New this year, ATLAS Institute鈥檚 T9Hacks is partnering with STEMblazers to host Au{t9}umn Hacks, an eight-hour hackathon specially designed to promote interest in creative technologies, coding, design and making among high school students who identify as female and non-binary. The event takes place Nov. 7 in at the Roser ATLAS building on the CU Boulder campus.
The mini-hackathon is patterned after the institute鈥檚 highly successful, 36-hour T9Hacks, an invention marathon for college-age students. Traditionally women and nonbinary individuals often make up less than 25 percent of participants at mainstream hackathons; last year 74 percent of T9Hack鈥檚 participants were women and non-binary, and for 44 percent of the attendees, it was their first hackathon.聽
鈥淚 wish I could have attended a hackathon in high school so I could have explored coding in a more fun and less rigid environment,鈥� said Oc茅ane Andr茅is, a second-year ATLAS graduate student (CTD-Social Impact), who along with Neha Kunapuli, a senior majoring in computer science, are co-organizing the event. 鈥淚 almost gave up, but through events like T9Hacks, I fell in love with coding in college.鈥�
T9 references the Title IX federal civil rights law that was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, prohibiting gender-based discrimination in education. Student organizers emphasize that no programming or other technical skills are required to participate in the free event, which includes workshops, meals, games and swag.
Who: Open to high school students
What: Au{t9}umn Hacks, a hackathon designed for individuals identifying as female or non-binary, and anyone belonging to a traditionally underrepresented group in tech, but open to everyone
When: Sunday, Nov. 7, 10 a.m. 鈥� 6 p.m.聽
Where: Roser ATLAS Building, 1125 18th St., Boulder
Cost: FREE
Food: Provided
During Au{t9}umn Hacks, participants will choose one of two hour-long guided workshops鈥揚ixel Art Animation or Web Development鈥搃ntended to help kickstart their projects. Those taking the Pixel Art Animation workshop will learn how to create pixel art frames and use them for animation. In the Web Development workshop, participants will acquire website coding skills鈥擧TML,聽CSS and Javascript.聽
Students can work individually or in groups on goals such as聽creating a website from scratch, authoring a simple video game, creating an animation, a design-based project or some other novel creation. The all-day event will wrap up on Sunday evening with a closing ceremony and celebration.
STEMblazers, based in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, inspires girls to visualize themselves in science, technology, engineering and math professions.聽
