makerspace/fabrication equipment, robotics, and more.

STEMinars are designed to be an online resource for the community and will walk you through sample projects and design challenges so that you can develop STEM skills. Registration is required at least 24 hours before a session starts. Sessions run 30-60 minutes depending upon age level and topic.

NOVA staff are working remotely to make additional STEMinars available in the coming months so be on the lookout for new offerings on our website and social media.

Upcoming STEMinars

STEMinar: Cybersecurity Workshops
Tuesdays & Thursdays 12:00-12:50pm starting March 19 through end of May
Check out our popular virtual Cyber Workshops, presented in partnership with ISACA and NOVA faculty and staff. All sessions have different topics and speakers and are recorded for future playback. Topics include Continuity of Operations for the Home, Personal Security Tradecraft, Cyber for High School Students, Teachers, & Parents, and more.

> Register Now

For videos from past workshops click here

STEMinar: Robotics Competitions – A Strategic Approach.
Monday April 6 (4pm) for VEXIQ Challenge
Wednesday April 8 (4pm) for VEX Robotics Competition
Then weekly through May on Mondays (VIQ) and Wednesdays (VRC)
Learn how to start the robotics season right! Afnan Ali, a world champion roboticist, will spend an hour each week working through game strategy. Participants will learn how to analyze and breakdown previous year’s games as well as document strategies that lead toward successful robot prototypes. This introduction on how to apply the engineering design process to competitive robotics is a great introduction for students, parents and mentors. Suitable for ages 10 and up.

> Register Now

STEMinar: Intro to Programming with Python
Wednesdays starting April 8 through April 29 (all at 2pm)
Python is a programming language used to develop software on the web and in app form, including mobile. It’s relatively easy to learn, and can be used to process text, display numbers or images, solve scientific equations, and save data.

Intro to Python: Mad Libs (I/O, variables)
Learn about basic keyboard input, terminal output, and variables by writing a simple Mad Libs game.

Python Branching: Text Adventure Game (if/elif/else)
Explore how to make decisions on the fly with if/elif/else statements in order to create a simple text adventure game.

Python Looping: Guessing Game (repetition)
Examine and use ‘while’ loops to have your user guess a random number until they run out of tries or get it correct. We’ll explore the dynamics of user feedback as well as scoring.

Python Collections: Hangman (managing lots of items)
After a brief intro to Python’s built-in list collection, we’ll use these data structures to implement a simple version of the classic word-guessing game Hangman.

> Register Now

STEMinar: Introduction to SketchUp.
April 10 (2pm) & April 23 (7pm)
SketchUp is a premier 3D design software that truly makes 3D modeling for everyone, with a simple to learn yet robust toolset that empowers you to create whatever you can imagine.

> Register Now

STEMinar: Introduction to Inkscape.
April 14 (7pm) & April 30 (7pm)
This session provides an overview of the free software program called Inkscape, which helps the user transform ideas into a digital representation, which can then be converted to a physical product.

> Register Now

STEMinar: 3D Scanning
April 14 (7pm) & May 1 (7pm)
3D scanning allows users to copy real objects for editing on software. Learn about the present and future possibilities of 3D modeling. We’ll discuss the current technologies such as Photogrammetry and 3D scanners and more emergent technologies such as NeRF (Neural Radiance Fields).

> Register Now

Digital Realty Mock Interview
Date: TBD

Fab Lab – Sewable LED Emoji Pin
Date: TBD

Fab Lab – TinkerCAD
Date: TBD